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]

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.....

Conferences are awesome! We all love them.

I would so love that Backstage Magic tour. It's the best deal going when they have that one day option available!

They sold that tote in the gift shops too! It's $40 there.

Parks are coming next!

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

It is always an adventure! We called her the Colorado Springs lady every time we saw her after that. :lol:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

After the conference activities were done for the day, we decided to walk back to Ranchos:

I had been getting texts from the fam all day with picture from the Flower and Garden Festival. They looked like they were having a great time. Dh was picked to be Sir Gallahad in the Quest for the Holy Grail in the UK. He danced and everything. I am told there was some river dancing involved. :lookaroun I need to post that video!

Here are their iphone pictures:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

 

[Disneyfalcon]

They had texted me about an hour before that they were going back to the room for a little while. I texted when we finished and everyone except dh was asleep!

Slackers! Didn’t they know they were at Disney World?

 

[Disneyfalcon]

I stopped by Missy’s room because she made us all Kingdom Konsultant T-shirts! You'll see us wearing them in some of the pictures to follow.

We woke the teens up and went to the Magic Kingdom for dinner. We entered bus purgatory for a little while here. Mulitple busses for other parks came and no bus for Magic Kingdom. When one finally did come it was too full for everyone to get on! (It was like 27 minutes if you read my last trip report! ) Of course we made it eventually.

Today’s crowd level was 10 out of 10 so I didn’t expect to be able to do much. I really just wanted to see the new parts of Fantasyland and check out Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom. We went right to get our cards. The line was non existant there, so it didn’t take long. The kids wanted pizza and we didn’t so we split up. We decided on Tortuga and I texted Coree from the boards and told her that’s where we were headed. Coree said, “Isn’t that closed right now?”

Oops.

So we met them at Pecos Bill instead.

Shame on both of us for forgetting to take a picture! It was great to meet Coree and her family. We ate dinner with them and then said goodbye.

We checked in with the kids who had big plans for the night. They were headed to the midnight premiere of Hunger Games at Downtown Disney!

I was so torn on that one. I desperately wanted to see it, but I also wanted to enjoy every second of it and I was afraid I wouldn’t at midnight. Plus I didn’t want to start my time on the Fantasy completely wiped out.

So we split up again. The kids rode Haunted Mansion and Buzz and then walked to the Contemporary to catch a bus to Downtown Disney.

After that we went and watched some people play Sorcerer’s. The lines were really long and I was content just to watch and get the feel for it.

Then we got ourselves our favorite snack – Dole Whip Floats, and walked back to Dumbo. The lights at night are really great.

We took the train to the front of the park and wandered a little. The kids checked in, they were at Downtown Disney and wandering around.

We caught a bus back to Coronado and I repacked our bags for the cruise.

Dh and I fell asleep around 11. At 2ish I started getting restless waiting for the kids. They finally came in at 3. They loved loved loved the movie and lucked into a free cab ride back to Coronado Springs.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Friday, March 23rd - Boarding the Fantasy

After not many hours of sleep, we were up! Our bags were supposed to be ready for pick up at 8 am. We took a chance that no one would actually pick them up at 8 and dh and I woke up at 7:30. We left the bags that were ready by the door and we walked out into the courtyard at Ranchos where they had breakfast and some information booths set up. We walked around, ate and walked back to the room to get the kids up.

They came to get the bags while the kids were getting ready, so we threw whatever we could into a suitcase and packed the rest in our carry ons.

The kids went to eat breakfast and then we got in line for our 10:00 bus to the port. The busses are here! I’m so excited!!

They told us it would be an hour and a half bus ride so we settled in. Dh sat by someone he didn’t know so dd wouldn’t have to. DD went to sleep and I was on the ipad. I also talked to Sweetpee on the cell phone to help her with some changes to her DCL reservation. Because of our experience with the loud cell phone talker from the other night, I tried to talk as quietly as possible so I wouldn’t drive other people around me crazy!

You are welcome, other bus passengers.

Finally we got our first glimpse! Yay!

Oh yes, I cheered! Here’s the sign:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We were in the front rows so we jumped off first!

First ones up the escalator!

There were some busses before us, so we weren’t alone. Hey there’s Missy and Pam! They were behind us! How’d they get so close?

Our check in desk:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Here’s my key!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We were boarding group #15 and they were already on 5!

We didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes after checking in. Minnie was there!

Through those famous ears!

Down the ramp and we’re on!

Up next - the Fantasy!

 

[ChuckElias]

That picture looks SOOOOOO familiar!! (And btw, I'm SOOOOOO jealous reading this report.)

