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

[Viva_la_Vida]

It was a really beautiful day, once again. After breakfast, we were nearing the Cayman Islands so I headed up to take some pics.

 

 

This area is right above The Quiet Cove. While it’s not adult only, most kids won’t make it over this far. It’s a great place to hang out if you do have a child but can leave him or her with you partner every once in a while to go snag a drink or get a refreshing mist from the nearby Cove bar and pool. The are just at the bottom of the steps in the pic above, and can be seen in the pic below.

 

 

There is also the shallow wading pool in the upper area that is family-friendly, but again, I really never saw kids there so I think most people think it’s adults only.

 

This picture below was taken up on the 13th deck, which is entirely devoted to adults.

 

 

That being said, we actually watched the fireworks show here on Thursday night and there were children present. I never saw anyone have to be kicked out of any area, including the Cove. I did see many kids walk through the cove since the forward bank of elevators on the 12th deck will let you out right outside it.

 

 

 

The above picture is of Satellite Falls on the 13th deck all the way forward. I never really hung out here but it looked nice. The falls weren’t on in this shot.

 

Sorry for this crooked picture. You can see the Cayman Islands in the distance.

 

[Tkerniroc1986]

 

Tuesday, September 20th

 

Day 4 - Cayman Islands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started out our morning at a character breakfast. This was an event that you had to book ahead of time. I know we had ours booked for several months at least. We did it through our TA, but you can also do this on your Disney Cruise Line site.

 

 

 

Tickets are delivered to your stateroom at the beginning of the voyage, and you need to remember to bring these with you because they will check them at the door.

 

 

 

I am a little embarrassed to admit I only knew one of the characters - Mickey! The other three the kids seemed to know, but weren’t particularly excited about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I kind of thought Disney would pull out all the stops with this special breakfast. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought they should have had more well-known characters. And there were only 4 total. DCL is very strict and the “bodyguards” as we started to call them, would come around ahead of time and warn you to stay in your seat. It kind of made for an intimidating situation. I do understand why they do that but it made picture-taking difficult.

 

 

 

We were also really squeezed in together next to the other tables. I am not sure why they do that, as only a very small portion of the restaurant was being utilized and it seemed cumbersome for the characters in their large costumes to maneuver around. It was an enjoyable enough breakfast, but I don’t think any of us, including the kids, would necessarily do it again.

 

 

 

You have to remember that that is the Disney Junior character breakfast. You get Jake (Captain Jake and the Neverland Pirates) Doc McStuffins (McStuffins Toy Hospital), Princess Sophia (Sophia the First), and Mickey because of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They are all Disney Junior Shows. The breakfast is really geared towards the younger kids, and I agree with you, it was like we were all crowded into one corner of Animators Palate too. I would do this breakfast again solely for my 3 year old who loves Sophia. There's a video on my YouTube channel that includes this breakfast and the characters meeting with us and signing our frames.

 

 

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Edited October 1, 2016 by Tkerniroc1986

[Ksma23]

Great Review! We are sailing on the Fantasy in June 2017 and it's so nice to see

a more thorough review. I am a pretty devout RCI/Celebrity Cruiser and it was

painful for me to book DCL because price wise they are so much higher. But, I thought we should experience a Disney Cruise before my kids hit teenagerdom.

Being we haven't cruised Disney before I'm trying to learn all the ins and outs before our sail date.

 

I too was surprised that there isn't a lot of activity on the Disney boards as compared to RCI here on Cruise Critic. Hopefully your review will serve as inspiration for others to follow suit.

 

Thanks again!

Edited October 1, 2016 by Ksma23

[Viva_la_Vida]

We headed back down to the room to get ready for our day on the island. You could see the tender boats coming up right beside our window. We really liked being on the 2nd deck, midship. It was a very convenient location!

 

 

There was a letter on our bed the night before giving procedures on tendering. We had to go up to the Walt Disney Theatre. We were able to head straight in. They gave us a ticket and seated us. We were immediately called out though to board. We followed a crew member out, but halfway down the stairs to deck 2, we were told they were leading us to the wrong tendering station, so we had to go back. It was a little chaotic, but we got to the correct boat and the ride over to the island was less than five minutes.

