It's a grand slam! Our incredible cruise on the Disney Fantasy, Western Caribbean Oct 22-29 - Complete

[greensombrero]

Background

We just got back from our 4th cruise which completed us sailing on all the "original" pre Wish ships. We didn't necessarily intend to sail all the ships in the order they were built but that is what we have done. I'm not sure whether the term "grand slam" is technically retired now with the Wish in the fleet but I'm going to call this our grand slam cruise as we've now been on the Magic, Wonder, Dream and Fantasy. Aside from having sailed all 4 of the original ships it was an incredible cruise worthy of the grand slam title!

We booked this cruise opening day for us back when no ships were sailing. We really weren't sure if our October 2021 cruise on the Wonder would sail or not (spoiler it did, but only barely, see the TR here). So we figured we'd book a backup when the Fall 2022 sailings became available. We loved the idea of visiting some different islands and enjoying a 7 night cruise. You can get a good deal booking when cruises first go on sail but it does involve a long wait for cruise day to arrive. We were fortunate that we did get to sail on the Wonder and then got an unanticipated cruise on the Dream in. Nevertheless we were super excited as we approached this cruise date and it actually felt like a reality.

For those who haven't read my prior TR's we sail with my 4 kids: DD 14, DS 12, DD 10 and DS 7 along with my DW. This cruise was over fall break so the kids wouldn't miss any school. That was the main reason for our sailing this particular cruise along with a desire for a longer cruise and chance to see some different islands. It was the typical Western Caribbean itinerary for the Fantasy: Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica and Castaway Cay.

Travel Day

I happened to look at airfare for this cruise pretty early. Normally I've heard booking too early won't lead to the best fares for domestic flights. However the price I saw on a direct flight on Delta was within a couple dollars of the lowest fare we've paid to Orlando in recent years. So I just booked the flight. At first I was excited that it got us in to Orlando pretty early. Then as we approached I realized this early 7 am flight meant leaving the house at a pretty crazy hour, I'm not one to cut things close so that meant leaving at 4:30 AM. Everyone was super excited though so here we are more or less awake and excited to be on the flight.






The flight was uneventful and before we knew it we were taking our obligatory picture on the MCO tram.



Originally I had planned to stay at a nice Marriott resort hotel with a cool pool/water slides since we were getting in early. A month or so before the trip I rethought the approach. I realized with how early we were flying we'd be tired and probably not want to do much once we got in. So we switched to an airport hotel with a free shuttle. I do Marriott's Bonvoy loyalty program and we were able to book two rooms at the Renaissance Orlando Airport on points. We planned to try Disney transfers for the first time from the airport to the port. My kids wanted to try riding on the cruise line buses they had seen and it seemed a convenient option and similar price to the other options I investigated.

Quick review of the hotel it is an older property thought it has been renovated. The rooms though did seem a little on the older side. I failed to take any pictures, nothing was really wrong with them you could just tell it was an older hotel. They didn't have adjoining rooms available which honestly is fine for a night. We just did a boys room and a girls room. When the kids are tired separating them sometimes has its advantages. The service at the hotel was great and for a night it was a convenient option. Their free shuttle had a quick pick up from the airport. What was even better we realized is that their shuttle spot for pick ups was right next to the Disney Cruise Line Bus pickup spot. Their lounge is closed on weekends but with my Bonvoy status they offered us free breakfast in the restaurant and included all my kids along with my wife which doesn't always happen. For our return to the airport they had a regular shuttle schedule ever 30 minutes so getting back in the morning was easy.

We were all tired and hungry when we arrived. They had food options in the hotel but we saw there was a TGI Friday's a quick walk from the hotel. When my wife and I were first married TGI Friday's was our favorite chain restaurant and we ate there a lot. Unfortunately all the locations closed around where we live so we rarely eat there anymore. We couldn't resist giving it a try for old times sake. It isn't incredible food but consistently good and we enjoyed it and had a good late lunch. After walking back we were tired from the early flight and just lounged in our rooms and called it a night early. I probably won't book such an early flight with kids again if I can avoid it. It all worked out but that first day was pretty rough on everyone and not the most exciting start to the vacation.

