Just off Fantasy - First Time DCL Trip Report of our Western Caribbean Voyage!

Hi Everyone! I am just off the Disney Fantasy and had a wonderful vacation! We sailed on the 7 night Western Caribbean sailing out of Port Canaveral on September 18th. I have done several photo trip reports before, but this will be the first of a Disney Cruise for me. I am a pretty avid Cruise Critic reader and used to the high traffic forums and roll calls of NCL, Celebrity, and Carnival. That being said, I was disappointed to see the much slower Disney board here on CC. Those that were on here helped tremendously though! Hopefully more people coming back and writing trip reports will eventually help make the board more lively. There was an active social media page for my sailing, as well as another online forum, however I am just used to Cruise Critic and really prefer that to either of the info sources listed above.

A little about me and our traveling party before I start: I am Valerie and tagged along on this trip with my aunt and cousins. I’m a teacher and had the whole week off. Unfortunately, my husband did not, so I left him at home with our sweet Boston Terrier, Maizy. He was a very good sport about it, although I can’t say the same for Maizy! My cousin Darla, her husband Bubba, and his kids, Bayleigh (10), and Will (12) planned the trip. My aunt Donna (Darla’s mom) completed our party. We were laughing all week thinking that the crew, especially the photographers, never could quite figure out how we were all related!

I have sailed Celebrity, NCL, and Carnival, and my cousins and aunt had previously sailed Carnival several times. It was Baileigh and Will’s first cruise though, so they were in for such a treat. I told Darla she had set the bar really high for their first vacation, it’s going to be hard to top that one in the future!

I will also preface this by saying I’m not a “Disney Person”, and neither are my family members. I think probably you all know what I mean by that. I went to Disney several times as a child, but grew out of it. I still really like Disney. I am a theatre and chorus director so of course I respect the brand and LOVE the musicals, but wouldn’t choose to vacation at Disney World or go on a cruise on that brand without children. I would much prefer Universal and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! [This was my opinion before the cruise, stay tuned for some evolution on that thought]. I am however, a “Cruise Person”, so any opportunity to get on a ship I jump at, even if I was slightly hesitant about the whole Disney thing.

So here we are! We are all smiles here, having just left north Georgia on Friday afternoon, bound for Cape Canaveral.

Once we hit horrible Atlanta traffic, our smiles dimmed a little, but we were still excited. We didn’t make it to our hotel until around 2 in the morning, yikes! We stayed at the Courtyard at Cocoa Beach and it was very nice. Although it didn’t have a continental breakfast, they did have a Starbucks which was badly needed after our late night! We were able to take a nice walk on the already-hot-beach with our coffee and it felt so good for toes to touch sand!

After a stop at Wal-Mart for some last minute items, we were off to the port!

On the way down to Port Canaveral, we had all downloaded the Navigator App. I had actually downloaded mine a few days prior, but I recommend getting it even earlier if you like to see the countdown clock. My countdown clock on the morning of embarkation: what a happy sight!

It’s always so exciting to get that first glimpse of the ship! Here she is from where you enter the luggage drop off area.

This was the smoothest, most relaxed check in process ever. We arrived at the port around noon, which was about a half hour late of our arrival window, but I’m glad we got there later as the lines were short and the luggage drop off area was very relaxed. I usually only cruise with my husband, so I learned quickly that what takes just a short time with two adults takes about 3x the amount of time when traveling with four adults and two kids! So, it was nice to not have a pushy crowd around us at arrival.

We got in the short check-in line and once at the counter, we were given these cards as well as the paper version of the Navigator.

While it said a boarding #, we actually didn’t even have to wait, we were told we could walk right on! We did pause though for a picture with Mickey, and to get the kids signed up for the much anticipated Kids Clubs - Oceaneer Club for Bayleigh and The Edge for Will.

Well, my lesson plans aren’t going to write themselves and I still have household tasks to do (what, nobody to change my sheets, wash my dishes, and make my lunch!?). You all know that post-cruise feeling, ha! I’ll be back tomorrow for the next installments!

Thank you for doing this picture review!

We are looking at Disney with family next year and I've not been able to get much "Cruise Critic" type info either.

