Shaking Down the Fantasy and Three Encounters with a Dream!

BlizzardPoke · Apr 4, 2012

Tammy,

Loving the report so far! What a beautiful ship! It's getting me super excited for our Alaskian Cruise in July. Keep up the good work!

Craig

erstwo · Apr 4, 2012

sweetpee_1993 said:
^^^^
I know the answer to the 5th person mystery! Not all the big family verandah rooms have them but at the end of the room closest to the sliding door where the chair is there's a single Murphy bed that folds up into a cabinet. When the bed is made it literally crosses the room from one side to the other essentially blocking off the slider door. Does that make sense???

Ah ha! Yes!

And I just looked back at our room pictures. We did not have that cabinet, just the chair. So that solves that mystery. My husband and I came up with all kinds of crazy ideas - a hidden trundle under the queen bed (there's so much space down there!) or the couch could be pulled out further - into a double (instead of the twin that was there for us.)

So neat how I didn't even notice the difference in Tammy's photo. Just shows how well it blends.

Thanks Sweetpee!

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

disneygirl1 said:
YAY another Tammy TR! I am so loving it so far! Can not wait to hear all about your experience on the Fantasy!

Thanks, Disneygirl!

erstwo said:
This is great! I love to read your trip reports, not just for the awesome photos, but I guess the fact that you have the same older son/ younger daughter thing as we do - makes me think I'm looking at what my family vacations will (hopefully!) look like in a few years.

I laughed so hard at your excitement over your son deciding he liked popcorn shrimp two years ago. I. feel. your. pain! Only for us it's flip flopped - my daughter is the picky one. And my son will eat anything. Doesn't the fact that your daughter will eat so much more make you feel vindicated as a parent? Ha! I feel that way all the time when people are like "Seriously, she only wants chicken nuggets?" (pretty much her only protein besides milk.) That's when I point to my son and say "But he eats anything! And I swear I parented them the exact same way." And then I feel like adding, "So there. I'm not a bad parent." but I don't.

Maybe once they're grown we could marry them off - they have so much in common - parents who love Disney, a random college football team connection, they are super picky eaters who only eat 5 things....... I'm sure the 10 year age difference isn't weird at all. :lol:

But back to the Trip Report - I really like your picture of the Fantasy chandelier. At first it wasn't my favorite - I liked the bold red of the Dream's much better. But after that shot, I'm leaning more toward the Fantasy.

Looking forward to more!

ETA - Oh! And I'm hoping for a shot of how you got 5 (essentially) adults in that room. We had that exact same room and I wondered where you would put the 5th person/ where the 5th bed was!

It does make me feel a little vindicated!! :lol: And I definitely feel your pain! We have been judged up and down for years. I feel even more vindicated that he's a healthy normal sized boy.

They may be perfect for each other besides that 10 year age gap! They have so much in common! :lol: Can you imagine them both on a date at a high end restaurant and ordering off the kid's menu? :lol:

I agree, the Fantasy's chandelier didn't jump out at me at first, but I really liked it in person.

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

sweetpee_1993 said:
^^^^
I know the answer to the 5th person mystery! Not all the big family verandah rooms have them but at the end of the room closest to the sliding door where the chair is there's a single Murphy bed that folds up into a cabinet. When the bed is made it literally crosses the room from one side to the other essentially blocking off the slider door. Does that make sense???

That's right! I temporarily forgot that some of them didn't have it. Missy was in the same room type and kept asking where the other bed was. I told her she'd just missed it in her room, but it was there. Oops! :lookaroun:lol:

BlizzardPoke said:
Tammy,

Loving the report so far! What a beautiful ship! It's getting me super excited for our Alaskian Cruise in July. Keep up the good work!

Craig

Thanks, Craig! You're going to love it!

erstwo said:
Ah ha! Yes!

And I just looked back at our room pictures. We did not have that cabinet, just the chair. So that solves that mystery. My husband and I came up with all kinds of crazy ideas - a hidden trundle under the queen bed (there's so much space down there!) or the couch could be pulled out further - into a double (instead of the twin that was there for us.)

So neat how I didn't even notice the difference in Tammy's photo. Just shows how well it blends.

Thanks Sweetpea!

I've got a picture of the unfolded bed coming up!

