Honeymooning on the Fantasy SWDAS *COMPLETED 3/7*

[FSU Girl]

Your breakfast looks good, but I really, really love Cabanas breakfast. I like having so many options and sitting up on deck while enjoying my breakfast.

I went on a Western Caribbean cruise on Carnival in 1996 and we did the Stingray Adventure there then. That was way before poor Steve Irwin was killed by one. I don't think I'd do it again now, but it was pretty cool. And the Grand Cayman water was amazingly clear.

On my next cruise I plan to actually go to Cabanas lol. It's just so nice having DH bring me food in bed. But I have no clue what other options are there since I tell him ahead of time what to get me. It was nice having the breakfast in the restaurant, but I wouldn't go out of my way to make it there. I think if the Steve Irwin thing hadn't have happened I would have definitely gone. You just never know with wild animals, it could be safe for years, but then one gets mad and someone dies and I just don't want to risk it. I like that the one on Castaway Cay was more secure and safe. From pictures I've seen the water does look really beautiful.

 

[buzzrelly]

So our waitress was really excited tonight and I wasn't sure why. But once I finished the appetizers a plate was put down in front of me with one of those metal covers on top. I was a little confused and she told me to open it.

Ta-da! My favorite food on the Disney cruise was before me. She was so excited, had planned it all out to have this dish made for me. I was really impressed. Not only was this dish from a different restaurant, it was served a few nights ago. It was as delicious as it was before

That was so nice! I could eat those every night too

So I was super disappointed by this show. Every other time I've gone they ask if there are any newly weds on the ship. The lady hosting definitely saw us with our wedding ears on. Well not this time. She asked if there were any couples who had been together for 5 years or less. Practically the whole room fell into the category. The couple they picked had been together 3 years and all the answers seemed to be about a different relationship they were in. It was weird and I was a little bitter the one time I'm actually a honeymooner I had no shot at getting to play.

My DH and I got married on the Magic in 2012 and we didn't get picked to play either. I remember feeling very disappointed, but don't take it personally

 

[lorimay]

I am not really a fan of the MDR breakfast service, it really is just "Meh".
I wish they would try and make it a little more than what is served in Cabanas.
We usually do Cabanas every morning, except on Palo brunch days.
I know on some cruises they offer a brunch type menu on a certain day, not sure when or how often they do this as I have never seen it on one of our cruises, but I could have just missed it in The Navigator.

 

[naynay922]

Following along! I read your previous reports and really enjoyed them! Can’t wait to read more of this one

 

[FSU Girl]

That was so nice! I could eat those every night too

It really was so sweet, she really pulled some magic here.

My DH and I got married on the Magic in 2012 and we didn't get picked to play either. I remember feeling very disappointed, but don't take it personally

You were married on that cruise and they still didn't pick you? Ridiculous. It stings a bit less now, but I was really sad when it happened. Now I'll have to wait a few decades to be the other couples lol.

I am not really a fan of the MDR breakfast service, it really is just "Meh".
I wish they would try and make it a little more than what is served in Cabanas.
We usually do Cabanas every morning, except on Palo brunch days.
I know on some cruises they offer a brunch type menu on a certain day, not sure when or how often they do this as I have never seen it on one of our cruises, but I could have just missed it in The Navigator.

I agree it is meh, I was hoping for so much more. I didn't know about them offering a brunch. I linger in bed too much in the morning to make it to breakfast often. It's my least favorite meal of the day and I'd rather sleep more lol.

Following along! I read your previous reports and really enjoyed them! Can’t wait to read more of this one

Thanks for joining and glad to hear you like my other trip reports!

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica

I woke up around 8am this morning to find us docked in Jamaica. We had no plans of getting off the ship this day either, but had booked an event on the ship that I was really excited about. It's called Be Our Chef and takes place in Palo. I found out about it on here. There are only 8 spots so it's pretty exclusive and hard to book if many want to do it. I figured since we were sailing in Concierge it was the perfect time to try.



If you don't know what it is, basically you are brought back into the Palo kitchens and taught how to make three dishes that they serve in the restaurant. It's a really amazing experience that I highly recommend to everyone. Only 4 people booked this on our cruise, they all happened to be in concierge, but if it does show it doesn't always book up. It's not well advertised so that might be why.



View from our balcony.



