“Witty Trip Report Title 3--The Trilogy is Complete”: Disney Fantasy May 2-9 2015

[MrRay]

We are Bob and Jenna from NYC.





We’re 32 and 29 respectively and have been married for almost 5 years. You can read about our previous 2 trip reports here…

Witty 1

Witty 2


These trips were January of 2013 and 2014. We hadn’t planned on taking another cruise so soon but we had made a bunch of vacation photos the screen saver for our television and 1 cold night this winter we cracked and booked a 7-night Eastern Caribbean for May of 2015.



This year’s plan consisted of flying down in the morning of Friday May 1st, renting a car, spending the day/night in cocoa beach and then using DCL transfer to fly home right after the cruise.

As the thread name suggests this was our third time on the Fantasy and we were looking forward to relaxing and enjoying some warm weather, particularly at Castaway Cay as we hadn't had a ton of luck there in January.

So hop onboard if you'd like and see how it turned out.



May 1st Part 1: It’s time to go
May 1st Part 2: The search for Manatees
May 1st Part 3: Sail Away…For other people
May 2nd Part 1: It’s Time! Have a Magical Vacation!
May 2nd Part 2: Welcome Aboard
May 2nd Part 3: Nightlife
May 3rd, At Sea
May 4th, At Sea Part 1: More relaxing fun
May 4th, At Sea Part 2: Palo
May 5th, St. Thomas Part 1: Early morning St. Thomas
May 5th, St. Thomas Part 2: To the BEACH
May 5th, St. Thomas Part 3: The Rest of the Day
May 6th, San Juan Part 1: Ziplining
May 6th, San Juan Part 2: More San Juan
May 6th, San Juan Part 3: Traveling to Pirate’s Waters
May 7th, At Sea
May 8th, Castaway Cay Part 1
May 8th, Castaway Cay Part 2: Serenity Bay
May 8th, Castaway Cay Part 3: More Serenity Bay
May 8th, Castaway Cay Part 4: The Final Night

 

[cheermom2four]

on board! Cant wait to read the rest! Just read your trip 2 and omg I'm worried as we are going on our first cruise ever on the 3-night Magic in February for our anniversary. Yikes!

 

[Purplejewel]

Looking forward to reading your TRIP Report.

 

[MrRay]

on board! Cant wait to read the rest! Just read your trip 2 and omg I'm worried as we are going on our first cruise ever on the 3-night Magic in February for our anniversary. Yikes!

I wouldn't worry, I'm sure we were just stressed out from the travel/weather. You'll have a blast.

 

[Benchley]

I'm here too, can't wait to catch up

 

[ShellB8585]

Ah I am so glad I spotted this! have loved your previous TRs

 

[MrRay]

May 1st Part 1: It’s time to go


We woke up at about 5 a.m. on May 1st. Our flight was scheduled for 7:45 at JFK airport in NYC. Jenna’s dad was picking us up at 5:45, we don’t live very far from the airport. We had checked in the day prior so we just walked in to check our bags and then were miraculously sent through the TSA pre-check line. Total time from walking out our apartment door to walking into the terminal… 20 minutes. I wish it worked like that every time.


When our plane arrived we had to laugh at it’s name… “Bibbity Bobbity Blue”, very appropriate.


We had a short 15-minute delay while they swapped out a radio in the cockpit and we were on our way. We ended up getting in a little late but nothing to complain about, particularly if you read about our previous trip’s travel nightmares.


We stopped by the rental car desk and were on our way by probably about 11:30. The drive was smooth and easy and before we knew it we were hitting the crest of a bridge and seeing the Disney Dream’s smoke stacks. She was looking beautiful, and we had incredible weather, but we knew our first stop had to be lunch.


We had decided ahead of time that we wanted to try out “Jazzy’s Mainely Lobster”. We knew the whole week on the cruise was going to be fancier dinners so we wanted to eat local and casual and this place fits the bill. It’s a small restaurant that would lovingly be called a shack with a small outdoor covered patio. The weather was absolutely heavenly this day. The sun was warm but there was almost no humidity. We sat partially in the shade with a beautiful breeze.




We honestly couldn’t have been happier. We started off with some crab cakes that were amazing. It was crispy on the outside but full of delicious crab on the inside.


Jenna got fried shrimp with hush puppies. The shrimp was fresh and delicious.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/sCCseB]

I got a lobster roll with fries. This was also delicious and very refreshing on a warm afternoon.


I know it looks pretty pedestrian but the food was way above average.

We sat for a while sipping on iced tea and left with happy, full bellies.

By now we figured it was late enough to check into our hotel. We had gotten a good rate at the Comfort inn and Suites. Check in was very friendly and we were given a room on the north side of the complex that looked straight at Ron Jon’s surf shop. The room was nice enough, the bathroom was pretty disgusting though, definitely needed an update. It was impossible to take a shower without getting the toilet paper dispenser soaking wet.




We got ourselves organized and then set out for some more fun in the sun...[/url]

 

[marciemouse]

Yay! I love reading your trip reports and seeing your great photos! Can't wait to hear more!

