2017-12-23: Boarding the Disney Fantasy

Today is the day we boarded the Disney Fantasy. We woke up around 8:00am, got cleaned up, and re-packed our suitcases. We headed across the street and grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds. Breakfast of champions! After breakfast, we returned to the hotel, grabbed our luggage, and headed to the lobby to meet our van.

The van was about 15 minutes late. The driver sent us a message to let us know that he was stuck in traffic at the port. When he arrived around 10:30am, we loaded our gear into the van and had a short ride to the port. Traffic at the port was quite lined up. We unloaded at the dropoff area, found a porter to take care of our luggage, and were in the terminal building pretty quickly. We walked right up to the check-in desk and got ourselves checked in. We were given a number that would be called when it was our time to board. We were number seven. They had characters such as Minnie and Mickey meeting the kids and taking photos in the terminal while you waited.

We waited in the terminal for about half an hour before our number was called. We walked to the boarding area where we had a family picture taken before boarding the ship. As you walk on board the ship, they have an announcer who announces your family as you enter the atrium. There were a group of about eight employees who applauded and cheered as you walked in and your name was called. It’s quite the welcome!

Once on board, we made our way to our staterooms to drop off our backpacks and some gear. We met our cabin steward Vernon who seems very eager to assist where needed. We were ushered out of our rooms as they weren’t quite ready yet and we headed to the Enchanted Garden for lunch. It does feel like you are in an outdoor garden while you eat.

Jim had another conference call he had to participate in so he returned to the room after lunch. The rest of the family went out to explore the ship. It is a very pretty ship with ornate finishings everywhere you look. There is a lot of Disney artwork and such as well of course. They have a water tube that loops the upper decks of the ship, a couple of water parks, and a pool shaped like Mickey’s head.

After touring the ship for a while, we returned to the room to see if our luggage had arrived. The kids really wanted to go swimming, but their swimsuits were in the suitcases. When we arrived at the rooms, all our luggage had arrived except for Michael’s suitcase. He was quite disappointed that we couldn’t go swimming yet. There was also a little Christmas tree with some ornaments on our counter. The rest of us unpacked our suitcases while Michael found a movie to watch on the TV. He started watching Wall-E.

By the time we were done unpacking, Michael’s suitcase had arrived, but it was time for the lifeboat drill. We headed down to our muster area and waited for the safety drill to complete before returning to our room. By that time, the ships across from us were starting to pull out of port. There were three other ships in port with us; Carnival Sunshine, Carnival Magic, and Norwegian Epic. We watched the Carnival ships pull out before Darrell took the kids up to play in the pools and water parks for a bit. Amanda, Jim, and Linda stayed in the rooms and watched the ships pull out of port. It needs to be noted here that Amanda cannot be trusted with a camera and a glass of wine… Darrell had a lot of pelican pictures to delete while writing today’s post.

It was now time for dinner. Disney does rotational dining where you are in a different assigned restaurant each night, but your dining staff moves with you. Tonight we ate in Animators Palette. They have sketches and drawings all around the room. Once you start dinner, some of the drawings turned out to be video screens. They had Crush the turtle welcome you to the dining room and had various Finding Nemo activities and characters swimming between the screens throughout the dining room. The fish would start constructing images and you had to guess what they were building. Dory, Nemo, Squirt, and a few of the other characters would stop and talk. The kids thought it was awesome. Michael said “this is the best place I’ve ever been”.

After dinner, we headed to the main atrium to watch the tree lighting ceremony. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto all came out to talk to everyone, sing Christmas carols, and light the Christmas Tree in the atrium. After the tree lighting ceremony, we returned to our staterooms. There was a stingray made out of towels and chocolates on our bed when we entered. Michael was tired and didn’t feel like going to the evening show. He stayed in the room with Jim and finished watching Wall-E while Darrell, Amanda, Linda, and Patrick went to the evening show.

The show was called A Fantasy Come True: A Welcome Show. They had several Disney characters such as Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and Chip and Dale sing and dance along with the ship’s singers and dancers. They had one of the specialty acts called Buckets and Boards come out and perform for a few minutes as well. They are musicians and comedians and they put on a good show. They will be performing a full show on Thursday night. After the show, we returned to our rooms and called it a night.

Tomorrow we are at Castaway Cay!