Shaking Down the Fantasy and Three Encounters with a Dream!

When: March 21-26

Where: Coronado Springs for two nights and then a three night cruise on the Disney Fantasy

Why: This was a special cruise for agents from Disney Earmarked agencies. A shake down cruise if you will. It was preceded by a day of conference activities at WDW.

Here’s my cruise docs!

Who: My family came this time! If you've read any of my trip reports you know that m family can't always come. Ds is in high school, dd is in middle school and dh is in the Air Force. Not that people in the Air Force can't go on vacation, but he tends to be in really busy jobs that don't work well with the - "Hey, there's an awesome travel agent special in two weeks", or "I haven't been to Disneyland in 9 months and need to go this month to get caught back up" kind of trips.

But this one was too good to pass up! A preview cruise on the brand spanking new Disney Fantasy! Disney doesn't have any new ships in the works so this opportunity wasn't coming along again any time soon. We decided it was even worth taking the kids out of school this time.

It was. Really. No matter what their report cards say next week. :lookaroun

Even better, we had a room for 5 so ds brought a friend. You may recognize friend from my Alaska trip report this summer.

Here’s ds and friend in the Mr. and Mrs. Potato hats in Oceaneers Club:

Dd in the Oceaneer’s Club:

Dh and I heading to the beach. Check out what’s in the background!

You'll also see Pam - owner extraordinaire of Kingdom Konsultants and her family. Here’s Pam and her dh:

Here’s Pam’s dd on the right and her friend on the left:

And Missy (polymissy) who brought her hubby! They’re showing off the butter knives I was coveting:

Disclaimer – I took a lot of pictures of the Fantasy when I toured it in New York City back in February. I didn’t duplicate much, so here’s that report if you’re interested in more pictures of the ship:

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=833556

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Wednesday, March 21 - Departure day

Our flight didn’t leave until 5:30ish in the evening. It was painful to wait so late! We were trying to minimize how much school the kids missed though. After I finished some last minute stuff in the morning, the day just drug on and on and on.

We finally left the house at 2:15 to go get them early from school and drive to the airport. We knew we were cutting it a little close and it took quite a while to get through security. We had planned on eating in the airport but there was no time! We went right to the gate with a quick stop in a newstand. I bought a wrapped sandwich to tide me over.

When we boarded we waited and waited and waited. We left almost an hour late! They said it was just because there were 12 planes in front of us. Really? Just 12? Did no one know that 12 planes were scheduled to leave?

Thankfully we were only 25 minutes late landing. Missy landed not too long before us and decided to wait on us. The fam was too hungry to make it though so they went to the food court. I was okay because of the sandwich so I went to talk to Missy and wait.

They didn’t take too long and we were soon in line for DME. We noticed right away that there wasn’t a single bus out there. We waited forever for a bus!! Forever!! Of course with all our smart phones and devices we entertained ourselves:

As we were finally boarding, the driver asked the people behind us where they were going. They couldn’t remember until one of them piped up – Colorado Springs!

Um. That's a long bus ride lady. :lookaroun

When she got on the bus and proceeded to have a very loud, very long cell phone conversation in our ear, we realized she was a travel agent! Yikes!

We hadn’t put in a room request but it turn out it wouldn’t have mattered. All of the travel agents there for the conference were in Ranchos. Friend had been there for a couple of hours so we found him in the lobby.

We hiked it over there and met Pam on the way. After we went into our rooms, the boys walked back to the store for some breakfast food.

We were pretty tired and anxious for our toothbrushes so we could go to bed. Our luggage was finally delivered just after midnight after two phone calls to the front desk and over 4 hours after we landed.

Finally, we could sleep!!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Thursday, March 22nd - Conference Activities

I had an early morning with the conference today. Dh and the kids decided to go to Epcot and leave the room by 8:30 so they didn’t sleep in too long. I got up at 6:30 and met Pam and Missy at 7:15. We caught the shuttle over to the conference center and got in line for registration.

Our theme for the conference was “Priceless Discoveries”.

As always, they gave us a bag of goodies. I didn’t take pictures at the time, so I took some when I got home:

Here’s our bag:

A treasure box:

With a pin and thank you note inside:

A super nice leather notebook:

A Photopass CD:

And my second set of keel coins!

Dh met me over there to get their tickets and they were off to Epcot.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We had breakfast compliments of Chase Visa Card who told us all about their new card.

Our first sesion was at 9.

Who was there to welcome us? The Adventurer’s Club!

After their skit, and our induction into the club, we got started.

