Fantasy Review 8-25-07

[Rodeomomof2]

Our group of 8 headed to New Orleans on Saturday the 25th for our 5 night cruise with a new itinerary to Progresso instead of Costa Maya and Cozumel. We were: my family of 4, my husband and I and our children 12 & 15, two other couples in their 30’s and 40’s. We arrived at the terminal around 11:15 and were able to park quickly and the line to get your sail and sign cards and room keys took about 15 minutes. We were onboard and eating some delicious roast beef from the buffet by 12ish. We were allowed to go to our rooms around 1:20, we all had ocean view rooms on the Empress deck and they were wonderful to have because you were so conveniently located to everything. We had to sit out on the Lido deck by the pool for the lifeboat drill and it was HOT…after that we were on our way down the way the Mississippi towards Progresso.

 

FOOD:

We had dinner in the Jubilee dining room at 5:45 and we had Jaime and his terrific dining room team for our servers. I can’t say enough about them, they were wonderful. My son and husband and two other people from our group were big soda drinkers, after the first night, they knew our names and what we wanted to drink and they were always keeping the glasses full, and us very well attended to and happy. The chocolate melting cake was everything I heard it was and more….wow…..excellent. We had a lot of seafood and beef dishes, the steaks were excellent, as were all of the other dishes that we had. I loved having the alternative dining menu to choose from if we did not particularly love anything on the menu that night. If you miss the dining room experience, you are missing a lot. I was told that the Fantasy dining room staff was the highest rated dining staff in all of Carnival’s fleet…I would have to agree. We also had breakfast and at least one lunch in the dining room…those lido deck burgers are pretty darn good too! J

 

ROOMS:

Are rooms were E143, E147, E151, E167 they were under the galley and some minor noise was heard like a drain or something over our ceiling (151), but it was not that much of an annoyance. We liked being a short walk to just about anywhere, the main atrium lobby, and one deck up to the Jubilee or Celebration dining rooms, all of those stairs kept me from gaining too much weight after eating all of that TERRIFIC food! J

 

ENTERTAINMENT:

We went to the shows and although I did not consider myself much of a musical show kind of person, I really enjoyed it…especially the YMCA song, those dancers in all of those costumes are really cute! <wink> We also enjoyed the Karaoke bar, and one of our friends, Michael sang lots of songs and enjoyed himself. My kids enjoyed the kids clubs, my son went to the ClubO2 and he thought Tara and Daniel were great. They even got him out on the dance floor in a contest and he won a medal that he is very proud of. My daughter only did a few of the activities for her age group, but loved the build a buddy and T-shirt activities.

 

PORTS:

We were in Progresso from 7 am – 4 pm; there was a really long pier that you had to ride a bus to get to the end of. The busses run every 20 minutes, we did not have time to book a tour for Progresso, so we just rode to the small town of Progresso and walked around the flea market, and walked the city a bit. We went down the beach front area and sat at a restaurant and had chips/salsa, beers and cokes for all 8 of us and the bill was $20. We also got some really good bargains on hand made crafts there. I would suggest an excursion if you are not interested in walking/shopping…there really is not that much else to do. There is a small beach area and they were renting jet skis there.

Cozumel was beautiful; Dean did destroy some of the roads on the Caribbean side of the island. We went there on our jeep/snorkel tour and it was beautiful. The turtles were coming in to lay there eggs and you could see large turtle “tracks” in the sand as we drove by. We went to a beach club area there and played in the waves for a bit, it was lots of fun. I did twist my ankle there, so if you saw a woman hobbling on the ship after we went to Cozumel, it was me. J

 

Final sea day was just casual and relaxing, and the last morning we were told we could self disembark around 7:30 after we cleared customs, they actually came on and announced that we could leave at 7:08 am and we grabbed our bags and headed on out, the lines were not bad at all, we only had to wait for customs to clear us etc..

 

All in all it was a fantastic cruise for the price and although it was not the port we signed up for, it was still really nice and I would go again tomorrow.

[Rowan555]

Was the pool open upon embarkation, or did it not open up until the first morning at sea? My daughter is going to want to get in the pool as soon as it's open!

[tripletmomplus1]

Any chance you have copies of your capers????

 

 

Here's hoping

 

 

Gale

[JBDigitalphoto]

The pools are open when you board the ship, so your daughter can go right in if she wants too

[leeleent]

The pools were open on Embarkation day. We were also on this cruise, but I'm sorry to say we didn't get to meet Rodeo Mom, and a few others from our roll call board, but we also had a Wonderful time!!!!! :) I'll try to get a review going soon.

[Carolinamamasita]

What a Great Review !!

Glad that you had a good time ...

 

:)

 

 

I will be celebrating my birthday on the Fantasy pretty soon too !

[Payd]

Sounds like you all had a great time.

 

Thanks for posting your review.

 

Payd:)

[Rodeomomof2]

Was the pool open upon embarkation, or did it not open up until the first morning at sea? My daughter is going to want to get in the pool as soon as it's open!

 

When we got on board it was roped off, but before we took off down the Mississippi it was open.:) We were busy unpakcing and getting ready for an early dinner, so we did not swim that afternoon.

[Rodeomomof2]

The pools were open on Embarkation day. We were also on this cruise, but I'm sorry to say we didn't get to meet Rodeo Mom, and a few others from our roll call board, but we also had a Wonderful time!!!!! :) I'll try to get a review going soon.

 

We were sorry we did not get to meet you either, we made it to one of the "cruise critic lunches".;)

[Rodeomomof2]

Any chance you have copies of your capers????