 

[fractal]

Cool trip report! Looking forward to more coolness on the cruise.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I'm so lovin it, Tammy!!! Cannot wait for the ship pics to start!!!!

Thanks so much for saving our butts on the stateroom change. Hated to bug ya on the trip. I was fully expecting you to refer me to whoever was covering you, I forget who. But thank you a million times over for rescuing us from the noisy nights beneath Rockin Bar D.

:wave:

 

[meganw1985]

Ooo! Come on cruise! I am SOOOOOO hoping to do a cruise next summer following our tentative Disney trip (as I am unable to book for 2013 yet). Sooooo excited to see your cruise review!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

That picture looks SOOOOOO familiar!! (And btw, I'm SOOOOOO jealous reading this report.)

I know, Chuck! I hope you bet back on one soon!

Cool trip report! Looking forward to more coolness on the cruise.

Thanks, Fractal!

I'm so lovin it, Tammy!!! Cannot wait for the ship pics to start!!!!

Thanks so much for saving our butts on the stateroom change. Hated to bug ya on the trip. I was fully expecting you to refer me to whoever was covering you, I forget who. But thank you a million times over for rescuing us from the noisy nights beneath Rockin Bar D.

:wave:

You're so welcome! I would have referred you over if I had to! But it really was good timing.

Ooo! Come on cruise! I am SOOOOOO hoping to do a cruise next summer following our tentative Disney trip (as I am unable to book for 2013 yet). Sooooo excited to see your cruise review!

It's coming! I hope you can get on one soon, Megan!

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Another TR! LOVE IT!! So awesome DH and the kids got to join you! Shoulda made them catch up on their homework on the ride to port!! lol (because I know whenever I had to miss school, I did homework on the plane like I was supposed to :lookaroun)

I'm so excited for our girls cruise next year.. Seems sooooo far away though!!

The pics from the F&G Festival are beautiful. We will be there in 24 days so I can't wait to check them out!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Another TR! LOVE IT!! So awesome DH and the kids got to join you! Shoulda made them catch up on their homework on the ride to port!! lol (because I know whenever I had to miss school, I did homework on the plane like I was supposed to :lookaroun)

I'm so excited for our girls cruise next year.. Seems sooooo far away though!!

The pics from the F&G Festival are beautiful. We will be there in 24 days so I can't wait to check them out!

My poor children are like you, they've done so much homework on airplanes flying to Florida! :lol:

It does seem far away, but getting closer!

Have fun! :sohappy:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

If you haven’t cruised before, when you board a cast member with a microphone asks your family’s name. We decided to combine our last name with friends ala Brangelina. We ended up being welcomed as the “Tatings”! Which thoroughly confused Pam and Missy who heard it. :lol:

Pam went to get our dining assignment changed, since we weren’t together for some reason, and we went to Enchanted Garden for lunch. Here’s a pic I took last time I was on the Fantasy. It gives a better overview than the other ones I took:

Here’s some of the food for our lunch buffet:

Check out this ice cream cooler! :sohappy:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

I need to explain the next picture by saying my 17 year old is one of the pickiest eaters you will ever meet. Ever. As far as entrée’s go, he eats about 6 things and even they can’t be too out of the norm. Plain noodles, cheese pizza (without too much sauce), chicken nuggets (not chicken, chicken nuggets), BLT’s (but no L or T, so really just B; no mayonnaise either, so just bacon and bread) and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. About 2 years ago he decided he liked popcorn shrimp which was very exciting. No veggies and no meat (other than chicken nuggets and now tiny fried shrimp). We once offered him $100 to eat a steak and he didn’t take it. We spent a very long time stressing about it until a doctor told us to relax, he was growing fine. He’s a healthy, athletic, normal sized boy and his body will tell him when he needs something.

Cruises are actually food heaven for him. He eats pizza all day and if he doesn’t see anything in the dining rooms to eat, he’s not worried. He just goes to get pizza later. This was his plan today. After going through that delicious buffet, this was his plate:

I know. I have failed as a mother. :lookaroun

Here was dd’s though! Hers is better:

Missy and her dh:

Mine I think?

The teens:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

After a delicious lunch for most of us, we walked up to the kids clubs. We stopped by the excursion desk first and found out that not many excursions were going to be offered. Oh well. We would be at Castaway Cay so who cares what we were doing!

The chandelier:

We started off in the Small World nursery which was adorable. I took a ton of pictures of the clubs last time so only a few this time around:

Then the Oceaneer’s Club:

Dh and ds tried a game on the interactive floor:

Dh won and got a prize:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Oceaneer’s Lab next. Driving the ship:

For any cup stackers out there, these were ginormous. They came up to my knee, which admittedly, is not that high. But ginormous compared to the normal ones!: