o 2 Year Fantasy: Nov 2-9, 2013 o

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 15, 2014

Hi everyone! Welcome to my trip report!

My husband and I sailed on the Fantasy November 2nd - 9th and we had an amazing time!! Ideally I wanted to make this trip report a long time ago but am now just getting to it :confused3

I don't know where all of my time goes.

Anyway, a little back story about us:
We met back in 2009 while we were both doing the Disney College Program in Walt Disney World!! He was a photo pass photographer at Magic Kingdom and I worked the front desk at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa/Disney's Old Key West Resort :thumbsup2

We remained the best of friends all throughout our internship and began our official long distance dating relationship New Years Day 2010 <3 Fast forward 1 year, 11 months and 4 days (1 move 500 miles for me, 2 apartments, one house and 3 cats later)... we got MARRIED!!

With me originally being from Minnesota and him originally being from Indiana we quickly decided the only option for us was to get married at the place it all started in the first place... Walt Disney World <3 !!

We got ready at the tree houses at Saratoga Springs, had our ceremony in the Walt Disney Wedding Paviion and our Reception at the Ballroom at the Grand Floridian!! It was AMAZING!! We had two very special guests of honor at our wedding...

Anyway, that's about enough of "meet the cast"

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 15, 2014

And So it Begins!!

I think I have decided to break this up in categories rather than day by day since I honestly don't remember day by day anymore... oops!

I do, however, remember everything that we did, so fear not!

If I don't have pictures of it, I will post a written recap about it and at some point I will post the must do's and the skip it's.

So here we go!! First up is:

PRE CRUISE

We had to wake up VERY early to get to the Indianapolis International Airport, but we made it and took some "selfles". I was SO excited to be going back to florida and took a picture of the very first palm trees that I saw out of the plane window

We were also excited because we were invited to try out the magic bands!!

We were staying at the brand new Villa's at Disney's Grand Floridian and couldn't WAIT to see what it looked like!!

Once we got on Magical Express and got to the resort, we got all checked in, but... our room wasn't ready. With it being only about 11am we didn't really expect it to be. Especially since we had a 2 bedroom villa all to ourselves!! (Thanks again, mom and dad!)

So we walked around the Grand reminiscing about our wedding memories... when we ran into Richard <3 This is the sweetest cast member you will ever meet. He had helped carry my train at that very spot on my wedding day, so I loved that I got a chance to talk to him!! After that, we took a bus over to down town disney and made tshirts to wear for sail away! ...72 bucks later (ouch!)... they were finished

The cast member at the design a tshirt store was super nice and talked to us about how she was a new cast member and had not been on a cruise before and was super jealous!

As soon as we got onto the bus to head back to the resort, we got a text saying OUR ROOM WAS READY!!! Perfect timing

We couldn't wait to check it out!!

We lovvvved the room!!! It was BEAUTIFUL! my parents even surprised us with ordering a duplicate of the top of our wedding cake since we never got ours and it was DELICIOUS! We also had a perfect view out of our room of the wedding pavilion, which was just amazing!
The only complaint that I had about the room was I personally thought the beds were a bit hard, but Tim loved them...
Tim also loved taking a bath and watching cartoons in the bathroom mirror... even though he could have taken a shower and layed in bed and watched an ACTUAL tv lol... he wanted the "full experience"...

I also thought it was interesting that the master bath shower had a sign by it that said it could hold 5 people.

That's it for this post!! Up next: MNSSHP & SAIL AWAY DAY!! :yay:

lauralynn0612 · Jan 15, 2014

Following along... A Disney wedding! How fun! My husband and I are celebrating our 2nd anniversary on the Disney Fantasy in May. Looking forward to your report.

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 15, 2014

lauralynn0612 said:
Following along... A Disney wedding! How fun! My husband and I are celebrating our 2nd anniversary on the Disney Fantasy in May. Looking forward to your report.

Thanks!!

The wedding was SO awesome!! DCL is such an amazing way to celebrate an anniversary <3 I hope you have an incredible time and I hope my trip report gets you excited for your trip! Have you ever sailed DCL before?

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 15, 2014

Magic Kingdom & Sail Away Day

Another update!!