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

We went on a tour of the nightclubs next. The Tube is super cool. The glass balls in the ceiling are vibrant red at night and create a flag on the ceiling:

Festive booths:

Dd checking out the cool chairs:

Beautiful bathrooms in the club area:

The champagne bar Ooh La La:

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

D Lounge:

There were more clubs, but I took pictures last time so I didn’t duplicate.

Here’s the digital version of Shutters. There was a fun interactive game you could play with your pictures on the wall outside Shutters. Somehow I neglected to take a picture! :lookaroun

These were in the art gallery. They’re made from the steel used to create the hull. Super cool:

Vista Café snacks:

Beautiful mural:

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

Interactive artwork. You can actually steer the ship in this one:

Oops, I caught a booty scratch in Bibbiddi Bobbiddi Boutique!

Is it wrong that I want this suitcase?

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

Here’s the incredibly beautiful Remy:

Isn’t this adorable?

Look at the chairs!

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

They were getting the champagne glasses ready up on deck!

Next stop was Edge, the tweener’s club:

The kids split off at some point and did the golf simulator which is free on the first afternoon. They enjoyed it.

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

It was time for the lifeboat drill next. It’s so nice not to have to wear life jackets to the drill anymore. After the drill we ran by the room and then went up to the Sail away party. They were passing out champagne and a non alcoholic version in souvenir glasses. When we sailed on the Dream’s inaugural, we didn’t realize that they had a non alcoholic version and we didn’t realize we could keep the glasses until we saw someone with like 30 of them!

We didn’t make that mistake this time.

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

After just a couple of songs the kids realized there was no line for the Aqua Duck and went for a spin.

Here’s a close up of that shot with the three of them headed up the stairs:

Here’s ds and dd:

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

The party continues:

They went to the hot tub next and we were actually sailing away:

I went downstairs to unpack and change for dinner. Dinner tonight was in Animator’s Palate and I couldn’t wait to see the new show!

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

This show in Animator's is very hard to describe. You really have to experience it to see how wonderful it was.

When we first sat down, we had our drawing papers and markers waiting for us. Our servers explained what to do and left us to our drawing.

The drawings could be as simple or as complex as you wanted, but you needed to draw each body part in its own section (not connected) so it could come to life later:

Here are the kids hard at work:

Here’s our menu:

They came back a little while later to pick up our drawings and we started eating. Here’s the butter knives I love and bought two of!

Missy and her dh with aforementioned butter knives:

Here’s the ceiling:

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

Here’s our server Derrick with Missy:

I guess for expediency while we drew, everyone got the same appetizer sampler:

I also had the corn trio soup. We put the popcorn in the soup. It was a bit insane tasting:

For an entrée I had the breaded chicken:

Dh had the lobster which our server graciously took out of the shell for each person:

Pork tenderloin:

Missy’s husband started his nightly tradition of having two dinners. One of them was Tilapia I believe:

Ds went with his nightly tradition of ordering cheese pizza from the kid’s menu. :lol:

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

While we ate, the screens showed some Disney movie clips.

Towards the end of the meal the real show started. First Mickey came onscreen:

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

Then we watched the screens nearest us as our drawings came to life. They started out with little dances in groups of four. The drawings were moving and dancing! Every few seconds a new group of drawings would come out.

Mine's the second from the right here:

We were squealing like little girls whenever we saw our drawings! At least I was.

I’m pretty sure there were a couple of other grown men and women at our table doing the same thing.

It was a several minute long show and they used everyone’s drawings. They seemed to show the drawings by section so each section saw their own drawings and not everyone in the restaurants.

After a few minutes of dancing drawings, then the drawings were inserted into real Disney movies!! I’m telling you it was awesome.

At the end the names of the “guest animators” scrolled across the screen. There we all are up top!

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

The meal ended with chocolate lava cake for some of us:

Dessert trio for others:

And a Mickey bar for dd. That’s my child

:

So is Animator’s on the Fantasy better than the Dream? Yes!! Because on the Fantasy you get this amazing show AND the Crush show which we loved on the Dream.

Disneyfalcon · Apr 4, 2012

We finally tore ourselves away from Animators and walked through the stores. Sadly there were no inaugural Dooney bags out for us.

