My 2nd tale... Fantasy Rd 2, TR Rd 2: NO sea sickness! [Apr '16-East Car.] (Upd Apr19: COMPLETED)

[jesterrific]

I'd say there were about 30-35 people on our St Thomas Catamaran excursion. Also forgot to mention the rum punch was a flowin' on the ride back to the port....I got 3 refills for whatever reason my dh would NOT let me shop at Louis Vuitton in town. Apparently I don't make wise choices when I've had some drinks

No idea what he's talking about......

cracked me up

 

[jesterrific]

Cruise Day 5 [part 3]: Leaving St. Thomas ​

It was an uneventful ride back to the Fantasy, honestly. Our van guy came a bit earlier than we had expected, which was fine since we actually finished a little bit earlier than we had anticipated. We were the first stop, so he picked up the people at Magen’s Bay on the way. Which surprisingly, they were also finished earlier too! I guess everyone just wanted to make sure they would be able to get back onto the ship haha.

Here we are! Back at port!

Ran to the railings to take some photos of the ocean before boarding

I love how easy it is to return the towels you brought out. Plus their infused water stations right at the doors!

Thought in my head: about to head back out into the open waters!

By the time we had gotten back to the ship, though, we had actually JUST missed Cabanas. (Mom was so disappointed).
Mom and Michelle headed back to the room and ordered room service, and I met up with dad and we decided to just hit up Flo’s Cafe on deck! Ordered from Tow Mater Grill for myself… a hamburger AND chicken tenders. Dad ordered the same thing except he got his burger with cheese.

BEST about Disney condiments: literally put in all your favourite things. INCLUDING jalapeños!

After our late lunch, we headed back to our room to meet up with everyone. Glendon was very happy to have stayed on the ship, as he got to play some basketball with the whole court to himself, and some relaxing time at the pool watching funnel vision (he hadn’t done that yet since it had been so busy every day.) And wandered a mostly empty cruise ship! He LOVES the Fantasy so it was nice for him to wander it empty.

More views from our verandah:

Hello Señor Frogs again

Then we all sat out on the verandah and played the people watching game… Mostly because we were scheduled to leave in half an hour and there were definitely late comers! We were surprised people ACTUALLY waited until the last possible minute! We watched the clock, and watched families run back. (We were actually surprised that some people had no panic at all and walked at such a leisurely pace)

“RUN!!! YOU WILL BARELY MAKE IT! RUN!!!”

But alas, there was a small line so it wasn’t the BIGGEST rush really haha

In the end it didn’t matter that some of these people didn’t run! We had a small delay in departing. We watched an ambulance pull up to our ship. But we have no idea what happened. After just a short while, everything seemed fine and we departed!

And here we go! Pulling away!

Bye!

Goodbye Carnival ship!

Bye!!!!!

And we have rounded the corner!

On our way, we passed the Marriott resort. Which was the ONLY beach Glendon wanted to go to. But of course you would have had to pay a resort fee.

Small view of their beach!

(Mom, Michelle, and I all agreed that Coki was our best choice. It didn’t disappoint us and we had a LOT of fun. Only kind of wished maybe to have stopped at Magen’s Bay, because I think it’s a lot bigger than Coki beach so even with more popularity maybe it wouldn’t have gotten as crowded as fast??? Either way, we completely satisfied our need of a white sand beach with calm enough waters to swim freely in!)


We had a lot of fun actually just sitting out on the verandah. From people watching to ocean watching, we were glad we chose not to go with a cheaper option without a verandah. (Glendon and I didn’t miss it on our last cruise, but probably because we didn’t think we would use it! But when you have it, you actually take advantage of it! Well, we did anyways.) It’s nice to have private time away from the HUGE crowds up on deck.




Continued… Evening Activities!

 

[jesterrific]

Cruise Day 5 [part 4]: Animator’s Night at Animator’s Palette and Evening Activities​

We ended up just resting all the way until dinner, which we were all super excited for (Animator’s Night!)

Menu cover:

Food menu…

(I don’t even know if you guys can read anything that’s on these photos I have of the menus?!)​

Table setting

Some of the stuff that came on the screen:

(LOVE these Snow White sketches)​

Since it’s a bit of a dinner show, the dinner is on a bit of a schedule. So because of that, there wasn’t a choice of appetizer, but instead you get the sampler for the table! Which comes with… Smoked Duck Breast with Pickled Onions and Craisins, Dill-marinated Shrimp with Tomato-Mayonnaise and Horseradish Cream, and Smoked Salmon Tartar with Sour cream and Cream Cheese.