 

 

 

 

Our plan was to go to starfish beach. There were lots of people offering cab rides. We asked about the price to get to Starfish Beach, but it was going to be around $180 because it was so far away. We decided just to stick with 7 mile beach. We ended up going to the Royal Palms Beach Club. It was $4pp for the cab and $2pp for the entry fee. It was beautiful, but not worth the entry fee because we didn’t use the pool at all. Turns out it was only 18 and up allowed in the pool. Also, loungers were $10pp and umbrellas were $15. After just coming from all inclusive, it was rough. There was a bar and restaurant on site, but the prices were very expensive.

 

 

 

 

Cabanas were $100 beachside and $50 poolside

 

 

 

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

When we first got to the beach, it was raining very hard. We stayed under the shelter for a little bit, then finally when it slacked a bit, just made the best of it and got in the water. We were not planning on staying long anyway, so we opted just to use our towels once the rain stopped.

 

Remember to bring your own towels as most beaches don’t provide them.

 

 

 

 

 

The water was so clear and beautiful!

 

 

The wall shown below is where we laid out all of our rain-soaked items to dry

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

Bayleigh and Will had some more fun with the camera underwater

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

While we were having fun out in the water, Donna took about a very long walk along the beach in this direction:

 

She said she saw some HUGE houses.

 

 

 

 

What did Will find?

 

 

 

 

 

[Steelers0854]

Thanks for posting a great review. Makes me excited for our Wonder cruise in January.

[Viva_la_Vida]

We headed back to the ship to get some food. It was a short ride back.

 

 

We had some nice time in the Cove before getting ready for dinner. Here were that night’s menus:

 

 

 

I had the salad and turbot. Both were good!

 

Look at all that blue cheese!

 

 

 

I absolutely loved when they offered a sampler for dessert. The samplers consisted of three small portions of three of the desserts on the menu that evening. I always have a tough time making up my mind, so this is a perfect way to have it all :-)

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

Thanks for posting a great review. Makes me excited for our Wonder cruise in January.

 

You're so welcome! :)

[Viva_la_Vida]

Tonight’s towel animal

 

 

We saw the show “Wishes” and it did not disappoint. The story line was slightly cheesy, but the quality of the talent was fantastic, and the songs were great. It was about three high school seniors who have the night of their life. There is a little romance story that goes along with it, and the disney songs and characters that you know and love are all there. Of course, there are pyrotechnics and projections as well - Disney does those so well!

 

While I’m talking about entertainment, I forgot to mention that we saw Lynn Trefzger, ventriloquist perform in the Walt Disney Theatre on Monday night. She was incredibly talented and we were all just in stitches. I am always impressed with comedians who can make kids and adults laugh. She would choose people from the audience. As a rule of thumb, don’t sit up front if you are not game to be picked on. Also, for kids who like to be chosen, make sure you sit in the first few rows. Although we (short) adults loved the balcony, the kids would have rather sat on the main level so they had a shot at getting called to the stage.

 

After the show, the ladies all went out to Europa.

 

 

We started at O’Gills pub. It was very quiet because my very favorite musician of the whole cruise was playing - Selkie! She is a fantastic acoustic guitarist and vocalist. She is also very talented at looping! I’ve never seen anything quite like it on a ship. She has a very wide range genre-wise, and she was playing a song by my favorite band (Radiohead)!

 

We ordered a peach margarita, a Macallan, and a white wine. The prices were decent.

 

 

It was pretty empty, despite the relatively early hour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

After our one drink, we decided to try out Skyline Bar. You might miss it if you’re not looking of it. It’s across the elevator bank from the other bars. See it here, just to the right? It's not even got a sign identifying it as Skyline.

 

 

Trust me, don’t miss it! This was my favorite by far!

 

Here is the menu:

 

 

This bar features a huge screen behind the bar that shows a different skyline every few minutes. It was fun to try and recognize all the different ones. It was very impressive and chic.

 

 

The bartender there was awesome. I think his name was Andre, but I’m not 100% positive. I wanted something with mango so he whipped me up this drink:

 

 

Yum!