Weird reef thing that was causing the waves to crash in the shape of a circle. Was interesting that the ship was so close to this since it was clearly very shallow water.



This is a new all inclusive resort being built. It was apparently behind schedule and should have already been open. We were told that when it is open they will be offering excursions to spend the day there. It sounded really nice and something we might book next time.

Something I was really bad about on this cruise was remembering to read the required dress code for places. For this cooking experience you are required to wear closed toed shoes since you will be in the kitchen. Who forgot to read that little detail?

I had completely forgotten to read over what we would need for this and brought only sandals and dress shoes on this cruise. Our concierge host Ashley had been talking to us the day before about it and mentioned that and I panicked. We went into the gift shops and I ended up buying black water shoes. They are closed toed and have a hard bottom and the black color made them appear more like a real shoe. I felt pretty stupid for this and wished I'd brought sneakers on board, but thankfully these worked.



At the start of the cruise we were asked our jacket size and an outfit was provided for us to wear. At the end of the event they give you a bag with a brand new outfit instead of the one you cooked in.



They had us wait in Meridian before it started, so I went outside to take some pictures of the island. Over to the right was Oasis of the Seas...more on them later.



I love the mountains off in the distance, being a Florida girl I don't see those very often.



We were escorted inside an empty Palo and I took a picture of the room with the largest table. You have to have a minimum of 8 people to sit in here, maximum of 14. For brunch this room is used to hold all the buffet food.

Before the cooking started they had us sit at a table and brought out coffees.





Our view, and tablemates. I liked having the smaller group of four people, I think if there had been eight it would have been a little more hectic.

Continued next post...​

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica



They asked if we wanted normal coffee or a cappachino, I went with the cappachino.



Chef Mickey made an appearance! They had a professional photographer there to take our pictures with him and with our real chef. At the end of this we were given printed out copies of the photos in a booklet, which was really nice.

Now it was time to do some cooking. They encouraged us to take photos, so I have a lot.





This was my first time being in a professional kitchen, on land or sea.





First thing they had us do was wash our hands and then put on latex gloves. We then gathered around the chef to watch him cook a margherita pizza. He gave us step by step instructions and made a pizza in front of us so we could watch the process.

They had pre-set up work stations for each of us with all the ingredients that we would need. Then it was off to making pizza! There were a couple chefs around who would watch to see how you were doing, correct you if you were doing something wrong or step in to help if a total disaster. I think I made a pretty awesome pizza.



It was the right shape and looked delicious. I did forget to put the basil first and added after the fact, which the head chef corrected me on. It was hard to remember all the directions, there were a lot of steps.



DH's pizza. Not exactly the right shape, mine was definitely prettier. I win!



Our work stations. The bowls were filled with all the ingredients you'd need.



Over on the right were items we'd be using for our next cooking experience.

Continued next post...​

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica



The bowls for the pizza. There was the sauce, cheese, basil and oregano. Before I said I put the basil on wrong, I meant to say oregano, it's supposed to be put on first.



DH and I had work stations next to each other. The other couple were in a different row behind us.



Once we were done making the pizza we brought them up front to put them here.



Now it was time to learn how to make pasta from scratch. It was a really interesting process, I've seen it done on TV, but never in person.





That is flower and an egg yolk. The ingredients to make pasta are pretty simple, the actual process to make it is very long and tedious. I don't think I'll be making much pasta from scratch in the future.



Time to mix it all together.



Finished product. Then you're supposed to let it rest and rise. In the top left corner you can see some pasta dough that has done that.

Then he ran the pasta through a pasta machine to get it to come out flat. This took a really long time. He had to put it through like a hundred times to get it to the perfect thinness. Luckily at our stations were were already given the flattened pasta and didn't have to make it ourselves, but it was really educational to watch it being made.



My finished product. The ravioli is filled with butternut squash, amaretto cookies, I forget what else.



We made the filling first, crushing up the cookies to go into the butternut squash puree.

Continued next post...​

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica



Egg yolk is used to seal the top layer of pasta to the bottom so you have a perfect piece of ravioli and the filling won't spill out while cooking.



We used the metal tray to shape the ravioli and cut the pieces. There was extra dough at the end.

Now it was time to make dessert.



We were making a lemoncello tart.



