Food, Fireworks, & Fun on the Fantasy_A Cruise TR + July 2025 PTR WDW UPDATED 6/6

[kclark9830]

Hi everyone! I am floating around in Disney la la land, dreaming of our Disney Cruise back in January/February of this year (2025) while also dreaming of our upcoming WDW vacation in July 2025! Obviously, that brought me here to the DIS (because that's the natural order or things, right?!). Upon reading some of your TR's about cruising, I realized I could totally relive our cruise while planning our WDW trip! Hot dog!

But first, let me make some introductions. My name is Katie (I'm in the middle...this is us at my niece's wedding this past weekend, where both my kids were part of the wedding party). I'm the family vacation planner extraordinaire. I’m also a principal of a small private school, a writer of books and school curriculums, a mom, a wife, and another side gig that I won’t mention here. Ha! I like keeping busy, obviously, and I also need to fund my Disney addiction.

​

My husband of 22 years is Micheal. He was particularly excited to try a Disney Cruise, as he’s been trying to get me on one for several years. We’d never cruised before this year, as I was nervous about seasickness (more on that later, unfortunately .) He also has more than one profession, surprise, surprise. He is a building inspector for a large pest control company in the southeast. He travels to all the southeastern states conducting inspections for commercial properties within the company. However, for the last two years he has been back in college earning a degree in mortuary sciences. He is now a funeral director and embalmer on the weekends. It is his goal to make this his full time career and eventually own his own funeral home. He feels it is his calling (he lost his dad when he was a teen, and we lost our daughter to cancer nearly ten years ago, when she was only 10 years old). He understands grief, and he feels called to comfort others in their grief. Needless to say, the last two years have been HARD with him working full time, working part time, and going to college. He is done now, though!!! So we can take vacations again, haha.

​

Next up is our 15 year old daughter, Ashlyn. She is super smart and will probably change the world (I mean that literally). She’s also talented and beautiful and…my mom gushing is a bit much, I know.


And then there is Miles. He just turned 8, and he was our surprise from Heaven when we didn’t know we needed one.


Now let me tell you how this cruise came about. After all the college-ing and hard work, Micheal promised the kids we would take a grand vacation to celebrate. Miles chose Disney, and Ashlyn chose a cruise…so we combined them. Everyone was happy.


Well, eventually. Ashlyn in all her teen glory didn’t want to do a “Disney” cruise. She thought it would be baby’ish. So, to the interwebs I went. I showed her the itineraries, the ships, and destinations. She agreed without further hesitation.

​

We settled on the Disney Fantasy going to Nassau, Bahamas, and Disney’s newest private destination, Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point. We also had a sea day. We booked it, and then the real fun began. I look forward to telling you all about it!!!

Before I sign off for the night, I’ll talk a little about our upcoming trip to WDW in July! It originally started out as a trip with just me, the kids, and my mom. It quickly grew to include my dad as well as my sister and her husband and kids. Now, as of today (yay!!!) Micheal is also coming along. I can hardly wait to share all those details with you, too!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more .

 

[kclark9830]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more .

Welcome, and thank you for joining in!

 

[kclark9830]

Hi All! I thought I’d start with a few details about our upcoming July trip.

Who? My family, my parents, and my sister, her husband, and their kids

What? A week-long Walt Disney World extravaganza!

When? July 26-August 1, 2025

Where? All Star Sports

Let me give a little context—we’ll call it a bridge between our Disney World trip and our cruise. Originally, we had planned to go to WDW back in March (you can read my very abandoned report about those plans here: https://www.disboards.com/threads/excited-thats-an-understatement-a-march-2025-ptr.3945261/ ). We had also planned to do a cruise in the summer months (not Disney, and most likely to Alaska). The Disney World trip then got moved a month earlier, to February. And then, due to boring reasons I won’t force you all to "hear", we ended up realizing a Disney World trip just wasn’t going to work for us during that timeframe.

That’s when I started looking at Disney cruises. During that time, we also were invited on a getaway over the summer with my in-laws. It was one of those getaway invites where if we had turned it down…well…we were kind of required to say yes. We realized the Alaskan cruise probably wasn’t going to happen this summer, so the Disney cruise was extra appealing.

Micheal wasn’t going to have the extra vacation time to do both the getaway with his family as well as a summer Disney World trip, so I was going to go without him. However, due to more boring reasons that are ABSOLUTELY out of our control, his company could not approve his vacation time for the getaway with his family. This meant he was totally opened up for going with us to WDW!!!