Unfortunately, we were too distracted with drawing our silly animations that we didn’t take too many photos of our food. Definitely forgot about the sampler.

But it looks like.. they brought me out a salad since I can’t eat the sampler:

Here are our drawings…​

(Why did mom draw little beard stubble?! I don’t think she drew herself HAHA)

(Spaghetti legs hahahaha)​

We seriously had a very good laugh at everyone’s drawings. I think dad just tried to re-create the demo drawing that they have on the side haha. Honestly, it’s amazing how uncreative you can be when the time comes to draw haha.

Here is some of our food…

(Don’t really remember who had what.)​

AND THE SHOW BEGINS!

We tried very hard to catch our animations on photo, but they danced by pretty quick, and we were all laughing really hard. So we missed them on camera, but got to see them on screen. It’s such a neat concept, and lots of fun! Very cute. Especially when your “character” gets to dance alongside Disney characters!

We managed to at least catch our names on the screen though!

Then desserts!
This is the Sweet Temptation (A Trio of Cinderella’s Lemon Cheesecake, Flourless Chocolate Cake, and Tiramisu)

And they brought me out this… dairy free mousse thing that is actually quite tasty

Also love how the lighting and surroundings change throughout the night as the show goes on too (dining room was brighter when we first sat down)

After dinner, Michelle Glendon and I decided to go into the Tube because a game of POP! was just about to start.

It was actually very popular! Nearly a full house.

I'm going to be really honest. For us. the game was a little bit tough… theme of this game was 80’s Trivia. We are 90s kids so all our 80s trivia knowledge is second hand. Therefore, not that great haha. It was still fun though. We had good laughs watching people do silly things on stage. Seemed like the crowd had lots of fun too.

After POP! we met up with mom and dad on deck 4, and played a family round of Shuffleboard! (Honestly we have no idea how to play so we play with our own rules. Still had fun haha)

We finished off the night by watching Up on funnel vision!

Very easy to get lounge chairs at night time… most families are off getting ready for bed. This is a really cool and relaxing thing to do.. Just sitting on deck with a light breeze, warm summer night weather… watching Pixar above you.


Overall, it was a super fantastic day. Dad was a little bit sad that he wasn’t feeling well enough to have gotten off the ship, but he had a much needed relaxing day. Now, it was time to head to bed as the next day (at sea) we had Palo Brunch booked!

Up next… Cruise Day 6: Day at Sea! PALO BRUNCH!

 

[TestingH2O]

Great updates!

Mmmm brunch. Those are always my favorite posts.

 

[Jillpie]

OH my gosh, this is an AWESOME trip report!!! thank you for taking us along, really loving every minute! Makes me want to try this cruise, the water is so beautiful. Love your family!

 

[sunfun94]

LOVE all the gorgeous pics!!! How did you set up the return with the taxi?? How did you know what time to be back to meet them?? I showed my DH your pics and his response was "Yes!! Thats I want to do for 6 hours... sit on my butt at the beach.." Hahahahaha

 

[jesterrific]

OH my gosh, this is an AWESOME trip report!!! thank you for taking us along, really loving every minute! Makes me want to try this cruise, the water is so beautiful. Love your family!

Thanks for following along!!! Glad to hear you are enjoying hehe

 

[jesterrific]

LOVE all the gorgeous pics!!! How did you set up the return with the taxi?? How did you know what time to be back to meet them?? I showed my DH your pics and his response was "Yes!! Thats I want to do for 6 hours... sit on my butt at the beach.." Hahahahaha

Thank you!!!

When he dropped us off, he just told us what time he would come back haha. We just trusted him to show up He was really good I wish we got his name.

 

[Carol19]

Cannot wait for your next chapter! I feel I'm on vacation with you and your family! And we are having such a Great time! This itinerary is definitely on my list!!! And Coki Beach a must for me now! Thanks!

 

[jesterrific]

Cannot wait for your next chapter! I feel I'm on vacation with you and your family! And we are having such a Great time! This itinerary is definitely on my list!!! And Coki Beach a must for me now! Thanks!

Thank you!!! Glad to hear you are enjoying!