We had a different chef come out to talk to us for the dessert part. He was the head chef for all desserts for Disney cruises. He oversees everything except for Remy. He said if we ever wanted something different in the MDR to ask for him and he'd stop by and create something special for us.





Making the crust for the tart.



Once the tart is properly rolled out you use the roller to help lay it over the tray it'll cook in.





Once in the tray you smooth it out and poke the bottom with a fork to keep the crust from bubbling up while cooking.



Continued next post..
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[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica

Now it was time to make the filling. The lemoncello liquor was the main ingredient.









Here's my finished product. This was probably the hardest to make out of all three. One of the assistant chefs was clearly annoyed I was making the crust wrong and totally took over for me, which I was not happy about. We are meant to be the ones cooking and he did it all. I did make the filling though.

It was time to say bye to the kitchen and head back out to the dining room. We sat back at the table we were at before and it was now time to eat!



They did wine pairings with each course.





I don't remember what this was, but was tasty and a little amuse bouche to start off with.



The delicious pizza!



When we were making the ravioli I didn't think I'd like the filling, but this was actually really good. It was served in a browned butter sauce.



The dessert wine.

Continued next post...​

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica



This was really good, not too sweet and paired perfectly with dessert.



I liked the tart, but it was a little too sweet for me.



They also served three little gelato scoops of different flavors. I believe it was mango, chocolate and raspberry. These were really good, but I'm an ice cream lover.

This concludes our cooking experience at Palo. It was so fun! Being the chef and making all these things from scratch was really a unique experience and would definitely do it again. It is a pricey event, I don't remember the exact cost, but it was over $500 for the two of us. At the end they give you a huge bag that says Palo on the side, filled with your pictures, chefs outfit, and recipes to make all these things we just cooked.

Next up, the rest of the day in Jamaica...
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[lizzyb]

That cooking event looks awesome, very pricey though!

 

[Chewbette]

Yes I find it very pricey for the food that is made...come on pizza and raviolis? they have so much more interesting food in Palo than that...
Is it only proposed on the Dream and Fantasy?

 

[FSU Girl]

That cooking event looks awesome, very pricey though!

It was a lot of fun!

Yes I find it very pricey for the food that is made...come on pizza and raviolis? they have so much more interesting food in Palo than that...
Is it only proposed on the Dream and Fantasy?

It is really expensive. I think the food they picked for us to make were things that were simple enough that if you've never cooked anything from scratch you could handle it. You didn't need to have cooking skills. Even then some of the stuff was hard to do. I've never made any of these things from scratch before and found parts to be a bit difficult. It's more the experience of making the food. I think the price is high because you do get to go back stage, it's a very small group of people, it's about a three hour experience and you get a lot of keepsakes at the end. I'm not sure if this is offered anywhere besides the Fantasy, I believe it's only on that one ship.

 

[buzzrelly]

You were married on that cruise and they still didn't pick you? Ridiculous

Exactly. I was very disappointed at the time. We were wearing our wedding ears too

That cooking experience looks amazing! Totally out of my price range, but amazing!

 

[FSU Girl]

Exactly. I was very disappointed at the time. We were wearing our wedding ears too

That cooking experience looks amazing! Totally out of my price range, but amazing!

I feel like wedding ears should automatically get you seat up there. I have been on a cruise with a few honeymooners and they had to battle it out for a spot, but this was the first where they didn't even try to find a newlywed couple. The cooking was so much fun, I'm really happy I did it. It is really pricey so I don't think we'll be doing it again any time soon, but I love cooking so it was really unique thing to do.

 

[lklgoodman]

Dh and I did a Magic cruise for honeymoon in 2001. We were picked for the Match your Mate game. I didn't know anything about it beforehand. For the rest of the cruise we were known as the "honeymooners". We were the only honeymooners on the entire ship, it wasn't as popular as it is now. We got a nice silver keychain that I still use. The Palo experience looks fun, definitely wouldn't do it for the food they make though, the swag you got would make it more worth it. My mom went to culinary school (before marriage/kids), I knew how to make pasta by the time I was 8 yrs old. My 10 yr old dd makes now makes home made pasta whenever we want it. I'd still like to do the experience, I always enjoy the Anyone Can cook demos. At least they didn't do lobster ravioli

 

[FSU Girl]

Dh and I did a Magic cruise for honeymoon in 2001. We were picked for the Match your Mate game. I didn't know anything about it beforehand. For the rest of the cruise we were known as the "honeymooners". We were the only honeymooners on the entire ship, it wasn't as popular as it is now. We got a nice silver keychain that I still use.