The first night that we were in Orlando we went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP). Now, before you all get disappointed, please keep this in mind: My husband and I used to be cast members. We have done every ride 2364297429 times. We have met practically every character. We have ate at almost every place we can and think that waiting 5 minutes in a Disney Line is too long. Yes, we have been REALLY spoiled

So, with that being said, we went to the party mainly to just take in the MK, meet some new friends from the boards and our Facebook group, and to check out the New Fantasyland.
I was very excited when my favorite bear waved hi :cheer2:

As I mentioned a second ago, Tim and I had "met" a bunch of people online via the DIS and Facebook that were going on the same sailing as we were

Over about 6 months we all got to know each other and it eventually became like we had known each other for years! It was so much fun meeting a few of them for the first time!

After our meet up and "see ya tomorrow"'s we took some typical MK tourist shots

and watched our favorite parade, and went on our favorite ride :cheer2:

We also head over to the new Fantasy Land as I wanted to try the brew and we just HAD to see Beast Castle. The brew was alright and the castle... ugh! We were SO disappointed!! New Fantasy Land was a total let down for us.

Magic Kingdom had such LOW crowd levels that we had done everything we wanted to do by 6:30... we got in at 4pm with MNSSHP tickets only. So... we boarded the monorail back to the Grand Floridian Villas!!

I'm SUPER glad I did. We didn't get back until 8pm! I have no idea where the massive monorail crowd came from!! We ate dinner at the quick service selection at the Grand and went back to the room! I was exhausted after my big day which started at 4am! But we still had not gotten our DCL transfer information so I called the front desk....who connected me to bell services...who connected me with DCL....who connected me to a department within DCL....who told me my transfer was picking me up at: SARATOGA SPRINGS?!?! What?!? :confused3

So after that frustrating phone call and getting it all sorted out... I took a shower in the shower that fits five people (hah!- still cracks me up!) and went to bed!

Only to wake up consistently and toss and turn all night long. WORST sleep i've had in a while. But on the bright side: IT WAS NOW SAIL AWAY DAY!!! And I woke up to an amazing sunrise!!

That was the prettiest part of the day. After that, it POURED! Like... absolutely POURED. All darn morning. The entire bus ride to the port... as the bus parked... and then: It was like the sun put on it's mickey ears as soon as our bus doors opened it was like the rain switch was just turned off and it was bone dry. Not a drop of rain the rest of the day! It was incredible!!

I'll post more about the actual events of boarding day tomorrow, but until then: Let's go Sail Away! <3

Princess Michelle · Jan 15, 2014

Linda67 · Jan 16, 2014

Really enjoying your TR :goodvibes

How exciting to have got married at Disney!
The anniversary Ts came out really well - great idea
Looking forward to hearing more about your cruise

lauralynn0612 · Jan 16, 2014

We have not sailed DCL before. We went on a Carnival cruise for our honeymoon and had a great time so I am expecting this cruise to be just as good if not better!

lauralynn0612 · Jan 16, 2014

Linda67 said:
Really enjoying your TR
How exciting to have got married at Disney!
The anniversary Ts came out really well - great idea
Looking forward to hearing more about your cruise

Hi, Linda! I am on your May 31 Fantasy cruise! :cool1:

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 16, 2014

Princess Michelle said:
I'm having an "It's a small world" moment right now. We were on this same cruise and you guys were totally in the same Mixology class as us!

Cruise 2013 717 by princessm112877, on Flickr

I'm standing right next to you! You and my husband were in the same drink group. So funny!

Looking forward to reading the rest of your report!

That's TOO CRAZY! lol I loved that class and the post after my next one will be all about my love for skyline and mixology lol

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 16, 2014

Linda67 said:
Really enjoying your TR
How exciting to have got married at Disney!
The anniversary Ts came out really well - great idea
Looking forward to hearing more about your cruise

Thanks

! We...well, ... I loved our shirts too!! It's a lot of fun making them

Have you ever done that before? Tim wasn't too excited about the idea, but I absolutely HAD to do it. And I needed him to at least ACT excited about it lol

lauralynn0612 said:
We have not sailed DCL before. We went on a Carnival cruise for our honeymoon and had a great time so I am expecting this cruise to be just as good if not better!

You MUST try DCL!! We did Carnival for our honeymoon as well and loved it but they are two totally different cruise lines. We prefer carnival in some ways and disney in some ways!

