Just off the Fantasy-A few thoughts

[lady9]

We had a wonderful week on the Fantasy doing the Eastern itinerary. This was our 5th DCL cruise but won't be our last! Here are a few of my thoughts from the week.

Toiletries-We were the first cruise on the Fantasy to have the refillable bottles in the bathrooms. We used them since we were the first. There is a tamper proof sticker on the back of the bottle. After the first day of showering the stickers came loose and fell off. At the end of the week, the stateroom host refilled the bottles and replaced the stickers. There is really no way to prevent anyone from putting something into those bottles. I won't use them again.

Paper Navigators-I was a big fan of the paper Navigators and had every intention of getting one everyday. However, after using the app just for a day, I am a convert! I love the app! You can look ahead and see all the activities for the entire week. You can mark the activities you are interested in and a reminder will be sent to your phone 15 minutes before the activity begins. You can see every activity or you can see just the categories you want like shows, movies, youth activities, etc. You can see the menu for the dinners in the dining rooms each night. You can see your onboard account information and so much more.

Chat in the app-This was spotty at best and DCL knows it and is working to improve it. We would receive text messages long after they were sent. However, we did find that if we left the chat open instead of closing it, we had a better chance of getting the text promptly.

Maintenance-The divider on our balcony was loose and banged throughout the first night. There was no sleeping that night. We didn't realize what it was until the next day. We called maintenance. It took 2 tries to get it secured and fixed but they did. The rest of our nights were quiet and peaceful (also thanks to very quiet neighbors beside and above us). Guest services sent us a bottle of sparkling cider and rice crispy Mickey bars. That was totally not necessary but so thoughtful and appreciated! It's another reason we love Disney!

Service-What can I say-It was amazing! Our stateroom host and serving team were wonderful!

Food-Our daughter ate several new foods she had never had before. She enjoyed most of it. If she didn't, the server offered to bring her something else. The little girl at our table whom we were traveling with had our server before. He remembered she loved strawberries and brought her some although they were not on the menu. My daughter mentioned she loved them and after that, they magically appeared at her place, too.

FE Exchange- We have always participated in this and loved it. This time did not disappointed, either. We received wonderfully thoughtful and useful gifts. One gift I will keep in mind for a future possible gift was a Mickey LED nightlight. It gave off the perfect amount of light if you needed to get to the bathroom without being too bright to prevent sleep. It is small and travels well.

Overall, it was an amazing vacation!

 

[Lisa F]

thanks for reporting. What excursions did you do?

 

[squirk]

Toiletries-We were the first cruise on the Fantasy to have the refillable bottles in the bathrooms. We used them since we were the first. There is a tamper proof sticker on the back of the bottle. After the first day of showering the stickers came loose and fell off. At the end of the week, the stateroom host refilled the bottles and replaced the stickers. There is really no way to prevent anyone from putting something into those bottles. I won't use them again.

Maybe I am missing something here: why won’t you use them again?

 

[lady9]

We did not do an excursion in Tortola. We are not "beach" people and by the time we decided we should go to The Baths, it was sold out. We are not adventuresome enough to go out on our own. We only do excursions through the ship. We did get off to shop a bit in Tortola but there are very few shops at the port unless you are looking for jewelry. We did the Land and Sea excursion at Coral World in St. Thomas. It was nice and fairly cheap. We have done semi-submersibles in Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Those were much better as the water was much more clear. But we did enjoy Coral World and glad we went. Most of the excursions at Castaway Cay were canceled due to the winds.

 

[lady9]

Maybe I am missing something here: why won’t you use them again?

I don't trust that someone won't put something in the bottles that would be gross. There are people who do gross things and think it's funny. The little sticker that says "Tamper Proof" can literally be peeled back, the cap screwed off and on again, and the sticker reattached. I tried it to see if it could be done. The bottles just sit on the shelf in the shower. They are not locked like the ones in the resorts. It's sad you have to think this might happen, but it could. I love their products so it makes me sad to think I won't use them again. There were 3 of us, and we used about 1/4 of each bottle in a week. As a side note, we did ask for and were given a bar of soap for the shower. I prefer soap to body wash so was glad this was not a problem.

 

[dcassetta]

Did they premiere Dumbo on your cruise? And do you remember any of the names of the cruise staff or the club host?

 

[TXAg83]

We were on the same cruise. This was our 3rd cruise, first on the Fantasy.

We stayed the night before at the Hyatt. We booked ourselves using Hyatt points. However, we did sign up for Disney ground transportation. It was a little confusing reading on these boards whether there were separate, dedicated buses leaving from the Hyatt or if you catch the same buses at the terminal. There aren't separate buses. You still make your way through the Terminal B to catch the same buses that everyone else does. When we checked in, the Hyatt had a letter describing the whole process of leaving our luggage in the room and someone taking it to the Disney buses. We were a little apprehensive about doing this. What if the don't pick it up . Needless to say, our luggage made it just fine. However, it didn't get to our stateroom until about 5:30 so we were sweating it for awhile.