But now let’s travel back to the cruise…

Travel Day—Day 0

We woke up and got out the door for the airport. We have a local airport that is only 20 minutes from our house, and we got super cheap flights (yay!) for January 28th (our cruise was January 29-February 2). The flight was scheduled for 7AM, so that meant leaving home by 5. Small, regional airport means lower wait times .

We arrived without incident, got our boarding passes printed from the kiosk, and headed to our gate. We only waited for an hour before they began loading the plane, and it was quick and easy. We were flying into Atlanta (it was only a 20 minute flight!) before heading down to Orlando.



Everything went smooth and easy, until we went to take off in Atlanta on our way to Orlando. The plane was SO LOUD! Like deafening, no one could speak unless they were raising their voices, even to the people right next to them. It was horrible. People were yelling to the flight attendants (because they had to yell, not because they were angry), asking what was wrong. It was honestly frightening. The flight attendants kept assuring everyone it was “just an old plane.”

I have no idea if that was true, but we did arrive in Orlando on time and without incident. It was just a plane full of people with headaches by the end of it.

Regardless, we had booked Mears Transportation, and since we only had carryon luggage it was easy to make our way over to terminal B (B is for bus!...this is how I remind myself how to get over to the Mears Transportation area ).

I was worried when we arrived because there was quite a lot of people overall in the queuing area. However, we only waited for maybe 10 minutes before we were loaded on a bus. We waited another 10 minutes for everyone to get loaded, and then we were on our way.

Across the aisle from us sat a mom and dad with two young kids. They were cute, talking about all the things they planned to do at Walt Disney World for the week. And they kept talking about all their favorite things, so we knew they’d been before. It reminded me of when my kids were littler, particularly when our girls were both little, which was over a decade ago. Makes me smile, thinking of those days! It also made me wish we had come a day early and could enjoy a park day, but alas...

Anyway, I guess I forgot to mention we had reserved a room for the night at Pop Century, and we would be taking Disney transport to the cruise port the next morning. We had chosen this because we knew taking the Disney transport got us a guaranteed early boarding time for the cruise .

We were pulling under the Disney arch in no time, and our first stop was Art of Animation. The family across the aisle exited the bus. Pop Century was up next, and we were there in a jiffy. It was only noon at this point and we hadn’t received a room ready text.




None of us had eaten any breakfast at all, and we’d survived the morning on a few snacks, so we were STARVING. We headed to Everything Pop and promptly ordered lunch. The food was hot and fresh, and it hit the spot. We then browsed in the gift shop and watched time tick away—all while pulling our carryon luggage with us.

At some point I decided to go to the front desk to see if our room was ready even though we hadn’t received a text. Sure enough, it was ready. Ha!

Our room was over in the 80’s section, in the building with the Rubix Cubes. Our room was comfortable and tidy, as we’d expect. We got unpacked and promptly laid down to take a nap.

Well, maybe everyone didn’t nap, but I know I did, haha. Everyone else just kind of relaxed and chilled. I’m not sure how long I slept, maybe an hour and a half? But when I woke up Miles was begging to swim. Let me tell you now, we had absolutely BEAUTIFUL weather while we were in Orlando and on our cruise. I couldn’t have asked for better weather, especially coming from home where we’d just had a snow and ice storm.

We decided to walk over to the Skyliner, take a ride to the International Gateway, and walk around the Boardwalk area first. Then we promised to take him swimming.




The Skyliner line was nonexistent at Pop. We hopped right on and headed for the station at CBR, where we had to make the switch. From there, we hopped into the line to go to Epcot. Here, the line was quite lengthy. We ended up in a cabin with four adults. I won’t lie, that was kind of awkward. We attempted to make conversation, but it just wasn’t working out so we settled in and just enjoyed the ride.

I love the Skyliner, just so we’re all clear. It was fantastic and fun!

We arrived at the IG, and we made our way over to Boardwalk Ice Cream. Milkshakes, cones, and sundaes in hand, we meandered out to a bench to enjoy our treats. It was such a magical feeling to be back in the World. We wanted to soak up every moment of it, knowing we’d only be here for a short time on this trip.












(Please kindly ignore how unkept I am in these pictures )

Too soon, we headed back toward the IG and returned to the line for the Skyliner.



The line wasn’t too bad, and it moved quickly. Soon, we were on our way back to CBR and then Pop. Thankfully, this time we got our own cabin!

Miles had worn his swim trunks and a swim shirt for this excursion, so we headed straight to the pool and he hopped in while Ashlyn and I enjoyed the pool area. Micheal had a phone call from a co-worker, so he wandered away to take that (you can see him in this picture).