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 16, 2014

Sail Away Day & All Around the Fantasy

So the DCL bus doors opened and the rain stopped! We went into the terminal building, went through security and noticed that christmas decorations were already up in there! We waited about 10 minutes to check in (Castaway Club!!) and had our KTTW cards and we were on our way!

We skipped that first photo op and went straight to board the ship!
"Disney Fantasy... Please welcome the PAUL Family!"... *insert happy tears here!*

Im not even kidding when I say this... but within ONE minute of being on board I hear: CRISSA!!! CRISSA!!!! CRISSA!!! ... it was a friend I had not met yet from our Facebook group! I felt like a celebrity lol

So we went to guest services to find out where to book Palo. We had done Palo Brunch on the Dream and wanted to try for both on the Fantasy. So up to Palo we went and we got BOTH of our requests

Palo Dinner on Nov 5th (Our Anniversary!) and Palo brunch on the 7th!

After we got Palo Booked it was off to Cabanas for lunch but I kept getting side tracked by all the people who recognized me hah! I hardly ate anything :rotfl2:

So we just decided to get acquainted with the ship!

OHHHH And I forgot to mention that they PUT UP THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS right before we boarded!! We were the first ship with them

Shortly after walking around, our room was ready! We had a Category 8B Family Ocean View. We liked the room, location was great (WAY forward and right by a huge laundry room) but we felt SO much motion. This was my sixth cruise (5th on Disney) and I had never had such problems before! The Very last night I woke up in tears from thinking we were going to die. It was awful.

But... here are more pictures

We went to Skyline to Purchase a Passport... now: I don't want to get ahead of myself because my entire next post will be about skyline: But if you like to drink, even occasionally... GET THE PASSPORT!! You prepay for 5 drinks and get two free. I want to say it was like 65 bucks a person... and they will make you any drink, it doesn't have to be on their menu!! We each got one and went for a drink every night!!

We also went to the spa so I could sign up for an up-do for Formal night. I had already booked my fire and ice pedi online

We did our life boat drill, which for the second year in a row our spot was in the walt disney theater, which Im a big fan of! And then it was off to the sail away party

The day went by so quickly

After that of course was dinner, and skyline and welcome shows and everything, which will be another update all together broken down by category

Next up:

Skyline!!

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 16, 2014

SKYLINE

This might have been my favorite part of the vacation!! Before we had left I was doing some research and came across "The Passport". This is a booklet you purchase that basically has you prepay for 5 drinks and giving you two drinks free. My husband and I each purchased one, but we could have purchased one total and shared it if we wanted to. The thing that sold me on us each getting our own was Jerry, the bartender said he could make us any drink we wanted, it didn't have to be on the menu. When he mentioned chocolate martini- he had officially won over my heart and stole $135 bucks out of my wallet

We went practically every night to get a martini of some sort. Some nights we would go to skyline and bring the drink into the adult only shows so that was nice that they let us do that

Jerry was BY FAR one of my favorite cast members. Many times Tim and I would be the ONLY people in skyline so he spent a lot of time talking to us and getting to know us. He really cared about what we liked to drink and each night he would recommend a different drink to us that was a little more "adventurous" than the prior night. The best part was that he told us to trust him and if we didn't like it, he would make us something else- he just wanted to teach us more about liquor from around the world! So cool!

By the end of the cruise I had tried alcohol that I NEVER would have tried back home. He was also the teacher of our mixology group which was spectacular!!

Here's some of the martinis we had throughout the cruise

Mixology

What a steal! For 15 bucks a person, you get an interactive class which lasts about an hour or so. You get to go behind the bar, the bartender teaches you how to make a drink, and you get to drink it! You also get to drink one of every drink made

Jerry encouraged us to do "proper" pours with long counts

We were feeling goooooood by the end of the class!!

Here's a photo of the drink list! I loved them ALL , except for the one that contained champagne. Im just not much of a fan of champagne. But I still drank it.

I was put in the first group

I made the "irish connection" which had Irish Whiskey, Amaretto, Limencello, lemon mix, fresh mint, and soda water. It was quite delightful!

Tim was in the last group and he made the "Baby Guinness". I didn't think I was going to like it... but it was SOOOOOOOO good. And I was ssoooooo sad that I only got one. I went back to skyline that night to ask Jerry if I could get one using my skyline passport and he said yes, and that he would give me two for one since they were small

BEST FRIEND!!! lol

Tim was feeling it a bit more than I was afterwards and so he head to the room to do this...

