Our Last Minute Disney Fantasy: July 7 - 14 UPDATED 10-26 Days 1-4 Complete!

[Ready to go]

Enjoying the report!!

 

[cheryllarsen]

Every Disney cruise is better than the last!

 

[cheryllarsen]

September ALaskan cruise planned. We are so excited!

 

[blueladybug]

Great trip report. I'm subscribing! Love your tie-dye shirts! Hope you don't mind if I ask where you got them? We are going on the fantasy next year and I wanted to get similar shirts with a purple mickey to honor my sister in-law who passed away. Thanks.

 

[cruiselover1191]

Subscribed! I am enjoying hearing about your cruise on the Fantasy...going on the Fantasy April 27, 2013...it can't get here soon enough! lol Thanks for sharing!

~Ashley

 

[Sunseeker17]

Waiting for more...loving the pics!

 

[DisneyRhondaKay]

Eagerly awaiting more. I love the matching shirts. Did you make them yourself?

 

[disgeek009]

Thanks for the trip report, it sounds fantastic! I'm subscribing to hear the rest!

 

[Andianna]

Good Report More Please! Your little boy is so cute love that smile and curly hair. So reminds me of my grandson.

 

[MNMICKEY]

We are sailing the Fantasy in Oct. Can't wait to read more.

 

[Joanna71985]

Following along! Loving the TR. I am sailing on the Fantasy in Oct, and I can't wait!

Captain Mickey was out and my son really wanted to meet him, so we hopped in line. While we were waiting (only a few minutes) they called our boarding number. We took a few pictures with Mickey, grabbed our carry ons and headed through the Mickey ears to begin our best vacation ever!

I think my son's face in this pic accurately expresses the excitement we were all feeling!

How cute!! I love this picture

 

[Nikki'sMommy]

I'M IN!!!! Awesome so far. Your son is precious and what you said about seeing things through his eyes rings so true...very touching.. More, please.

 

[steph5377]

Great report, really enjoyed reading it!

 

[Keggy]

Great trip report! Do you have a pic of the bed with the bedrails? We are trying to decide if we should put DD in the pack and play or if we should try her in the bed. She will be 15 months when we cruise in Sept. She has slept in the pack and play just fine on her previous two cruises, but I was thinking more of the saving the space mind set...

 

[Shannon84]

Enjoying the TR so far

 

[SerendipityDoDa]

Loving the report!! Can't wait for more!! And I agree with everyone...your son is adorable!!

 

[disney1990]

Great trip report - we sail on the Fantasy in 2 months.

 

[SCMouseFans]

Sorry for the extremely long delay everyone! As it turns out, I have a hard time coming by these boards when we don't have a trip planned. Thankfully I have good notes, so I can pick up the trip report where we left off.

(And yes, these means we have another cruise in the works!)

I hope everyone who cruised in the meantime had as much fun as we did!

 

[SCMouseFans]

I'm so sorry, I just read through and realized some of you had asked questions! If you still need responses:

We ordered our matching Mickey tie-dye shirts from a seller on Etsy. I think there are several who make them. If you go to Etsy and search for Mickey shirts you should find them.

As far as the bedrail, I can't find a picture of it. We have a "standard" bed rail on his twin bed at home, and this bed rail is the same size and of similar design. It covers a good portion of the side of the bed in the middle, but leaves probably 18 inches at the top and bottom of the bed? If your child still moves and twists around a lot while sleeping she could wind up at one end or the other where there is no bedrail. But if she is a pretty still sleeper it might work for her! (You might have already sailed, but maybe this info could help someone else if that is the case)

 

[SCMouseFans]

Early Morning
I woke up at 4 AM on Day Two. For some reason I am an insanely early riser on vacation. This is one of the reasons I love being on a cruise ship - I can slip out of the room and walk around, which is what I did. If you really want to take your time checking out the public areas of the ship 4 -6 AM is a great time for it.

I headed back to our room at 5 AM. From 6-7 AM I could hear a lot of noise coming from Cabana's above. It sounded like they were moving the tables and chairs around. The noise didn't wake my husband or son, so I think I only noticed it because I was awake.

Breakfast:
They woke up around 7:30 and we got dressed and headed down to Enchanted Garden for breakfast. I recommend paying attention to the Navigators and trying out the other options for breakfast when they are open. Only Cabana's served breakfast every day, Enchanted Garden and Royal Palace were not open for breakfast every day.

The selection is, of course, smaller than what you will find at Cabanas, but at 8 AM there were very few people in the restaurant. There was no line for food, and we appreciated the drink service! We had a very nice waitress who recommended skipping Costa Maya altogether. She also recommended taking a later tender to Grand Cayman to avoid the initial rush to get off the ship.

Mickey, and waking up with Disney Jr
After breakfast we went to meet Mickey again. We were only the third group in line, so we didn't wait long at all. My son carried a car with him much of the time, and he was so excited to show his car to Mickey. Mickey played with the car, then they took a picture. I was really impressed by every character interaction. The characters really took their time with our son and we never felt rushed.

After that we headed to D Lounge for Wake Up with Disney Jr. This was great, and I'd recommend checking it out if you have kids. My son had a blast with Goofy and running around and dancing with the other kids. Almost every picture I have is blurry because they were on the go!

The Kids Club
We had a reservation for our son in the It's A Small World Nursery from 10 - 11 AM. We referred to it as the "kids club" throughout our cruise, because he had a bad experience in the nursery at my gym and I didn't want him to associate that with this new place. I am a stay at home Mom, and aside from a couple of attempts at the gym nursery he had never been with anyone but me, my husband and my Mom. He seemed really excited to go to the "kids club" and he kept asking about it. He received a wristband and name tag on his back when we arrived, then he headed through the gate without even saying goodbye. He headed straight for some toys he had scoped out during the open house the day before.

My husband and I headed straight for the hot tub in the quiet cove area. Even though it was a sea day and the family pools were crowded the quiet cove area had plenty of room to spread out. The hot tubs were empty when we arrived, so we spent some time soaking, then jumped in the pool. A few minutes before 11 we headed to the nursery to pick my son up. I peaked through the gated door and he was happily playing and snacking on crackers. The staff assured me he had not cried, fussed or been upset for even one minute, and we all proclaimed it to be a successful trial run. He immediately told us he "had fun in kids club" and we made another reservation.

A few hints: I know they suggest booking times in advance, but we had no problem getting reservations whenever we needed them. A couple of times during our cruise we just dropped by and were able to leave him for an hour. You can send along packaged snacks into the kids club, but they also have saltines, bananas and yogurt for snacks throughout the day, so don't feel that you have to send a snack in with your child. We had brought along a few small packages of his favorite graham crackers and they never touched those - he ate the snacks they provided. The staff in the nursery were fantastic. I felt so comfortable with everyone, and they quickly learned of Ben's love of Cars, and would often put the Cars movie on for him while he was there.

After picking him up we went to Cabanas for a snack, then back to our room to rest. Our son watched Cars until he fell asleep for his nap.

Up next: the rest of our day, including Aladdin and formal night