I'm not a "Disney" person either....loving this review so far! :)

Looking forward to reading your report!

Disney surely knows how to move people. We have done 2 cruises on the Dream both times with about the same port arrival time. The first cruise we arrived just after the resort buses and has to wait maybe 30min. But made use of the time by signing the kids up for the club and the kids were entertained by the Disney characters walking around and taking pictures.

The second time we were able to walk right on as well.

The Vancouver cruise on the Wonder only has waiting lines due to customs, outside of the Mouse's control.

I hope the rest of your cruise went just smooth.

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Great start!

I have to say my experience with any cruise line is either come early-early or come later. Since they were already boarding and had gone past number 4, I'm assuming that you arrived past the big rush.

Still 5 months away from my first DCL cruise (also on Fantasy) but eager to read the rest of your review!

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Great start...I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it. Your pictures are great.

Boarding the ship is, to me, one of the most exciting moments. Even though I always research and look at deckplans, videos, and pictures, nothing compares to actually seeing the space you’re going to call home for the next week. As we approached the atrium, there were attendants who asked our name, and then they welcomed our family by name. I was very impressed with this and felt very welcomed, although I did I miss the glass of champagne that Celebrity gives you!

We had a two connecting staterooms on deck 2, and decided to walk down to see if they were ready. They weren’t, so food was next on the agenda. We were just heading back up the stairs when a staff member informed us that there was a buffet just a few feet from us, in the Enchanted Garden on deck 2. This was ideal and one of the best tips I could give you, as I imagine the buffet Cabanas was a mad house. Enchanted Garden had a buffet set up, but also provided table service - the best of both worlds! It was not crowded at all.

While not everyone in our party loved it, I thought it was fantastic. I do think cabanas would have had more of a variety, but the thought of schlepping my luggage through the crowded buffet area was not appealing at all to me and I would take less variety of food over that any day.

The shrimp was delicious and there was so much fresh seafood on ice. Everything I had was excellent. The best part of this meal though was that we got to meet a server that we would continue to enjoy interacting with the whole vacation. Nicholas from Honduras was fantastic! He would see us around the ship and make a special effort to come over and talk with us. The service on DCL was the best I’ve had on a cruise. I’ve never had a bad experience with service, but they went above and beyond to get to know you, your name, likes, dislikes, etc. It really made it special, especially for the kids.

I decided I needed to kick this vacation up a notch and ordered my first fruity tropical drink - the drink of the day, a “Paradise Punch”.

[side note: you can see my key to the world card above - make sure you have it everywhere you go! The nonsensical letters on there "RAERAAE", were actually the first letters of the restaurants we would dine in each evening. DCL utilizes this genius rotational dining system. More on that later!]

Back to the drinks. . . :D

You can find the drink of the day in both the paper and app versions of the Navigator. Saturday’s was delicious! One of the things I had searched high and wide for before this sailing was what drink packages were available. I got very spoiled on Celebrity and NCL with their “free” drink package perk. It’s so nice to have something like that, even if you pre-pay it. I hate the stress of wondering how much a bill will be when I order something. That being said, I was very pleased with the beverage costs overall on DCL. With the included tax and gratuity, the cost of the drink of the day was only $5.45. This way beats Carnival, their drinks even on special come in around $8-10 and you can only order them on the pool decks. On DCL, you can get the drink of the day anytime day or night, anywhere, even on Castaway Cay! I do wish they offered a true drink package like the other lines though.

We also got our Navigator messaging working while at the table. What a great system! That was so convenient for messaging each other, and Disney does not charge you for this feature the way NCL does. You have a unique code that you have to provide anyone wishing to message you. It’s really easy to figure out, and the disney emojis are particularly cute :-)

Great start...I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it. Your pictures are great.

Thank you so much! I hope it's helpful.

Still 5 months away from my first DCL cruise (also on Fantasy) but eager to read the rest of your review!

 

 

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Thank you! I'll try to get on with it, lol. I'm so tired from having to actually work today that I don't know how much longer I can keep my eyes open :p

Thank you for doing this picture review!

We are looking at Disney with family next year and I've not been able to get much "Cruise Critic" type info either.

I'm not a "Disney" person either....loving this review so far! :)

It's my pleasure!