 

 

Here's hoping

 

 

Gale

 

I do have all of my capers actually; BUT I have dial up and scanning them and sending them would take alllllll day. Anything in particular that you want to know?

[Rodeomomof2]

What a Great Review !!

Glad that you had a good time ...

 

:)

 

 

I will be celebrating my birthday on the Fantasy pretty soon too !

 

I hope you have a great Birthday cruise!!!:D

[Rodeomomof2]

Sounds like you all had a great time.

 

Thanks for posting your review.

 

Payd:)

 

 

You are welcome! I see you are from Canada, my son made a few Canadian friends in Clubo2 on this cruise.:)

[ManyMore]

New Orleans is my favorite port to sail from. I just wish they would bring back a 7 day cruise. They say they haven't yet because they don't have enough people well if you don't schedule one you can't HAVE one. oye

[NWFLGIRL]

We are going to be on the Fantasy 9/22/07 to celebrate my husbands birthday and I appreciate your review. We will be a party of 6. 3 -50 somethings and 3 -18-21 yr olds. I think this will be a perfect choice for us. We are also on the empress deck so that is very welcome info. Glad you had fun.

NWFLGIRL

[pacerzfan]

Thanks for your review, Rodeomomof2. New Orleans is our favorite port also.

[Rowan555]

Could you check the embarkation day capers and see what the schedule of Camp Carnival things is for that night? It's usually orientation, welcome party, and ice cream social. I'm curious as to whether that's changed, because it appears some ships have eliminated the welcome party and ice cream. My kids love both of those, so I want to prepare them if the schedule has changed. THANKS!

[BrendaB1]

Did you have Sherwin for your cabin steward? I was in E142 in Jan & he was great. I plan on looking him up again when I'm onboard again in Oct.

[Rodeomomof2]

Could you check the embarkation day capers and see what the schedule of Camp Carnival things is for that night? It's usually orientation, welcome party, and ice cream social. I'm curious as to whether that's changed, because it appears some ships have eliminated the welcome party and ice cream. My kids love both of those, so I want to prepare them if the schedule has changed. THANKS!

 

Sure...the Camp Carnival has registration/orientation at 7:15 and again at 9:00 pm with a build a buddy party.

 

The Club O2 was Roll out at 7:30 and 8:30 Speed meeting/dating 9:00 welcome aboard party, 10:30 welcome aboard show.

 

From there on through out the week the capers were given to each age group for their activities. My son might have his, (Club O2) they gave my daughter (12) the wrong sheet and she missed everything up until the last sea day :( , so I can't help with that too much.

[Rodeomomof2]

Did you have Sherwin for your cabin steward? I was in E142 in Jan & he was great. I plan on looking him up again when I'm onboard again in Oct.

 

No, we had Antonio, I met him the first day and did not see him that often until the night after Cozumel, I had twisted my ankle walking on the beach/rock and was hobbling down the hall, he asked what was wrong and I told him I would be fine as long as I keep it iced...well, I NEVER ran out of ice!;)

[Rowan555]

Sure...the Camp Carnival has registration/orientation at 7:15 and again at 9:00 pm with a build a buddy party.

 

 

 

That's what I feared - no more welcome aboard party for the CC kids. In the past they've always had a party in the disco for the kids, with dancing, balloon games, etc, then everyone went to the Lido deck for an ice cream sundae party. The party was not well-attended, so it makes sense that Carnival would eliminate it in favor of the build a bear party, which probably makes them tons of money.

 

My kids are going to be really bummed - the little party that first night was one of their favorite parts of the cruise.

 

Thanks for posting - I think I'll try to convince them that we should swim after dinner on our first night!

[Rodeomomof2]

That's what I feared - no more welcome aboard party for the CC kids. In the past they've always had a party in the disco for the kids, with dancing, balloon games, etc, then everyone went to the Lido deck for an ice cream sundae party. The party was not well-attended, so it makes sense that Carnival would eliminate it in favor of the build a bear party, which probably makes them tons of money.

 

My kids are going to be really bummed - the little party that first night was one of their favorite parts of the cruise.

 

Thanks for posting - I think I'll try to convince them that we should swim after dinner on our first night!

 

 

We missed the first night of Camp Carnival: but my son went to the ClubO2 orinetation thing. The next morning my husband took my daughter down to get info on Camp Carnival for her age group and they gave her a schedule (after going to 4 different events with NO ONE there) on the last sea day, she found out they gave her an old schedule. So sadly she missed out on several activities. There was almost no one swimming at night, so it would be a great time for your kids to swim. :)

[Rowan555]

We missed the first night of Camp Carnival: but my son went to the ClubO2 orinetation thing. The next morning my husband took my daughter down to get info on Camp Carnival for her age group and they gave her a schedule (after going to 4 different events with NO ONE there) on the last sea day, she found out they gave her an old schedule. So sadly she missed out on several activities. There was almost no one swimming at night, so it would be a great time for your kids to swim. :)

 

That's what I figured! I've been really sick and our above ground pool has turned GREEN, and it will probably take me until next weekend to get it clear. So after 2 weeks of no swimming my kids will be thrilled to eat dinner then just go jump in the pool. We don't need to do the orientation meeting for Camp Carnival b/c this is their 7th cruise - so I'll just go fill out the registration forms to sign them up, and we'll spend the rest of the evening enjoying the pool. Both my kids will be in the same Camp Carnival age group this cruise, so they're pretty excited about that. I refuse to spend money on "build a buddies", so they'll just start Camp Carnival at 9 AM on the first sea day.

[neatokimmo]

I am glad to hear you had a good time, thanks for the info on Progresso :)

 

I am guessing we'll all be routed there until Costa is up and running again?