We arrived at the Magical Disney Express Terminal at 8:35. About 30 people were already there but we were assigned the first bus! We left the airport at 9:05 and arrived at PC at approximately 10:00. We had to actually sit on the bus a few minutes because there were a lot of people still disembarking from the previous cruise. Supposedly there were fewer customs agents to clear passengers for that cruise and it took longer to disembark. We got all checked in and had a boarding number of 7. Before we had booked the GT we had a PAT of 11:15. Our number 7 ended up getting us through the queue at about 11:15. So it all worked out fine.

We ate lunch at Animators Palate and had two wonderful wait staff, Farzan and Sheree who remembered us throughout the cruise. Not sure if the sail away party wasn't very exciting or if everyone wasn't ready to start partying yet, because it didn't seem like a very energetic crowd.

The send away nightly show in the WD Theater was so-so. The performers of course were great, but the concept of the show was more like an infomercial. Definitely geared for the first time cruisers. Leslie Dallas was our CD. We had second seating for dinner and ended up having a table by ourselves (family of 4). However, we ended up making friends with the family of 5 that sat right next to us. It's amazing how you keep running into the same families during the cruise. Our server and asst. server (Juan and Lewis) were fantastic. Wayan was our stateroom attendant and did a marvelous job. His contract ended with this trip and headed back to Indonesia for a much needed vacation.

Sunday we did the Chocolate and Licqueor Tasting. It was hosted by the wine specialist at Palo. Very interesting background on the chocolates and licqueors (a champagne, red wine, port wine and whiskey).

At Tortola we did the Tour of Virgin Gorda with a start time of 7:45. (We could see the Speedy's 7:45 ferry already sailing by time we got off the ship at about 7:55, so we wouldn't have been able to make it if we had tried to go on our own) We got to St John's by 9:00, so we obviously beat the Speedy's 9:00 ferry. I think there were about 80 people on our excursion. The sea was very rough. There were red flag warnings at The Bath's Beach. Technically, no one should have been in the water. We could tell our guide was very worried about some of the people in the water, especially those swimming near the rocky areas of beach. Regardless of the time, and whether other ships are in port, you're going to have to wait some to go through the Baths (unless you're the first in your group of your excursion) I was a little disappointed with the Baths. Yes, it was very interesting and beautiful, but just about everyone says it's a "must see". To me, I didn't have a "Wow!" moment. Glad we saw it, but I can't believe this is the excursion you must do if you only go to Tortola once. Did a little shopping at Road Town and got back on the ship by 2:00. We did the Aquaduck, as the line was obviously short in port.

On St. Thomas we did the St. John Eco-Hike. Our guide, "Tree", don't remember his actual name, was great! Very informative but funny as well. Honeymoon Beach is absolutely beautiful. Very calm waters that day. Did some nice snorkeling (we brought our own snorkeling gear). The only negative of the hike was that it is the dry season, so most of the vegetation was brown. However, that let us see through it and we had views of the water more than we would if it had been green.

At Castaway Cay most water excursions were canceled due to rough seas. We were scheduled to snorkel on the rigid hull boat and seeing the sand bar. (we had done that 4 years ago and loved it). Because our excursion was canceled, we did end up doing the 5K! We ended up just snorkeling at the beach.

Our entertainment during the week included the juggler/comedian Marcus Monroe. We had seen him on our Alaskan Cruise in 2017. He is hilarious and amazing. We also had a magician, Justino Zoppe? He had some really good tricks. He got a little philosophical, but in a positive way. Josh Strickland, the original Tarzan on Broadway, was our other performer. I was a little skeptical at first if I wanted to just listen to someone sing Disney songs. If I was going to skip a show, this was the one I thought I would. But what an amazing voice. I was pleasantly surprised and glad we went.

Since Dumbo premiered on March 29, we got to see it the night of March 28. Great movie, worth going to see. Captain Marvel also was shown on the big screen.

We had a 1:25 flight out of MCO. We left the ship by 9:45 and had plenty of time at the airport. TSA lines were only 10 minutes long at the time!!!

 

[lady9]

Did they premiere Dumbo on your cruise? And do you remember any of the names of the cruise staff or the club host?

Yes, they premiered Dumbo Thursday night and played it most of the day Friday. We like to play trivia and go to the Tube after dinner. The 2 adult hosts were Chris (male) and Katie. Chris was awesome! He is very funny and full of energy. Katie did a great job with trivia and brainteasers. She's very sweet, and we loved chatting with her. Our servers were Dan and Horie. Both did a nice job and made dinner very enjoyable. Dustin did some of the family activities and the Anyone Can Cook, also did a great job. We literally ran into no staff who didn't take the time to say hello or chat briefly. Whether they do or not, every person we met seemed to really enjoy their job and interacting with the guests.