Ivana Dream is a personality that shows up for all of our conferences. Was she Sam at the Adventurer’s Club? Anyone recognize her?

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Our sessions are usually led by Disney execs.

We were welcomed by Ed Fouche. Pam had lunch with him in New York City and we ended up eating lunch with him later that day. He’s a super nice guy.

Then we heard from Craig Parsons and another speaker. After that we got a short break to get some snacks and cokes! Here’s Missy showing off her badge:

Cold coke zero! Woot woot!

Missy and Pam:

We had one more speaker and then lunch.

Ed and Craig asked to join us at our table for lunch and of course we agreed! Here was my lunch:

Here’s Craig, Pam and Ed:

Missy with Craig and Ed:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We walked into the next meeting a little late because we didn’t want to get up while Ed or Carl were still eating! We sat in the back:

This was a breakout session on the Disney TA website. We have some awesome new ebrochures we can send out.

After that we went to a breakout session about Adventure by Disney. I’ll tell you what we hear testimonial after testimonial about those tours. They are crazy expensive, but you are definitely getting what you pay for.

They gave us all these cups when we left:

We had a short break next where the highlight was a cooler full of Mickey bars! Score!

Missy and her Mickey bar:

Pam and Missy:

Missy and I:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Our final breakout session had some interesting information. Here’s our favorite trainer, Tommy!!

Ivana came back out for some drawings:

We had one more general session led by Pixar. It was fascinating.
Mickey and Minnie came to see us off too!

When we left we were given a box of postcards from California Adventure:

That was the end of the land sessions! We were off to Magic Kingdom for the evening next.

 

[Crush Dude!]

:sohappy::sohappy::sohappy: At last!! THE trip Report :sohappy::sohappy::sohappy:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

:sohappy::sohappy::sohappy: At last!! THE trip Report :sohappy::sohappy::sohappy:

I know!! It's coming slowly! Although I'm not that slow, I did just get back on Monday! :lol:

 

[Crush Dude!]

I know!! It's coming slowly! Although I'm not that slow, I did just get back on Monday! :lol:

Take your time! I will want to savour this TR :ROFLOL:

 

[joanna71985]

Yay TR!! Will there be any updates about photo taking in it? :lookaroun

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Take your time! I will want to savour this TR :ROFLOL:

Oh, it will take some time! :lol:

Yay TR!! Will there be any updates about photo taking in it? :lookaroun

Yes, but not a happy one.

 

[joanna71985]

Yes, but not a happy one.

Dang it!! I can guess what it will be

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Dang it!! I can guess what it will be

Yep. I didn't try it, but I saw it being strictly enforced.

 

[bradandsarabr]

Glad the family got to come along!!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Glad the family got to come along!!

Thanks, Brad! Me too!!! It was so nice to have them this time.

 

[mamamouse]

OKay there was a time when I'd get excited about a TR n then start reading ,realise it had to do with a cruise n go UGH!!!! n then move on to the next one .......Oddly enough between you n Kenzie I'm actually finding myself going ooohhh awwwweeee n wanting to read every detail now LOL.So now here I am all excited and not knowing how to cope with the anticipation!!! You realise you've created a monster? haha just imagine when I actually take my first cruise OH BOY!!!!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

OKay there was a time when I'd get excited about a TR n then start reading ,realise it had to do with a cruise n go UGH!!!! n then move on to the next one .......Oddly enough between you n Kenzie I'm actually finding myself going ooohhh awwwweeee n wanting to read every detail now LOL.So now here I am all excited and not knowing how to cope with the anticipation!!! You realise you've created a monster? haha just imagine when I actually take my first cruise OH BOY!!!!

:lol: Come on our Unofficial WDW Magic Girl's Cruise! We'll won't take axe murderers but monsters may be okay.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Golly, I wanna do conference time with you! Looks cool!

Ugh! I've always wanted to do some of the ABD tours but you're right. They're crazy expensive. My dream would be Backstage Magic in CA. I'm totally watching to see if they open the day-tour from DL for when we're in DL/CA in November. I wanna go to the studios baaaad!

That tote bag swag they gave y'all is sweet! Love that! Wonder if any have appeared on eBay yet. Guess where my next stop will be??? LOL!

Can't wait to hear how y'all made out in the parks. You told me you were a little concerned about the crowd levels.....

 

[stillgoofy]

Tammy,

I'm loving your trip reports. Can't wait for more. One thing I love most about travel is it's always an adventure (love the lady on the bus going to Colorado Springs :ROFLOL