Miles swam for a good hour, and by then the sun was really going down and it was getting too chilly for the water. We returned to the room and Miles changed. We also went back to the food court to grab supper, and then we finished the night by getting our bags ready to be picked up at 7AM for the transport to the cruise. We had gotten an email the day before (or maybe that very day, now that I think about it) letting us know to have our bags at the door at 7AM sharp. We would be leaving for the cruise at 10:15AM.

Maybe because I’d taken a nap, or maybe it was just nerves, but I had a HARD time sleeping on this night. Regardless, I knew that in the morning I’d be waking up in Disney, and that made me HAPPY!

Up Next: Cruise Day 1!!!

 

[kclark9830]

Back again! I wanted to jump into –

Disney Cruise – Day 1! Embarkation Day, looking around the ship, and getting lunch!

We woke up at Walt Disney World, which is always magical. I was up around 6AM, so I hopped in the shower then used our in-room coffee maker to make myself a cup of coffee. By then, everyone else in the room had started to stir. We needed to finish getting the bags ready to leave at the door, because they’d be collecting them at 7AM.

True to their instructions, they did indeed come at exactly 7AM.

We did not leave the room, though, as we’d decided to take it easy. I also didn’t want to hang out near the food court—I couldn’t wait to board the ship and start eating! So, I didn’t want to spoil our appetites.

The kids watched TV, and I took my time getting ready. I’ll also share right here that if you like controlling everything for your vacation, having them take away your bags is a weird feeling. It made us feel…stressed? I’m not sure that’s quite the right word, but even though we’d kept a backpack with all our “essentials” like meds, documents, etc., not having access to our other stuff made us feel anxious.

Anyway, we left our room around 9:30AM and made our way to the Pop lobby, near the model of the cruise ship.



I got in a very short line to have our cruise documents checked by the DCL folks. This was an easy process where the CM matched our passports with our names on her list. We didn’t need our port arrival form here (that came later).

Then, we had to hang out and wait until 10:15 or so. We looked through the gift shop again, ate a few snacks, and ended up in the kids area of the lobby where they have the TV and kids seating. Time passed slowly.

But then, they were calling for DCL guests to line up. There were a LOT of us! Our bus was full, and overall the mood was high and happy. When we got to the front of the line, they checked our passports again, but only briefly as they quickly saw we’d already “checked in” earlier that morning. Then, we were on the bus!

The ride from Pop to Port Canaveral was around…45 minutes? Something like that, I can’t remember exactly. Soon, we were seeing this sight! I won’t lie, I teared up a bit! I was very excited.




(OK, this one isn't my picture, because mine was terrible, so I snagged this from the internet)

When the bus arrived, we were held for several minutes, but before too long we were given instructions and let loose to head inside. It was super easy to make our way into the terminal. The line to check in took us around 15 minutes, and here we had to show our port arrival form as well as our passports. The CM also made sure our MagicBand+’s were linked with our stateroom and account.

***Here is a brief rundown of using the MagicBand+ on the cruise. It was pretty much useless. We still had to have our key cards for nearly everything. While we could use it to get in and out of our room, getting on and off the ship at ports was a hit or miss. I DID use it to make purchases on the ship, but then they’d also ask to see our key card, so YMMV.

Regardless, I didn’t regret buying them because we’re going to use them at WDW next month!

Once we breezed through check in, we rode the escalator up to the waiting area. Ashlyn needed a restroom break, which we found immediately to our right when we stepped off the escalator.

While she was in there, they called our boarding group! I can’t remember, but I want to say we were in boarding group 5. It came FAST.

Micheal was afraid if we missed our boarding time there would be some sort of “problem.” I tried to assure him that wasn’t how it worked, but he’d already become stressed at the idea, and that made him short tempered.

Ashlyn came out shortly after that, thankfully, and we were able to put Micheal out of his misery, LOL.

We walked through the famous yellow Mickey head and up the gangplank toward the ship!



(Also not my picture...)

We took a selfie just before we got onto the ship (it turned out so bad, LOL), then a CM was asking us for our name and announcing our family as we stepped inside!!!

I was teary-eyed again, but of course it was a happy teary-eyed. Very few people mingled around, which is what I expected since we were boarding so early. I already knew exactly where we wanted to head first, too—Animator’s Palate! We didn’t want to head to Cabana’s for lunch, which is the buffet. Instead, we wanted to do the sit down “table service” lunch. For this sailing, that meal would take place at Animator’s Palate.