 

Of course, this bar closed up at midnight and since we didn’t want to sit in the extremely loud Tube, we were off to the room again. The Fantasy really needs at least one intimate lounge type bar that will stay open later.

 

The next morning was Jamaica and the girls were excited about getting some time in on the boat.

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

Hi all, I just wanted to stop in and say I'll get back to writing the review just as soon as we have internet on again. It's not a Matthew related outage, we're well north of all that thank goodness. Hopefully it will be back on by Saturday. Thanks for sticking with me! :)

[Tkerniroc1986]

We are patiently awaiting the continuation of your fantastic review!

 

 

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[awilliams4]

Thanks for sharing.

[Viva_la_Vida]

 

 

Wednesday, September 21st

Day 5 - Falmouth, Jamaica

 

 

Good morning, Jamaica!

 

 

I was immediately reminded of the eastern Caribbean route with those beautiful mountains.

 

Today, the girls had plans to just relax on the ship and do a little shopping in port while Bubba and the kids went out and explored. We had some breakfast and then got in our swimsuits right away. We wanted to take advantage of the ship being empty. Also, Falmouth is pretty far away from all the main touristy areas like Dunns River Falls, therefore all the excursions and transportation out to the area closer to Ocho Rios was very expensive. Bubba and the kids headed off to find a beach while Donna, Darla, and I got some sun.

 

After a little while, we decided to go ahead and get some shopping done. I had some gifts to purchase and figured this was about the last chance.

 

 

There was a large shopping area just outside the ship. We were told that typically just Royal Caribbean ships dock in Falmouth. They rent this part of the island and gate it off from the rest of the town. I didn’t prefer this location. Although beautiful, I would rather have been docked in Ocho Rios.

 

 

My priority was finding some Blue Mountain coffee. I found lots, but it was all really expensive. This place made a great, strong iced coffee.

 

 

 

 

The craft market provided a nice place to get some gifts, like this wooden bowl.

 

 

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

It was an absolutely perfect day!

 

 

We got all the gifts we needed and headed back to the ship for some much needed time in the Cove.

 

 

This bar, located on deck 16 forward was NEVER crowded and has such a nice outdoor seating area - the port side area is a smoking area, fyi but the starboard side is not.

 

 

Here is one of the seating areas:

 

 

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

More pics from around the ship:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was really nice just lounging around on the ship! Here is the drink of the day:

 

 

I forgot to mention this earlier, but when we got back to the ship Cabanas was closed. This was kind of a running theme. I wish Cabanas had longer hours.

 

Also, I can’t believe I forgot to mention that Donna, Darla, and I rode the Aqua Duck! There was hardly a line at all and we had a blast! The ride is extra fun at the beginning and slows down a bit as you get towards the middle and end. I definitely recommend it to everyone :-)

[Viva_la_Vida]

Sail away was particularly beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Tonight was Pirate Night! We were all excited and since we hadn’t done the Halloween dress up, this would be our only chance to get into the themed fun! Disney provided a pirate bandana for each person in the room, so everyone can take part even if they don’t bring anything from home.

 

We rushed to get ready for dinner and I unfortunately don’t even have any pics of our meal that night! I did eat the pork pot stickers which were excellent and had the mahi mahi for my entree. It was very good. For dessert, we all had the fruit cobbler which was delicious, and Andre being the wonderful server he was also brought us a no-sugar added pear tart.

 

Here we are in our pirate costumes!

 

 

We had an awesome pirate monkey when we returned to our room:

 

 

 

After dinner, Donna and I decided to go walk off some of our food. Deck 4 had a great walking/jogging track that wraps all the way around the ship. 2 ½ times around is a mile. It is completely shaded so in my opinion, greatly improved from most ship’s jogging tracks that are in full sun and take you through the busiest parts of the ship. This deck also had great padded loungers, which we took advantage of during the trip as well.

[Viva_la_Vida]

After our walk, we checked out some pictures at Shutters which was also on deck 4 and then headed to find some good seats for the fireworks! I learned from another review on here that the fireworks was actually part of a show with Jack Sparrow, but we enjoyed it from deck 16, starboard side towards the aft where there were speakers with music coming through, but no dialogue.

 

 

The fireworks were good but short.

 

We joined the pirate party after!