 

[jesterrific]

Cruise Day 6 [part 1]: Day at Sea! Palo Brunch​

Ahh, here we are, our LAST full day at sea! It’s pretty unbelievable how quickly it got to this point! But basically we had a big day planned! As it IS our last day at sea, we wanted to do as much SHIP stuff as possible!

But first, here are mom’s sunrise photos!

She also did a walk on deck 4, which ended in her sitting on a lounge chair. So of course she had to take one of these:

And also one of these porthole photos:

It is looking to be a BEAUTIFUL day for us at sea!

I woke up alone, mom was already out and about on the ship. We had all decided the night before that we wouldn’t do a large breakfast since we had Palo brunch booked for 11:30am. But of course when you wake up and you’re hungry… you still gotta go up to Cabanas.

I figured some corn flakes and fruit would be okay to tide me over until brunch

Endless blue waters

(Ignore my reflection)


I honestly don’t think anyone could get tired of having this kind of view everyday

After a little while Michelle woke up and joined me in fruit eating, before we decided to meet up with mom on deck 4.

I ended up taking THIS porthole photo…

And when mom met up with us and saw that we were taking photos she laughed really hard because she had done the same thing just a little while earlier. Then we all laughed really hard because why did we both do it in the first place?

This is what the port hole actually looks like when you step back

It’s not like it’s super special or anything! Hahaha​

By this time Glendon and Dad were already up, and neither of them too hungry just yet, so they decided to skip breakfast. We decided this was good time for us all to get back to the room and get changed and ready for brunch!
We ended up checking in at Palo a little bit early, so that we could sit out on the Meridian deck and take some gorgeous photos since it was so nice out!

Literally feels like it’s just us in this world on our little (big) ship

Mom and dad

Glendon and I

Family photo

View of the tables on deck

Michelle and I

Mom and dad again

Glendon and I in too-bright-sunlight

Meridian is a smoking area, so we were lucky for a while that it was just us, so that we could enjoy a little bit of smoke free time. (Dad and I are very very sensitive to cigarette smoke, so we do prefer non-smoking decks.) It was perfect timing, that when someone actually wanted to come out to smoke, we had finished all our photos and it was actually getting a tad too hot in the sun. SO it was time for us to head back in.

HERE WE ARE!

We got the booth with the gorgeous mural behind us, so we got some photos!

Mom and Dad

Glendon and I

Michelle had no photo because she didn’t want a “I’m sitting alone” photo hahaha.


We ended up getting the same server for brunch as we did from our dinner, which made it easier for my dairy allergy. UNFORTUNATELY we all forgot to take a photo of the buffet. Honestly it was fancier than we were expecting haha. You get brought over to the buffet area by your server, then get passed off to the buffet people. Who take plates and load up your plate for you depending on what you wanted! (Ummmmm we felt a TAD self conscious then, since we all love to LOAD our plates up at Cabanas hahahaha)

But here are some of our food photos!!!

(Jessica’s TWO plates…)

You can also order food off the brunch menu as well, so I got this dairy-free flat bread

And Glendon and Michelle ordered to share the chicken parmesan (forgot to take a photo!!!) It was actually really hard to eat all our food. Eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs, and we knew it… but we honestly REALLY wanted to try EVERYTHING. Literally EVERYTHING sounded sooooo good.

And finally desserts!

For myself, they brought our their AMAZING strawberry basil sorbet

I am usually not TOO huge a sorbet fan, but THIS. I got this during dinner at our last cruise, and fell in love and HAD to have it again. Very glad they brought it out for me for brunch dessert!!!​

Glendon’s desserts from the buffet

Michelle’s desserts from the buffet

Mom and dad actually decided to pass on dessert haha. They just helped Michelle and Glendon finish theirs since they grabbed so much!!


And that was it!!! We loved everything! Wish that we could have had more of an ocean view, but our booth was still pretty cool. VERY bright in the day time compared to at dinner!!! Oh yeah, we also let our server know that after dinner this night, we would probably do our dessert that we missed out on from dinner the other night. SOUFFLÉ FOR DINNER TO LOOK FORWARD TO NOW!!! She even said perfect, that gives them time to make a dairy free one for me too! 8)


SO after brunch, we all napped HARD haha. Loads of digesting to do, and the comfort of an air conditioned room on such a hard day… just can’t fight the nap!





To come… Deck activities from our last sea day, and Captain’s night dinner! Palo dessert after dinner!