 

[Van Houten]

Do you remember who was the captain on this sailing? was it Marco Nogara?

 

[lady9]

Do you remember who was the captain on this sailing? was it Marco Nogara?

I'm sorry, I don't know. I didn't pay attention after they announced who it was, and we didn't attend the Captain signing although many people did. He had a long line!

 

[TXAg83]

It was Captain Marco from Italy.

 

[darnheather]

I don't trust that someone won't put something in the bottles that would be gross. There are people who do gross things and think it's funny. The little sticker that says "Tamper Proof" can literally be peeled back, the cap screwed off and on again, and the sticker reattached. I tried it to see if it could be done. The bottles just sit on the shelf in the shower. They are not locked like the ones in the resorts. It's sad you have to think this might happen, but it could. I love their products so it makes me sad to think I won't use them again. There were 3 of us, and we used about 1/4 of each bottle in a week. As a side note, we did ask for and were given a bar of soap for the shower. I prefer soap to body wash so was glad this was not a problem.

Can they be removed from the shelf?

 

[TXAg83]

Can they be removed from the shelf?

Yes.

 

[ForMyBoys]

Can they be removed from the shelf?

Yes they are free standing glass pump bottles. I was glad they could be removed as my youngest still prefers baths and you can't reach the shelf from the bathtub.

 

[pixiedustedme]

I don't trust that someone won't put something in the bottles that would be gross. There are people who do gross things and think it's funny. The little sticker that says "Tamper Proof" can literally be peeled back, the cap screwed off and on again, and the sticker reattached. I tried it to see if it could be done. The bottles just sit on the shelf in the shower. They are not locked like the ones in the resorts. It's sad you have to think this might happen, but it could. I love their products so it makes me sad to think I won't use them again. There were 3 of us, and we used about 1/4 of each bottle in a week. As a side note, we did ask for and were given a bar of soap for the shower. I prefer soap to body wash so was glad this was not a problem.

Good to know you can get bars of soap at least.

 

[TXAg83]

There was a definite problem with the internet on the Fantasy last week. First, although this isn't a Fantasy problem, when we arrived at the terminal they were having everyone check the Navigator App for an update. 2.2.2 if iPhone and 2.2.1 if android. Luckily I had the current update, but the rest of the family did not. Cell network reception was bad enough at the terminal, but when you have 3800 people trying to download the new update, everyone was having trouble.

Second, we wanted to sign up for one of the internet plans but had trouble just connecting to the internet while in port. After setting sail we still had problems. By the second day we rarely were ever able to connect. The best place seemed to be on decks 3,4, or 5 mid ship near guest services. We went to the internet guy and he said they were having troubles with the antenna they connect with. He actually refunded our money and gave us 50MB extras. We ended up reordering but still had troubles.

We ended up losing all our data because we either forgot to or didn't realize we hadn't logged off from the internet. You have to log off or you drain all the MBs.

I think the onboard internet problem had to do with the problem with the texting using the Nav App.

 

[pixiedustedme]

There was a definite problem with the internet on the Fantasy last week...I think the onboard internet problem had to do with the problem with the texting using the Nav App.

I doubt it's that universal an issue. We sailed on the Magic two weeks ago, and connectivity was fine.

 

[TXAg83]

Others have mentioned the vibrations on the Fantasy. I did not notice any until we left St. Thomas (day 5). Felt them all night long after leaving port. It continued off and on through Friday. It wasn't too bad except when we were eating in Palo. Sort put a damper on the evening.

 

[squirk]

I think the onboard internet problem had to do with the problem with the texting using the Nav App

The texting problem with the app, as described by the OP, has been an issue for years.

 

[Karin1984]

I don't trust that someone won't put something in the bottles that would be gross. There are people who do gross things and think it's funny. The little sticker that says "Tamper Proof" can literally be peeled back, the cap screwed off and on again, and the sticker reattached. I tried it to see if it could be done. The bottles just sit on the shelf in the shower. They are not locked like the ones in the resorts. It's sad you have to think this might happen, but it could. I love their products so it makes me sad to think I won't use them again. There were 3 of us, and we used about 1/4 of each bottle in a week. As a side note, we did ask for and were given a bar of soap for the shower. I prefer soap to body wash so was glad this was not a problem.

But isn't that the case for any product in any hotel / restaurant ? For all you know, before you arrive, the toddler at the table next to you is able to lick the spoon next to your plate without his parents noticing it, and put it back before you arrive.