That sounds like such a fun experience! That was around when Disney cruises were still pretty new so I could see how the shows were super popular yet.

The Palo experience looks fun, definitely wouldn't do it for the food they make though, the swag you got would make it more worth it. My mom went to culinary school (before marriage/kids), I knew how to make pasta by the time I was 8 yrs old. My 10 yr old dd makes now makes home made pasta whenever we want it. I'd still like to do the experience, I always enjoy the Anyone Can cook demos.

I think the food they picked were things that people with zero cooking skills could figure out. For you and your kids it does sound like the food made wasn't advanced enough. I think just being able to go into the kitchens was cool enough for me, I love going behind the scenes.

At least they didn't do lobster ravioli

This made me laugh so hard!

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica Part Two

So our original plan for this day was to not get off the ship. The cooking experience was from 11am until 2pm. We figured we'd go to the pools or something. After Palo was done we went back to our room and hung out on our balcony. I could hear our next door neighbors talking out on theirs about the other ship in port, Oasis of the Seas. Apparently there was a massive norovirus outbreak and the ship had been forbidden from disembarking. I'm not sure if this has ever happened before, if it has it's really rare for a port to prevent an entire cruise from getting off the boat.

Heard a lot of rumors swirling around the cruise and decided to go and check it out ourselves, so off we went.



I've heard that this isn't the safest area, except for the small gated area where you get off the ship, so we had no intention of leaving the protective bubble.



Not many people were getting off the ship so late in the afternoon, but there was quite the line of people heading back to the ship.



The diseased boat. I've since found out that around 500 or 600 people had norovirus. People had been quarantined in their cabins and it was a bad outbreak. This ship holds like 5,000 passengers or something massive like that though, so there was a large group of healthy people who weren't allowed off the ship. I felt bad for the shop owners who were expecting a huge amount of people that day and had only our ship. I guess the island was worried about the disease spreading and wanted to keep it contained.

Oasis of the Seas had left the day after us out of Port Canaveral, but they ended up skipping their next port and returning a day early and were there when we returned on Saturday.

What I found really odd was that the ship stuck around so long in port this day. They did end up leaving early, but I guess they were loading supplies and additional medical staff to help out. I was really, really happy to not be on that ship.









DH feet leading the way to Starbucks, my favorite coffee shop.



After about 15 minutes of wandering around we decided to head back to the ship.



I tried to capture the massive line for the Disney cruise and the ghost town for Oasis.



Continued next post...​

 

[FSU Girl]

January 9th - Jamaica Part Two



The doors to the Oasis customs side were closed.



There was a water station set up for returning guests, which I thought was really nice. I had tried to wait for people to leave to get a clear shot, but it was an endless line of people heading for the water so this was the best I could do.

We went back to the concierge lounge to see if they knew anything about the Oasis ship, but they didn't know much. I found out most of the information after the cruise. Wild rumors were going around the ship about what was happening there.



I had some hot tea and we walked out to watch Oasis sail away. Not many happy waving people on the ship.



We decided to try some trivia out down in O'Gills Pub.



I had been trying to make it to trivia the entire cruise, but the times never worked out so I was excited to finally fit this in. That picture of what looks like a soccer or rugby picture is actually of all the ship imagineers with their heads photo shopped into the picture. Learned that on the walking tour we did back on Day 2.



The trivia was hard! We did not even come close to winning. They have you exchange the papers with someone else to grade and the ones we took ended up winning. After they got their prizes they should have said they were a team of four so we could have gotten something, oh well. On my first Disney cruise we did win a game of trivia so I'll always have that



After trivia we bumped into Pluto who was really excited to see us and stopped to take some pictures. This seemed to be the theme for our cruise, just bumping into characters and getting pictures with them.



It was sail away time, so we decided to stand on the 4th deck to watch. The time to leave came and went and a bunch of cruise employees were running about with walkie talkies and looked to be distressed.



All the gates were locked up.



The crew were going in and out of the customs area and were talking to people on the phones.

Continued next post...

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