Ha, I hope I didn't offend anyone saying I'm not a disney person. I think it's really cool how people are. To each his own! Being a theatre/chorus teacher, I have LOTS of students who are super into it. I actually had a former student on the ship who was dressed so perfectly in her princess costumes, that kids were actually thinking she was an "official" princess!

Thanks for your comment :)

I agree EG is the better way to start the cruise then eating at Cabanas.

Can I make 1 request, can not not set the text to black so those using the dark theme on Tapatalk can read it. The app has the screen with a black backgound instead of white and if the text color is not set, then it will auto change to white.

Finally, it was time to see the room! We had two deluxe oceanview staterooms, #2526 and #2524. Donna, Bayleigh, and I shared the former, while Darla, Bubba, and Will were in the latter.

Here’s a pic of the little seahorse hook that was convenient for holding our door sign and also, for papers/bills/thank you cards to be slipped into.

The doors are magnetic and lots of people brought decorations and things called “Fish Extenders” which would also extend from the little seahorse. I never understood the term until I saw that and even still am not positive that’s where it came from. While we didn’t participate, I’ll try to enlighten anyone who was as confused as me when I first heard about it. Fish Extenders are baskets or holders of some kind that people who are assigned to your FE group will come around and leave gifts in. We figured out kind of late in the game, but honestly I’m glad we didn’t participate because from the looks of the gifts on FB, it would have cost a lot in both money and time. People gifted things like personalized magnets, legos, candy, etc. I would definitely do it with little kids though, as that would be so exciting for them, although I might have to take a week off from work to get all those done, ha! A word of caution - there were those in our FB group who talked about their gifts and some of their magnets getting stolen :-( Anyway, as I mentioned this is my first DCL cruise so if I got that wrong, please somebody correct me or elaborate on this mysterious FE thing if needed!

Anyway, it was time to enter the room! I’ll let the pics do most of the talking.

This window was probably both of the kids’ favorite feature of the room (besides late night room service!).

Next door. . . see what I mean?

Seriously, they couldn’t get enough of the window! I have to say, I also tried it and I understand why :-)

Just above the couch you can see where the bunk pulled down. Laurel, our amazing stateroom host, made sure to ask Will and Bayleigh their preferences as the couch could also be made into a bed.

We had some helpful information laid out on our desk/vanity. Our dinner rotation spelled out on a card, tickets to character meet ups and breakfast, and (surprise!) two day passes to Senses Spa’s Rainforest Room from our TA. Woo hoo!

Some tips and cool features: Bring a power strip. I was careful to purchase one without a surge protector as I’ve heard those can be dangerous on a ship. This proved very useful as there was only one outlet.

The split bathroom design was really nice. My aunt’s favorite feature was the magnifying mirror in the shower bathroom! You can barely see it in the edge of this pic.

I also want to brag on the toiletries. They were just about as nice as the Bvlgari ones that NCL provided, but on that line I had to get a spa mini-suite to get good stuff. On DCL, you get high quality even in an oceanview. Sweet! The shampoo was actually thick and smelled, as Darla said “like a spa”. And the lotion was awesome with a faint peppermint smell. I may actually purchase some online I liked it so much!

I loved the bedside lamps:

Here is the Navigator from the first day, along with some other papers we got.

I agree EG is the better way to start the cruise then eating at Cabanas.

 

Can I make 1 request, can not not set the text to black so those using the dark theme on Tapatalk can read it. The app has the screen with a black backgound instead of white and if the text color is not set, then it will auto change to white.

No problem, I'll use the blue on the next posts.

No problem, I'll use the blue on the next posts.

(Seconded and thank you--eye problems = I use a "night" theme.)

After unpacking, we headed up to check out the ship a bit.

We had two Carnival neighbors at Port Canaveral

Soon enough, it was time for the muster drill. This was my least favorite thing of the whole cruise. I understand why they do them, but they could be done much better. Celebrity and NCL both hold their drills inside. I’ve only experienced these awful outside drills on DCL and Carnival. It was sweltering, and the crew had us bunched up and herded together shoulder to shoulder, back to front with strangers way before the alarm went off. I’ll never go to these things even a minute early in the future. One in our party got overheated and almost fainted before it was over, and we’re all in great health and good shape. I can’t imagine how awful this is for passengers who don’t have the blessing of good health.

