Ports of Call
On this particular cruise we went to : St. Maarten, St. Thomas and
Castaway Cay. I had been to all of them before and while there are a number of excursions that we could have picked from, we didn't do any. To be honest, I really didn't even feel like getting off of the ship. We did get off though and we just walked around, stayed close to the ship, looked in some shops and snapped a couple photos and went back on board. The exception to this is Castaway. Now THIS is the island to enjoy
If you have not been there before, the Disney ships are the only ones that are there so the only people you have to deal with are those that are on your sailing. The beaches are perfect, the water is perfect, the sun is SUEPR INTENSE so please wear sunscreen!! The cast members from the cruise work on the island as well, so your entertainment staff plans fun activities, they have a couple places throughout the island that have free bar-b-q's and anything you buy you use your KTTW card, so no need to bring cash out with you! It might be my favorite place in the entire world
On previous cruises I have also been to: Nassau, Cayman Islands, and Falmouth Jamaica. They are all nice, I really enjoyed The Cayman Islands but that is because of the excursions we did...which is next.
Excursions
Since we all know now, that we didn't book excursions this trip, I'll briefly mentions ones I have done before:
Cayman Islands: Swam with the dolphins and stingray. This was incredible. The stingray were in the middle of the ocean at a sand bar, so they were "wild" stingray so they definitely make you sign waivers and stuff because anything can happen, but... it was SO COOL!!! The dolphin part was more of an enclosed area where they contain the dolphins. It was super fun, but I had done it a few times before on other vacations. I was more impressed with the stingrays.
Nassau: Went to Atlantis Hotel to hang at the beaches. This was fun! It was about a 15 minute or so bus ride to the hotel and we had the option of 3 different beaches to relax at. If we would have upgraded our wristbands (for something like an additional $75 bucks/person
) we could have used the hotel pools as well. We did not do that. Our excursion also let us talk a self guided tour of the aquarium which was pretty neat!
Castaway: We always rent water tubes and floaty stuff... but I've also been parasailing here before. It was really fun and you get an amazing view of the ship. I believe they only let you go up to 400 feet. And the time up I felt was really short. Ive been parasailing in hawaii before and they let me go up something like 1200 feet and it felt like a much longer time. I preferred that! But it was still fun in Castaway
My sister has done the stingray excursion at castaway and she said she really liked it. It's not as intense as the thing we did in the Cayman islands so this may be the option for the people who want to see them and feed them but don't want to get all up in their business.
I found some photos from these excursions, so after I'm done with my write ups, i'll post some more photos with brief explanations
Entertainment
Deck Shows: We have only ever seen the sail away show. But we aren't really paying full attention to it since ya know... we have drinks in our hand and theres about 439479127192 things on our mind of things we want to check out and do
Stage Shows
We learned before that "The Golden Mickey's" are my favorite!! This show, however, was not on the Fantasy and I was heart broken
. I got over it though. Because the shows that ARE on the Fantasy are amazing. These are the shows we saw...
1. Night one:
A Fantasy Come True: This was cute! It introduced you to the performers and showed a cute description of what to look forward to the next week on board! I liked it!
2.
Aladdin: I liked it a lot... I just don't understand to this day, how you can have a show about Aladdin when you include the magic carpet and Genie, but NO ABU!
I just don't get it.
3.
Wishes: I liked it. Im glad I saw it. I don't know if I'll see it again though.
4.
Believe: Same thing. Liked it, glad I saw it, but I don't know if I'll see it again
5.
An Unforgetable Journey: oh dear. This is done on the last night and i was a sobbing wreck. I'm a very emotional person and I cried through the whole thing. it was awful. I mean it was so good... but thinking back through the week at the lovely times my husband and I had, and the friendships we made, and the cast members we met, and then over my entire vacation history and employment with Disney and all that... i couldn't stop crying. lol Happy tears of course.
6.
Buckets and Boards: You have to see them if they are on your sailing. You just HAVE to. I cried again... from laughing so hard! They are amazing and super duper funny! I loved it. So much so, that we saw them perform three times while we were on board.
7.
Comedy and Ventriloquism of Lynn Trefzger: I saw her adult only act and it was super funny. Tim went to her family show while I slept in and got ready for the day and he said it was really funny! I cought the last 10 minutes or so of it and liked it
8.
Magic and Illusion of Shawn Farquhar: I won't waste my time with him again. We saw him a couple times...family show and adult show. I was only impressed a couple times by a couple card tricks he did. Other than that I guess I was expecting a lot more for the hype they gave him.
Movies on Board
If you have nothing else to do or are looking for a great place to take a nap, check out the movie theater! I say take a nap because that's what happened every time I went in the theater. I always fell asleep
. Not by choice either... i always WANTED to see the show playing, but I just always ended up falling asleep.