For those who are unfamiliar, Disney ships don’t have a “Main dining room.” Instead, they have “rotational dining.” This means they have 3 main dining rooms, and guests are assigned a rotation of them for each sailing. We would be eating at Animator’s Palate again later in the sailing.

Skipping breakfast and just keeping hunger at bay with small snacks had been the right choice, because we now were definitely hungry and ready for our full meal!

The restaurant had hand sanitizing wipes available for guests, and we used those. Our table for the week was 125, even though at this meal they didn’t use the table numbers.

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember EXACTLY what we ordered. Ha! Ashlyn, I’m sure, got steak because that is what she ALWAYS orders at sit down meals. Micheal probably did, too. I’ll take an educated guess that Miles picked a burger, and I believe I ended up with a pasta.

There was also bread service, sodas all around (sodas are included in your cruise fare), and dessert. I did take a picture of mine, LOL.



It was all SOOOO delicious. It was also a fun and relaxed way to start our cruise experience!

After our meal, we were very ready to explore the ship. It was around 1PM by now, but that meant we still had an hour before our rooms would be ready. We decided to head back to the main lobby and start there. We were on Deck 3, which is where you embark. This is the same deck as Animator’s Palate as well as Royal Court, another of the rotational dining locations.

We made our way to the elevators and hopped down to deck 2. This deck had the restaurant where we’d be dining that night, the Enchanted Garden. Once we’d made ourselves familiar with that location, we headed up to decks 4 & 5 to figure out where we’d be going for our muster drill. I think we checked deck 5 first, and then finally found the right spot on deck 4.



We then checked out the kids club and the teen club, just so we’d know where to go in the future. Miles loved looking around the kids club (we didn’t do too well at taking pictures here). He would later spend a LOT of time here and hate every time he had to leave.

The teen club, Vibe, came next. It looked fun, but Ashlyn ended up opting out of spending any time there throughout the cruise. She was too shy to try to make friends.

By now it was almost 2PM, so we headed up to deck 7 where our balcony cabin was located. We had a great location, and though our luggage wasn’t in the room yet, by the time we’d gone to the muster drill and come back, our luggage was there. Our stress over it all was alleviated, and we’d definitely hand over our luggage again on a future cruise.

I’ll leave you with that for now. We had a nice introduction to our first time aboard a cruise ship. The sail away party was coming up soon. What’d we do for sail away? Find out next time!

 

[hardcorestitch]

Back again! I wanted to jump into –

Disney Cruise – Day 1! Embarkation Day, looking around the ship, and getting lunch!

We woke up at Walt Disney World, which is always magical. I was up around 6AM, so I hopped in the shower then used our in-room coffee maker to make myself a cup of coffee. By then, everyone else in the room had started to stir. We needed to finish getting the bags ready to leave at the door, because they’d be collecting them at 7AM.

True to their instructions, they did indeed come at exactly 7AM.

We did not leave the room, though, as we’d decided to take it easy. I also didn’t want to hang out near the food court—I couldn’t wait to board the ship and start eating! So, I didn’t want to spoil our appetites.

The kids watched TV, and I took my time getting ready. I’ll also share right here that if you like controlling everything for your vacation, having them take away your bags is a weird feeling. It made us feel…stressed? I’m not sure that’s quite the right word, but even though we’d kept a backpack with all our “essentials” like meds, documents, etc., not having access to our other stuff made us feel anxious.

Anyway, we left our room around 9:30AM and made our way to the Pop lobby, near the model of the cruise ship.

View attachment 971793

I got in a very short line to have our cruise documents checked by the DCL folks. This was an easy process where the CM matched our passports with our names on her list. We didn’t need our port arrival form here (that came later).

Then, we had to hang out and wait until 10:15 or so. We looked through the gift shop again, ate a few snacks, and ended up in the kids area of the lobby where they have the TV and kids seating. Time passed slowly.

But then, they were calling for DCL guests to line up. There were a LOT of us! Our bus was full, and overall the mood was high and happy. When we got to the front of the line, they checked our passports again, but only briefly as they quickly saw we’d already “checked in” earlier that morning. Then, we were on the bus!

The ride from Pop to Port Canaveral was around…45 minutes? Something like that, I can’t remember exactly. Soon, we were seeing this sight! I won’t lie, I teared up a bit! I was very excited.