 

[lizzyb]

Joining in!

 

[MrRay]

We stopped by the Disboards welcome center to say hi to Teresa and then went to Publix to pick up some liquor for the cruise. Then we decided to check out a couple of small parks where we had read you might be able to see Manatees. Center Street Park is literally just a bit bigger than the Gazebo that sits there but offers a view of the bay where Manatees come by. We met a girl there who said that usually come by between 4 and 6 so we headed off to visit another park she suggested, Manatee Sanctuary Park. This park was a bit bigger and had a nice walkway and covered viewing areas.











You can also see the ships in the distance which is cool.





We were still there a bit too early in the day so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and head back to our hotel to walk along the beach.


The comfort inn is across the street from the beach, right behind that weird crescent shape hotel. It’s literally less than a 5-minute walk though, so it’s very convenient. Not to beat this point to death but the weather was really perfect. We took our shoes off and walked down the beach in the water. Plenty of people were out swimming and we were so content we could have probably walked for miles.





Sadly we had a tight schedule because we wanted to watch the Dream sail away. We said goodbye to the beach and hopped back into the car to go to the port.

 

[MrRay]

Our initial thought was to try and go to Jetty Park, but they want $15 for non-residents to go there which is just ridiculous so we ended up just parking in the boat launch parking lot. We had a great view and there was plenty of parking. We were quickly joined by a few other spectators, some who came prepared with beach chairs and drinks. There is some other places closer to the restaurants that you can probably go for free to but this was nice and easy and not crowded.


We got there just as a Royal Caribbean ship was sailing by and then we watched the pelicans fly around for a while before a couple of small sea turtles caught our attention.



They dove around in the water near us for a while. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a big shadow in the water and sure enough a manatee came up for air right in front of us and then just as quickly disappeared again.





We were happy to get the chance to see one even quickly.



Eventually the Dream made its way past us playing it’s full complement of horns to the excitement of everyone. Most of the people around us knew people on the boat and waved them farewell.








As she sailed off into the ocean we decided to take a trip back to the two parks that we visited to see if we could see a manatee again. Manatee Sanctuary Park came up empty but as we sat on some rocks at Center Street Park we saw a few of them off in the distance swimming along. We watched them for 15 minutes maybe and they were definitely getting a little closer but by now we had gotten too much sun. We hadn’t seen this much sun in a LONG time.




It was now dinner time so we headed back to port. Like I said earlier we wanted the opposite of the cruise so really casual meals, but also really fresh. We had decided on a restaurant at the port called “Seafood Atlantic”.



Inside it’s a fresh fish market and outside they have a simple patio. Fishing boats literally dock right there and unload the day’s catch.



They also had these tall plastic chairs that felt amazing because we were so exhausted. It was like sitting on a throne. We pretty much just sank into them.




We started off with mini crab cakes, pretty much 100% crab and completely delicious.




Other than that we kept it real simple. Jenna had fish tacos...



and I had a Canaveral shrimp po’boy.



Everything was so fresh and tasty it was kind of hard to believe how such seemingly simple dishes could taste so good.

We left full and exhausted. We retreated to the hotel for some much needed sleep. As we pulled into the parking lot the deep orange sun was hanging low in the sky casting beautiful shadows and closing the book on an absolutely perfect day. It was hard to say goodbye to this beautiful day and go inside but we needed a good night’s sleep because the next day was going to be even more exciting.

 

[Benchley]

What a fabulous start to your holiday. Love the look of the food

 

[MrRay]

We woke up in need of coffee and as luck would have it the Starbucks in the Ron Jon Surf Shop was about a 30 second walk across the road. Then we grabbed some of the free breakfast at the hotel. It’s a typical hotel breakfast, the kind where it’s really not clear what anything is actually made of, but we only needed to last for a few hours.



We took a morning stroll along the beach to kill some time.









Once again it was just lovely out. But before we knew it we had to pack up the car and get back on the road. Our port arrival time was 11:30. We left the hotel at 10:45 so we could get some gas and drop off the car. Our previous experiences with dropping off the car and taking the shuttle to port had been crowded and hectic. This time a very nice lady waved us into a parking spot and chatted with us for a quick minute, it turns out her niece is a performer on the Fantasy. We were the only people there so a driver came out and took us in our own shuttle bus to port immediately.







Our driver was a nicer older man who chatted with us the whole way. As Kennedy Space Center turned up on the horizon the conversation turned to NASA for a while, his son works for them doing telemetry or something smart like that. We had plenty of time to chat because the Carnival ship in port was way behind disembarking people and other people started showing up already so it was a bit of a traffic jam pulling into port. We got through eventually and were met with an almost comically easy time dropping off our bags and going through security.



There were so few people in the Castaway Line that a cast member literally came out to open the stanchions so we didn’t have to walk the big zig zag. It was a nice touch. Check in took about 2 minutes and our boarding number was called the second she gave it to us. A short walk up the gangway and we heard “The Disney Fantasy Welcomes the Going Family!”. Total time from hotel to walking on the ship…50 minutes, beautiful.