Adult Activities
Match Your Mate is a must do. The couples in this show become infamous through out your entire sailing and they are often referred to in other shows on board, so the jokes made at their expense won't be funny unless you see this show! Do it... trust me! It's a good time! It's Disney's version of a show like the newly wed game.
Battle of the Sexes Tim and I both participated in this show. It was fun, but I might pick something else to do next time.
Adult Scavanger Hunt absolutely hysterical... think of this "the first team to show me a man, wearing a woman's bra..."
... it's an 18+ event. You have to see it to believe it.
DVC and Adventures By Disney Presentations
You get free stuff. It's cool. My family is part of DVC but Tim and I went anyway because sometime in the future we are thinking about buying into it. It's also on the top of my bucket list to do an Adventures By Disney trip... I REALLY WANT TO DO THE AFRICA ONE!!! So we went to check that out too! When Im saying you get free stuff, we were one of three couples at the adventures meeting... and they gave out a free disney woven blanket to one couple (it wasn't us) ! It's nice stuff
! They didn't pressure us at any point but I will warn you that they sell their products well. I was
thisclose to purchasing DVC that minute.
Internet on Board
It's expensive. But we did it. It's nice to bring your own computer and use the wifi in the guest rooms. It's pretty good wifi too, we even skyped with my parents back home late one night. Some people really enjoy being without all the technology and for a 4 or 5 night cruise, I can handle it. 7 nights was just too much.
On Board Airline Checkin
This is a great service that Disney provides. You provide them with your flight information and they check you in on board, deliver your boarding passes to your room for you and take care of all that stuff for you so you don't have to worry about it at the airport. This is especially convenient if you have added
DCL transportation services to the airport because then you don't have to worry about your luggage either.
to Disney for always providing me with stress free vacations
I'll gladly pay a few extra bucks so I don't have to worry about it! On board airline check in is FREE to use.
Tours: Art of the Theme Show
This is an absolutely incredible tour. I shared a couple facts earlier in my report that I learned and I could talk on and on and on and on about it. It's an adult only tour and I'm fairly certain it was free to do (after a while you just start swiping that KTTW card, don't ya!?!
). It is a walking tour, so if you aren't capable of doing the stairs, they will wait for you to take the elevator. We really REALLY enjoyed it and Kaitlyn, who gave the tour was just outstanding. She ended up being the Cast Member in charge of a lot of activities we went to, including trivia as well, so after a couple days she would see us around a lot and make special mention that she recognized us
. After thousands different people, i'm still not sure how they do it!
Debarkation / Breakfast
I hate this day more than anything in my life. Everyone is lugging their stuff around, the elevators suck and people are crabby because they are going home, the adults are stressed because the kids are out of control and sad they have to leave, the adults are also sad they have to leave, the cast members are running around like crazy animals trying to prep the ships turn around, it's just a hot mess of a day. No one enjoys it and therefore I think that the next time I'm on board they should just make a rule that we get to stay on the ship forever.
Breakfast though... you eat in the same restaurant that you had your last dinner in. so for us, it was animators. It's always so sad because your wait staff becomes like your new best friends and everyone is saying goodbye to one another and it's just miserable.
I did learn though that cabanas IS open for breakfast the last morning and that they just don't advertise it. So there's that. We will probably do that the next cruise we go on.
Gosh... now that I'm depressed...
Spa
I got two services: I got my hair done for formal night... this was really nice. The lady I had was very good and I was very pleased with how it turned out. She got my "impossible to curl" hair to not only curl, but STAY curled... even in the windy upper decks!
I also got the fire and ice pedicure... can we talk about how heavenly that was? I'm a big fan of that.
On Board Shopping
You can find, name brand items such as handbags, jewelry, liquors... ornaments, clothing, toys and toiletries... pretty much anything you "forget" they have you covered
On Board Laundry
I never wanted to be that girl that spends her vacation doing laundry, but I'm glad I did! The machines can be a little difficult to figure out how to use, but once I figured them out, I set the alarm on my cell phone to come back to change it out and we went and played midship detective while waiting... that's something that you don't have to do in one session- you can come back to it later, so that was really nice!
Overall Service
The overall service we received on this vacation was far above par. Every cast member always had a smile on their face, they were always cleaning, always pleasant, always willing to answer questions, and just overall pretty dang magical pixie dust:
Overall Condition of Ship
BEAUTIFUL. I didn't notice anything that looked like it needed to be upgraded or cleaned.
Well I guess that pretty much wraps it up! My next post or two will be of photos from other ships (Disney Dream) and the excursions I've been on with some descriptions... these excursions may not have been done ON Disney but I know Disney offers them...
I hope you all enjoyed my fantasy report! If you have any questions about the Fantasy I'd be happy to answer them for you
:good vibes
, and taking photos around the ship like in "my" throne... and goofing around after we got out of our formal night attire 
. Then they called us back about 3 minutes later saying they found it and it would be up in about 15 minutes. 