View attachment 971795

View attachment 971796
(OK, this one isn't my picture, because mine was terrible, so I snagged this from the internet)

When the bus arrived, we were held for several minutes, but before too long we were given instructions and let loose to head inside. It was super easy to make our way into the terminal. The line to check in took us around 15 minutes, and here we had to show our port arrival form as well as our passports. The CM also made sure our MagicBand+’s were linked with our stateroom and account.

***Here is a brief rundown of using the MagicBand+ on the cruise. It was pretty much useless. We still had to have our key cards for nearly everything. While we could use it to get in and out of our room, getting on and off the ship at ports was a hit or miss. I DID use it to make purchases on the ship, but then they’d also ask to see our key card, so YMMV.

Regardless, I didn’t regret buying them because we’re going to use them at WDW next month!

Once we breezed through check in, we rode the escalator up to the waiting area. Ashlyn needed a restroom break, which we found immediately to our right when we stepped off the escalator.

While she was in there, they called our boarding group! I can’t remember, but I want to say we were in boarding group 5. It came FAST.

Micheal was afraid if we missed our boarding time there would be some sort of “problem.” I tried to assure him that wasn’t how it worked, but he’d already become stressed at the idea, and that made him short tempered.

Ashlyn came out shortly after that, thankfully, and we were able to put Micheal out of his misery, LOL.

We walked through the famous yellow Mickey head and up the gangplank toward the ship!


View attachment 971797
(Also not my picture...)

We took a selfie just before we got onto the ship (it turned out so bad, LOL), then a CM was asking us for our name and announcing our family as we stepped inside!!!

I was teary-eyed again, but of course it was a happy teary-eyed. Very few people mingled around, which is what I expected since we were boarding so early. I already knew exactly where we wanted to head first, too—Animator’s Palate! We didn’t want to head to Cabana’s for lunch, which is the buffet. Instead, we wanted to do the sit down “table service” lunch. For this sailing, that meal would take place at Animator’s Palate.

For those who are unfamiliar, Disney ships don’t have a “Main dining room.” Instead, they have “rotational dining.” This means they have 3 main dining rooms, and guests are assigned a rotation of them for each sailing. We would be eating at Animator’s Palate again later in the sailing.

Skipping breakfast and just keeping hunger at bay with small snacks had been the right choice, because we now were definitely hungry and ready for our full meal!

The restaurant had hand sanitizing wipes available for guests, and we used those. Our table for the week was 125, even though at this meal they didn’t use the table numbers.

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember EXACTLY what we ordered. Ha! Ashlyn, I’m sure, got steak because that is what she ALWAYS orders at sit down meals. Micheal probably did, too. I’ll take an educated guess that Miles picked a burger, and I believe I ended up with a pasta.

There was also bread service, sodas all around (sodas are included in your cruise fare), and dessert. I did take a picture of mine, LOL.

View attachment 971798

It was all SOOOO delicious. It was also a fun and relaxed way to start our cruise experience!

After our meal, we were very ready to explore the ship. It was around 1PM by now, but that meant we still had an hour before our rooms would be ready. We decided to head back to the main lobby and start there. We were on Deck 3, which is where you embark. This is the same deck as Animator’s Palate as well as Royal Court, another of the rotational dining locations.

We made our way to the elevators and hopped down to deck 2. This deck had the restaurant where we’d be dining that night, the Enchanted Garden. Once we’d made ourselves familiar with that location, we headed up to decks 4 & 5 to figure out where we’d be going for our muster drill. I think we checked deck 5 first, and then finally found the right spot on deck 4.

View attachment 971799

We then checked out the kids club and the teen club, just so we’d know where to go in the future. Miles loved looking around the kids club (we didn’t do too well at taking pictures here). He would later spend a LOT of time here and hate every time he had to leave.

The teen club, Vibe, came next. It looked fun, but Ashlyn ended up opting out of spending any time there throughout the cruise. She was too shy to try to make friends.

By now it was almost 2PM, so we headed up to deck 7 where our balcony cabin was located. We had a great location, and though our luggage wasn’t in the room yet, by the time we’d gone to the muster drill and come back, our luggage was there. Our stress over it all was alleviated, and we’d definitely hand over our luggage again on a future cruise.

I’ll leave you with that for now. We had a nice introduction to our first time aboard a cruise ship. The sail away party was coming up soon. What’d we do for sail away? Find out next time!

You are not alone. I was super duper shy and hesitant to chat or get into a friend relationship back in those years too.

 

[kclark9830]

You are not alone. I was super duper shy and hesitant to chat or get into a friend relationship back in those years too.

Yes, she is so outstanding in everything she does! But she is too shy to put herself out there socially . I think (and hope) she'll grow into that, eventually.