After coming back inside to recover a bit, we headed back up to the 11th deck to get a much needed drink!

Although I mostly stuck to fruity stuff, the beer selection was pretty good:

Gotta love the Aqua Duck - the wraparound waterslide built for two people at a time :-) Very family friendly and also fun for everyone. It was not too rough at all.

It was a perfect day, although I would have loved to have seen the sailaway from the aft. I didn’t realize there was a nice spot outside of Cabanas until I saw it later in the week.

We got ready for our first dinner in the Royal Court! This ended up being my favorite venue.

Right away, we were enchanted by the grandeur of it all! It was perfectly themed, down to the Cinderella carriage shaped bread basket, the wait staff wearing prince charming jackets, and of course, our prince charming folded napkins and themed menus.

I went with the iced lobster and jumbo shrimp (excellent)

Red Wine Bosc Pear Salad

Chateaubriand Filet

And finally. . . amaretto Crème brûlée

This was one of my favorite meals, everything was wonderful and cooked to perfection.

Will loves some ice cream, and this sundae did not disappoint!

Our Head Server was Ciao, our Server was Andre, and our Assistant Server was Elean. They were all amazing. Andre took excellent care of us and despite the many many tasks he had to do, he would always take time to make napkin art with the kids or give us a riddle to solve.

Here is a bow he made for Baileigh:

Finally, it was time to see the room! We had two deluxe oceanview staterooms, #2526 and #2524. Donna, Bayleigh, and I shared the former, while Darla, Bubba, and Will were in the latter.

 

 

Here’s a pic of the little seahorse hook that was convenient for holding our door sign and also, for papers/bills/thank you cards to be slipped into.

 

The doors are magnetic and lots of people brought decorations and things called “Fish Extenders” which would also extend from the little seahorse. I never understood the term until I saw that and even still am not positive that’s where it came from. While we didn’t participate, I’ll try to enlighten anyone who was as confused as me when I first heard about it. Fish Extenders are baskets or holders of some kind that people who are assigned to your FE group will come around and leave gifts in. We figured out kind of late in the game, but honestly I’m glad we didn’t participate because from the looks of the gifts on FB, it would have cost a lot in both money and time. People gifted things like personalized magnets, legos, candy, etc. I would definitely do it with little kids though, as that would be so exciting for them, although I might have to take a week off from work to get all those done, ha! A word of caution - there were those in our FB group who talked about their gifts and some of their magnets getting stolen :-( Anyway, as I mentioned this is my first DCL cruise so if I got that wrong, please somebody correct me or elaborate on this mysterious FE thing if needed!

 

Anyway, it was time to enter the room! I’ll let the pics do most of the talking.

 

 

 

 

This window was probably both of the kids’ favorite feature of the room (besides late night room service!).

 

 

Next door. . . see what I mean?

 

 

Interesting fact for first timers. Those Seahorses help you tell what side of the ship you are on. Seahorses are on staterooms ont he Starboard side and the port side rooms have fishes

Interesting fact for first timers. Those Seahorses help you tell what side of the ship you are on. Seahorses are on staterooms ont he Starboard side and the port side rooms have fishes

Great tip!! I wish I had known this when I was on the ship!

On the Dream and fantasy they also gave there bow.

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From dinner, we headed to the show. I was impressed right away with the talent and state of the art theatre.

We got our first towel animal when we returned to the stateroom, and relaxed a bit before our next adventure.

Here is what the bunk bed looked like made up:

Will and Bayleigh decided they fancied some pizza and ice cream, so we went up to deck 11 to get some!

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It was good! I’d rate the pizza better than NCL and on par with Carnival. I think Celebrity’s is best. The ice cream was a huge hit, as were the sodas. I like the light lemonade.

From there, we decided to check out the Sing and Scream Nightmare Before Christmas 3D/4D show in the main theatre.

It was good, but it was just so late! All of us fell asleep at some point. We made it back down to our cabin and promptly collapsed into a wonderful sea-rocked sleep :-)

Enjoying your review and writing style!

ex techie