Haha!

Overall, I absolutely LOVED skyline. Everyone needs to stop in there at least once. The scenery changes every 12 minutes and the people in the pictures are actually all star wars characters and they move! So if that is something you are into, then definitely pay attention to the scenery! I learned SO much during my time in skyline and Jerry was the best bartender ever!

Linda67 · Jan 16, 2014

What a great couple of updates! I had a drink or two in Skyline on our Fantasy cruise and loved it in there. I had no idea about the passport and that is now a MUST for our next trip

Our cruise FB group are having a private Mixology session - did Jerry provide the drinks list for you had would be great for everyone to have one

lauralynn0612 · Jan 16, 2014

We are doing Mixology on our cruise. Good to know you liked the Guiness one. That's the one I have been wondering about. The rest look tasty! Midori is my favorite so I hope we have that one.

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 16, 2014

Linda67 said:
What a great couple of updates! I had a drink or two in Skyline on our Fantasy cruise and loved it in there. I had no idea about the passport and that is now a MUST for our next trip
Our cruise FB group are having a private Mixology session - did Jerry provide the drinks list for you had would be great for everyone to have one

Yes! Everyone got a copy of the drink list

I couldn't guarantee mine would make it home in one piece so we took a picture of it lol

I *think* the passport can only be purchased on the first day as a special... don't hold me to that, but I think I read that some where. Just FYI so you don't miss out!

lauralynn0612 said:
We are doing Mixology on our cruise. Good to know you liked the Guiness one. That's the one I have been wondering about. The rest look tasty! Midori is my favorite so I hope we have that one.

Oh yeah! The Midori one was FAB! we had him make us a full size one a time or two lol. The Guinness one though was so delightful. Its hard to explain but like a mudslide- if you like that. like a chocolate martini. oh gosh. I want one now lol!!

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 16, 2014

Island Hoppin'

So here's the deal... we've been there done that with St. Maarten and St. Thomas. I wasn't thrilled about going back there, but it was a free cruise for me so who am I to complain lol.

Therefore, this update isn't much. Because we didn't do much. We slept in, ate breakfast at cabanas, got off the ship, looked around for a bit and went back on board to the pools and took naps lol.

Except for Castaway! We spent the entire day just hanging out on the beach and in the water

St. Maarten

St. Thomas

Castaway Cay

Overall: On any island OTHER THAN castaway... I would be perfectly content with just not getting off the ship. Booking excursions through Disney are SO expensive and booking outside of Disney just seems too risky to me. A lot of people get off the ship so I find that the pools tend to be less crowded and port days are the only times i've been able to walk right on the aqua duck

On Castaway here are my thoughts:
The adult beach is nice, but rocky in the water. I don't like that and I like to be in the ocean, so I don't prefer the adult beach. I'd rather be with a bunch of kids and semi smooth ocean bottom so therefore, I prefer the family beach.

I love Konk Coolers! They are delicious.

And for the love of all things good in this world, WEAR SUNSCREEN!!! lol I could be sitting in my cabin on the ship and just LOOK outside and I will get sunburnt on Castaway. This is the only place that this happens to me. I normally don't burn. I could BATHE in sunscreen every 10 minutes and still burn. I don't know what it is, but take it from me... it's not the most fun thing in the world flying with a sunburn. It's just not. :rotfl:

DMMarla07860 · Jan 17, 2014

following along, love your report so far. I had to right down the stuff that was said to be in the Midori drink at the Mixology, we have some at home and I'm trying to make different drinks to get it gone lol

Princess Michelle · Jan 17, 2014

epfootballcutie04 · Jan 17, 2014

DMMarla07860 said:
following along, love your report so far. I had to right down the stuff that was said to be in the Midori drink at the Mixology, we have some at home and I'm trying to make different drinks to get it gone lol

Thank you! I've looked everywhere for Midori and I can't find it :-( I just bought some amaretto tonight but I was looking hard for Midori!

Princess Michelle said:
I'm so happy that you kept the sheet of drinks from the mixology class and took a picture of it! I saved mine but couldn't find it anywhere when we got home. The only one I could remember was the Baby Guinness because it was only 2 ingredients! LOL I make them at home all the time now!

I don't have either of those two ingredients and I wish I could find smaller bottles of them because I wasn't about to spend almost 40 bucks on two bottles lol

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