They did however, have the pillow from the bed that everyone loves so much!! We all fell in love with this pillow on the Dream and wanted to buy it so much. There it is, way up there, above the Animator’s plates:

I couldn’t reach it and was admiring it from afar. I told dh I wanted it and the lady next to me said, “Did you see how much it is?”

I said I hadn’t and she said – dramatic pause – It’s $200!!!

I forgot for a second that I was talking to a complete stranger and may have yelled, “Shut Up!!” :lookaroun

I mean, I love that pillow but is that crazy or what?!

Here’s the butter knives:

We still had a little time before the show so we went to the room for a few minutes. I had checked the screens outside the theater and they confirmed what I had read and heard about. No photography at all in the shows anymore. Sadness. :cry:

I decided to leave my camera in the room.

Here’s our room turned down for the night with the extra three beds pulled out:

The show tonight was the new “Wishes”. It was really great. It was about three friends about to graduate from high school and spending their last night as high school students in their favorite place – Disneyland. We really enjoyed the whole show.

I did notice the no photography rule was strictly enforced. Every time I saw a screen light up in front of me a cm literally jogged past and tapped them on the shoulder.

After the show, the kids took off again. There are several times in this report that you may assume they were with us, but they actually weren’t most of the time, and we decided to go to the hot tubs.

First we took a night time ride on the Aqua Duck! We literally walked right on. Riding at night was great!

We went to the adult hot tubs and found Missy and her dh. While we were relaxing, another group came and sat in the second hot tub. One of them looked to be about 12. For those of you that have heard people complain that the cm’s don’t enforce the 18 and older rule, that was not the case tonight. The other group was in the hot tub less than 5 minutes when a cm came out of Cove Café and told them they would have to leave.

After we turned into prunes, I got a slice of pizza and we went downstairs. We tried to watch Thor on the excellent On Demand channel but we fell asleep. There were some great movies on Demand and in the Buena Vista Theater on this cruise but we couldn’t ever seem to work them in to our schedule.

Dd came in at about 12.

We had told the kids they could stay out as late as they wanted but I was getting them up at 9 every morning. When I woke up at 3 and the boys weren’t back I was rethinking that policy.

I woke up again at 3:30 and then again at 4. At 4 I decided I may should check to see if they had come in earlier and I had slept through it. Sure enough! They were sound asleep!

It turns out they came in around 2.

And that was the end of the first day onboard.

Coree · Apr 4, 2012

OMG I'm so excited about Animator's Palate. How cool!

And WHAT??? No photos in shows any more. How sad!

erstwo · Apr 5, 2012

Disneyfalcon said:
Thanks, Disneygirl!

It does make me feel a little vindicated!! :lol: And I definitely feel your pain! We have been judged up and down for years. I feel even more vindicated that he's a healthy normal sized boy.

They may be perfect for each other besides that 10 year age gap! They have so much in common! :lol: Can you imagine them both on a date at a high end restaurant and ordering off the kid's menu? :lol:

I agree, the Fantasy's chandelier didn't jump out at me at first, but I really liked it in person.

Ah! Well, you've got that one on me - my daughter is soooooooo thin, but she is tall for her age so at least that lets me know she's growing. AND once, our pediatrician (a female who is tiny - about 5' 3" in shoes) remarked during my daughter's 3 year old well check up, "Well, she's in the 80th percentile in height and the 20th percentile in weight. Or in other words, every American woman's dream - including mine- come true." :lol: The she told me she was a perfectly healthy little girl. So ever since then I've tried to just stop fretting over it so much.

I told my husband about the fancy restaurant and we decided there will be no need for fancy with our daughter - she'll be happy if her dates take her to Chick Fil A every time.

Here's hoping your son can take his dates someplace similar without them minding either. Ha!

Again, I digress - WOW, Animator's Palate! That is so cool. I know some will say it's just another 'screen' experience, but to me no one does 'screen' interaction like Disney. They really have gone above and beyond to make technology have that 'wow' factor. I feel like that's tough to do in this day and age. So amazing.

Thanks for the shot of the room with the bed down. I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't notice that some rooms have the extra cabinet and some rooms don't. That cabinet just looks like it's supposed to be there in your room and in our room it didn't look like anything was missing - gotta love that kind of design detail!