 

 

 

We headed back to Europa to the Tube and Darla did some awesome kareoke :-) It was very fun to watch and the host was fabulous.

 

We headed to bed so we could get up early to take advantage of our last day at sea!

[Tkerniroc1986]

Your review is awesome! I feel like I'm back on the ship!

 

 

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[Viva_la_Vida]

Your review is awesome! I feel like I'm back on the ship!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

Thank you so much!

[Viva_la_Vida]

Thursday, September 22nd

Day 5, At Sea

 

 

 

It’s hard to beat a day at sea. It was absolutely perfect out with calm seas, blue skies, and the whole day ahead!

 

 

We had a delicious breakfast at Cabanas. I want to mention the awesome fruit stations that are around in the mornings (maybe lunch too, not sure). The chef will slice up fresh mangos, kiwi, papaya, anything you want! It’s awesome. I also loved the cereal with chia.

 

After breakfast, we spent all day between the Cove and the Rainforest Room.

 

The Rainforest Room is a space within the spa where you can purchase daily or weekly passes. I had done the thermal suite on NCL Breakaway this summer and although it’s nice, DCL Rainforest does not even compare to NCL’s setup. I checked in and handed over my pass and key card. In exchange, I got a wristband that could activate the Rainforest Room door. They took me on a quick tour of the ladies locker room and showed me how to use my band on the door. The locker rooms are nice but they need to show you how to use the lockers or else have a sign showing you how to do it.

 

The Rainforest room itself has the nice citrus infused water and several shower stalls that have scented water streams in varying degrees of intensity. There is also piped in sound in some of them if I remember correctly. My issue with this area is not enough space to hang your robe. The showers are in the same area as the saunas (didn’t use) so there are only a few pegs to accommodate everyone in the space.

 

My favorite areas by far were the heated loungers that look out into the hot tub area. People were really respectful of the quiet space, which was nice. I was able to read and have so much relaxation. There was a wait at times for the loungers, and people were generally good about only using the loungers 15 minutes. The 2 hot tubs were nice with good jets.

 

One more thing about the spa - both Darla and Bubba booked massages, and I was surprised to learn that Rainforest access was not included with their booking. I think it should be, but that’s just my opinion :-) Bubba had a package that included hot stone massage, but they were running so late for his appointment that it made him late for dinner. He was not too happy about that, but said it was a great massage.

 

After spending time at the Cove and Rainforest, it was time for lunch. I was totally kicking myself because I missed the sea day brunch. This is why you read the navigator carefully! It wasn’t advertised, but the breakfast hours are clearly listed as extending into brunch zone. Oh well!

 

It was actually nice to get to try Cabanas for lunch. This was the first time I had actually been able to eat in there. The other days we were late and missed it. I wish Cabanas had longer hours in the afternoon. The outdoor grill was good, but it got old after so many days in a row.

They had a great international selection. I had falafel, pastas, broccoli, and pizza. All good!

 

After lunch, it was back to the Cove. I had a blast listening to Selkie, the guitarist and vocalist. She even took some requests!

 

Dinner was different tonight. First of all, the adults in our party had reservations at Palo, the adult only Italian cuisine restaurant. This was also “show” night in Animator’s Palate. The previous night at dinner, Andre really stressed that we be to Animator’s palate on time because of said show, which involved drawings that come to life. The adults planned to go along with the kids for the early seating and just watch. That was indeed what happened, except we all ended up having dessert while the kids ate their meal. Dessert was lava cake and it was fantastic! I was hoping to see the show, but as it happened, they seemed to rush through all the food and do the show last, so we ended up having to leave before anything started :-(

 

Here is a pic of the lava cake, sans ice cream

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

We headed up to Palo and were very impressed with the Atlas bar, which connects Remy and Palo. It had a beautiful patio area that overlooked the aft and the sunset was a fabulous bonus!

 

 

 

 

 

[Viva_la_Vida]

A few more, I couldn’t help myself. Missing sunsets was the only aspect of early dining I didn’t like!

 

 

 

Here is one bad, blurry pic from Atlas. As you can see, it’s very underused. IMAGINE THAT, AN UNDERUSED BAR ON DISNEY! HA!