 

[Benchley]

Now that's what I call a great start to your cruise

 

[MrRay]

We headed straight up to Cabanas. I hit up my favorites, lamb chops, shrimp, and steak. The assistant server from our last cruise happened to be working our area so we talked to her for a minute. The food as all ok but we both felt it wasn’t as good as it used to be. We didn’t fill ourselves up as much as usual. We had other things on our minds too though. We had put in a request for our own table so we wanted to be early in line at Royal Court to check to make sure it was put through. Also now that we had our dining rotation we wanted to try and get a Palo reservation for the night of the “Turtle Talk” show in Animator’s Palette. They start letting people in at 1. At 12:30 we sat outside the front entrance but after a while I thought it was weird no one else had lined up with us so I went to investigate, sure enough there was a line of people at the side entrance. We weren’t too far back and we were able to confirm quickly that we did in fact have a table for ourselves and then sat down at the Palo table and told her the day we wanted. We were excited when she said “ok we have 6, 6:30, 7, 7:30…” She just trailed off and we snatched up a 6:30 and were on our way. It wasn’t until later in the day that we realized that we had completely coincidentally ended up with a reservation on our 10-year anniversary.




The only other thing we really wanted to accomplish was checking out the teen club as that was one of the only parts of the ship we hadn’t seen.




It’s very cool, never saw anyone in the pool area they have the whole trip though. We don’t really sail at times of year when teens are out of school though so maybe that’s why.




It was about time for our room to be opened so we happily went in to drop off our stuff. We were in room 8536.




We have previously been in 8540 and 8534, so we are very comfortable with this area of the ship. It’s a quick 3 floor walk to the adult pool area and easy enough to walk everywhere else.



We went into our room to find our castaway bag, slightly redesigned so it won’t break so easily and a bottle of sparkling wine I surprised Jenna with. We dropped our bags and relaxed for a bit.






I’m not really sure what we did for a while other than get some ice cream, relax on the verandah watching the luggage get loaded on, and set up our bar.




Before we knew it we had to make our way to the muster drill. We were in station H, which is on deck 4 Starboard. Luckily it got a little cloudy for the length of the drill and we didn’t boil too much. It was pretty painless and when they announced the drill was over it was time to party.



We filled up some drinks and headed up to deck 12.






I always like to take a peek at the sail away party to see what it’s like…


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waaaaaayyyy too crazy for us. Jenna found a nice open spot with plenty of barricades to keep us safe from the masses.






We started to pull away and slowly creep down the channel.






The sun was out, the music was blasting, and plenty of people were out watching us sail away.


We got a good look at the new terminal where the Oasis of the Seas will be sailing out of, it’s obviously enormous.



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Here you can see the boat launch where we watched the Dream sail away.






Jetty Park is right past the boat docks.




We are used to sailing in January where the sun is sets pretty much as soon as you get out into the Ocean. This was a real treat having a few extra hours of sunlight. We just watched us sail along for a while and then headed back to our verandah to watch some more.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Loving the Trip Report! We're from the NYC area too! (Technically NJ now, but we lived in NYC for many years). We sailed on the 5-night Bahamian cruise on the Magic in May, and the weather was incredible!

 

[Benchley]

Can't wait for that view ourselves

 

[MrRay]

Eventually we got ourselves cleaned up for dinner just as the sunset was getting beautiful.



We stopped by the “Bon Voyage” Bar for a pre dinner drink and watched the sun set on deck 4 before heading to dinner.



It was only a little windy





Dinner was in Enchanted Garden. We were seated at Table 1.



We were off to the side of the restaurant and tucked more in the corner, which was fine with us. We were also butted right up to the server station, which we were fine with because we found it easy to talk to and get our servers attentions while they were there.


Our server was Benjamin from India and assistant server was Dejan from Croatia. Benjamin started off on the Magic and has been on the Fantasy since it launched. He’s been with the company almost 5 years. Dejan was only with the company about 8 weeks. It worked out well for us because while both were nice and very honest with us Benjamin would play the roll of the “company man” while Dejan would be more down to earth and matter of fact.


I started with the Cucumber Garden Roll and Lobster Ravioli. Both were good. The Garden roll was better from what I remember. For dinner I had the sea bass and that was very tasty. I wasn’t crazy about the risotto that came with it and Jenna didn’t like the lentils that came with her portobello mushrooms so we finished each other’s plates and it worked out great.


I can’t remember what I had for dessert but Jenna had a Mickey Bar and was very excited about it.



I like to drink iced tea and in the drink stations it’s a terrible soda mix but in the dining rooms they have brewed iced tea so Dejan was nice enough to send me out with a few glasses of it each night so I could put it in our fridge.





We left dinner happy and exhausted and just returned to our room to relax with some on Demand TV... In our two previous trips the volume of the On Demand movies was always really low and we would have to push it all the way to 100 but it seems to be fixed now and is comparable to the regular TV stations.

 

[ScottishMummyof2]

Joining!

 

[nancipants]

I loved your previous trip reports and am excited to read a new one!

Random, my husband has that green Epcot shirt Jenna wore.