Eastern Caribbean Fantasy March 9-16, 2019

dlf246

Mouseketeer
Joined
Aug 3, 2005
Eastern Caribbean Fantasy March 9-16

Just the facts Ma’am; don’t have time for more.

Overall: This is the first repeat cruise we have done (from signature, you can tell I have done over 10 cruises on 4 different cruise lines over a 30 year span) that was better than the prior! This is very unusual since overall cruising has lessened in quality in multiple categories compared to the 1980’s.

6 golden nuggets to share while giving quick rundown.

Pre-cruise: stayed at Port Orleans Riverside and enjoyed parks for day and half.

Golden nugget #1: If you are staying in Orlando more than one night & even if you are Disney enthusiast, do NOT stay at WDW resort hotel pre-cruise unless you are sure you will use the mandatory park pass (2 night stay = must get 2 day pass). We used the passes, but did not use to full advantage. Next time we plan to stay at airport Holiday Inn.

Golden nugget #2: (I know this is old old news for Disney people): if you DO get a WDW pass in advance, select your fast passes as early as possible. We made mistake of waiting til week of trip; nearly all “good” rides were gone.

Notice how so much was not available when we tried:

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Days at Sea: I still believe the Palo brunch is a must. Sole thing I bitterly complained about on the survey: they had the final Bingo in D Lounge… way way way too small a venue, so we skipped it.

Golden nugget #3: mid-cruise, you can sweetly ask the host/hostess and often get a second Palo brunch.

Tortola: Wow: very impressed by most of the natives’ friendliness. We did the Treasure Island snorkel and swim. My family had mixed review: little to no instruction on the snorkeling (had one new to this), and the beach portion marred by only about 15% of our group could get a beach lounger.

Golden nugget #4: if you take disposable waterproof camera snorkeling, keep in mind that it’s hard to stay still below the surface (shutter speed makes being still helpful). Your buoyancy and that yellow vest they require keep you close to surface. So most pics of your family will be above water or of you taking THEM underwater.

St Thomas: family split up and Both halves LOVED their excursions: secret sands beach getaway, and the St John tour.

Golden nugget #5: St John: whoever in family has camera/camcorder needs to be on left side of the taxi. It has 80% of the best views. I assumed the right-sided folks would be compensated on the trip back, BUT it is a circle route… trip back was interior road.

St John:
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Food: This is a big deal for me, and so I’m delighted to report that it has improved since our ’12 DCL cruise. Portion sizes, after getting smaller, moved back to large. Cabanas had more exciting choices.

Look at this size steak… would not see that in main dining room on “mainstream” cruise lines:
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Servers/Cabin hostess: After years of reading Disboards discussing the pressure from server to give highest rating, I had my first server do so. He was very good, so I tried not to let it bother me…

Random: My family is Christian. I knew to expect this change, but was hard nonetheless. The Sunday service was passenger led and only about 10 people there. Totally understand Disney only providing a room… but miss the days of a bigger service and musical accompaniment.

Shows: I had been chafing for months that the show lineup (for the main shows) was exactly the same as 5 years previously-Wishes, Aladdin, and Believe. I thought, “Come on Disney, you can bring in some new shows.” Well, I can’t explain all the ways, but whole family confirmed that they had tweaked this and tweaked that, and was enough to seem different.

The ship: Very impressed… excellent condition.

Castaway Cay: great as always

Golden nugget #6: this is my one and only unique contribution to Disboards from decade ago: bring a long old colored sock and tie to your umbrella to make it easy to locate in the sea of umbrellas:
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Debarkation breakfast: I was amazed at the servers not being so rushed and the meal being nicer.

Debarkation: Love how it is not the over-orchestrated cattle call (by color) of past days. I assume that Shutters had a one time bug that made it a madhouse picking up the photo thumb drives. (if this is not a one time thing, it would be so easy to make this smoother).

Golden nugget #7: if you are not using the Disney transfer PLUS luggage pre-checked package (i.e. you put suitcase out at 9pm night before, see it next in your destination airport), don’t go crazy getting that suitcase out the night before… if it’s easy to roll, not as big a hassle to keep with you on debarkation.

One final comment: 3 in our group were age 18-26. I keep expecting them to say let’s do Royal Caribbean or other line instead of Disney, but they are equally enthused to stay with DCL.
 
Enjoyed reading your post. We did the same cruise this past Jan, it was only our 5th DCL cruise, second time on the Fantasy. We also went to Secret Sands and loved it. We've been to CC 5 times and this past time was the first time I noticed people hanging small items from their umbrellas, definitely a great and useful tip!! I had forgotten about people doing this, so glad you mentioned it. I'm writing it down in my cruise planning book so I remember to bring something for our next cruise!
 
Thanks for the update. It sounds like a great trip.

Golden nugget #1: If you are staying in Orlando more than one night & even if you are Disney enthusiast, do NOT stay at WDW resort hotel pre-cruise unless you are sure you will use the mandatory park pass (2 night stay = must get 2 day pass).

I've never heard this before. If you stay at a Disney resort more than one night, you are required to get park tickets? That seems absurd and certainly takes away any desire I've had to stay at a Disney hotel pre-cruise!
 
Thanks for the update. It sounds like a great trip.



I've never heard this before. If you stay at a Disney resort more than one night, you are required to get park tickets? That seems absurd and certainly takes away any desire I've had to stay at a Disney hotel pre-cruise!

If you try to book the hotel and park tickets as a package, you won't have the option to reduce the number of park days to less than the number of nights for your stay. But you can book the hotel and buy park tickets separately. That is what I had to do for our trip next month. I booked two nights for the hotel, and went in several weeks later to purchase our park tickets separately (just one day - we didn't even have enough time on arrival for a part day at the parks).
 



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