 

[franandaj]

Your brunch looked absolutely lovely! Just under 12 days until I get to enjoy it!

I wonder why they put the items on your plate for you. I'm very picky on my buffet items. I don't like anything on my plate touching. Most people think I'm crazy!

 

[bcwife76]

Ack, I'm behind on your TR, how did that happen? lol

Awwww man your photos pulling out of St Thomas....I MISS it so much!!!!!! Miss the Fantasy SOOOOO much!!!

Love the animation show at Animators on your second night of dining there, so much fun. We didn't take photos of ours dancing either, went by too quickly and we were laughing too hard like you guys were.

Mmmmmmm .....Palo brunch. I have to say above all the other fabulous things about a Disney cruise, I would DROP all of IT as long as I could still eat at Palo Like you, we also felt a little awkward having someone else carry out plates around the buffet as we told them what we wanted. This didn't happen on our first cruise (Sept 2015) and I don't like this change. We loaded up our plates but did not go up for second plates (like we did previous) and this time we shared one plate of desserts. Ha....gotta let the insecurities go on our next cruise

Sad it's the last day......awwww man but still lots of good things to come I think

 

[rndmr2]

Great update! Sad it's the last sea day but looking forward to what's next!

Looks like you had a great Palo Brunch. That is definitely one of the reasons I really want to try a Disney Cruise someday. Everything looked so good.

It was a beautiful day from your pictures, how funny that you took the same Porthole pictures

 

[jesterrific]

Your brunch looked absolutely lovely! Just under 12 days until I get to enjoy it!

I wonder why they put the items on your plate for you. I'm very picky on my buffet items. I don't like anything on my plate touching. Most people think I'm crazy!

So excited for you!!! Can't wait to see all your photos!!

Hahaha no idea why, but I'm sure if you told them they'll be more than happy to keep your food separate haha! Maybe just inside thinking you're crazy

 

[jesterrific]

Ack, I'm behind on your TR, how did that happen? lol

Awwww man your photos pulling out of St Thomas....I MISS it so much!!!!!! Miss the Fantasy SOOOOO much!!!

Love the animation show at Animators on your second night of dining there, so much fun. We didn't take photos of ours dancing either, went by too quickly and we were laughing too hard like you guys were.

Mmmmmmm .....Palo brunch. I have to say above all the other fabulous things about a Disney cruise, I would DROP all of IT as long as I could still eat at Palo Like you, we also felt a little awkward having someone else carry out plates around the buffet as we told them what we wanted. This didn't happen on our first cruise (Sept 2015) and I don't like this change. We loaded up our plates but did not go up for second plates (like we did previous) and this time we shared one plate of desserts. Ha....gotta let the insecurities go on our next cruise

Sad it's the last day......awwww man but still lots of good things to come I think

Will you write up a TR for your cruise?? Best way to relive your vacation hahaha

Yeah, we actually went up for seconds for our favourite stuff at the buffet HAHA figured we were dress decent enough when some people were WAY more casual so really... who cares LOL! Plus we ended up ordering off the menu too so it was PLENTY of food!!! (My mom decided that she still liked Cabanas better because you can still get crab upstairs. There was nicer stuff in Palo, obviously, but mostly she likes crab haha)

 

[jesterrific]

PROGRESS UPDATE:

Glendon and I will be leaving for our Asia Disney trip exactly one week from now, and originally I had planned to finish this guy off before heading out. I'm not too sure if I will be able to get the last blasted out before we go though! I'll try my very best... otherwise there might be about a 3 to 4 week hiatus coming soon! But I will try haha

 

[bcwife76]

You are the second person (TODAY!) to ask on here if I'll do a TR so I guess I better

have an awesome time on your Asia trip!!!!

 

[franandaj]

PROGRESS UPDATE:

Glendon and I will be leaving for our Asia Disney trip exactly one week from now, and originally I had planned to finish this guy off before heading out. I'm not too sure if I will be able to get the last blasted out before we go though! I'll try my very best... otherwise there might be about a 3 to 4 week hiatus coming soon! But I will try haha

Wow! How exciting! An Asia trip. I hope you do aTR! Are you hitting all three parks? Or I guess I should say locations since Tokyo has two parks. I've read TRs on HK Disney but not on the others!

 

[TestingH2O]

Asia Disney trip? How fun! Have I hope you guys have a great time!