Embarkation Day - Transfers
The next morning we woke up excited to see this:




We had an early breakfast and took the hotel shuttle back to the airport. Checking in for our Disney transfers was super easy. They even had a photo op for us. One of the cast members gave us a Mickey to pose with and took our photo.



I should mention when we were waiting for the airport shuttle the day before we saw the Disney cast members next to us and talked to them about when to show up the next day. They told us they'd start checking in around 8:30 and the first bus would leave just after 9am or so. We figured we might as well try and make the first bus so that's what we planned for. We had a bit of a wait in the airport but there were comfortable seats and it didn't take long until we were boarding the Disney Cruise Bus.



I liked they showed Mickey shorts interspersed with trivia questions on the drive over. It made the drive go fast and before we knew it we had our first views of the beautiful Disney Fantasy.



One of the advantages of taking a Disney transfer is you don't really need to worry about your port arrival time in terms of when you get to the terminal. You do however still have to wait for your boarding group to board the ship. We had boarding group 8 so we had a bit of a wait. We figured we'd rather wait in the terminal though then back at the hotel or somewhere else. We got to take some fun pictures and connect our DCL navigator app to the terminal's wifi and start looking at the schedule for the week, which was nice.



Before we knew it we were taking our boarding photo.



I'm going to continue the rest of day 1 in the next post.

 

[Minniemoo15]

Love your trip reports.... I am beyond excited for our first Disney Cruise in just a couple of months so reading this will tide me over until then!

 

[NAB]

Exciting Grand Slam it still is! Your on my favourite ship. We have been on all the ships as well.

When my kids were small just going to a hotel is vacation. We used to have to do a hotel the night before the airport and another night when we got there Before the cruise.

Can‘t wait to hear more.

 

[Girl of the South]

I hope you continue this Trip Report! Really looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip - mine is coming up soon - Fantasy - same itinerary. Thanks for sharing!

 

[greensombrero]

Love your trip reports.... I am beyond excited for our first Disney Cruise in just a couple of months so reading this will tide me over until then!

Thanks! I agree reading TR is a great way to pass the time until you cruise!

Exciting Grand Slam it still is! Your on my favourite ship. We have been on all the ships as well.

When my kids were small just going to a hotel is vacation. We used to have to do a hotel the night before the airport and another night when we got there Before the cruise.

Can‘t wait to hear more.

I still think I love the Magic most but the Fantasy sure is giving her a run for my money

I hope you continue this Trip Report! Really looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip - mine is coming up soon - Fantasy - same itinerary. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, I'll get back to it. Had to track down photos that I didn't have. If you have any specific questions or topics you want to make sure I cover before your cruise just let me know!

 

[greensombrero]

Day 1 October 22nd

When I left off we had gotten to the port. I realized I neglected to comment on one thing. This trip was so much less stressful and we could look forward to it more with the elimination of the pre-board testing requirement. We loved our earlier two pandemic era sailings but man that at port testing added a level of stress we did not miss.

We took this before there was a boarding line, I do like boarding through the Mickey Ears!



As we boarded the ship it hit me, that Disney Ship smell! I haven't noticed it as strongly when boarding before. Maybe it is because the ship's are feeling more like home as we cruise more. If you know what I mean you know what I mean. Not sure I can describe the Disney Ship smell but it definitely exists. Kind of like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride smell.

Of course they don't have the boarding show anymore but they announced our name and we were in the beautiful atrium which I didn't stop to take pictures of this time. I actually took very few pictures this day for some reason and had to get them from my DW which is why it took me a bit longer than I planned to post this day.

For us the first thing to do after boarding is go take care of your muster station check in. We were in an indoor location for the first time, the Buena Vista Theater. It was quick and painless to do. I heard a rumor onboard that they may have to go back to the classic annoying muster drill because people weren't doing the new check in and it was causing problems. I really hope it doesn't turn out to be true because the new way really isn't hard.

After we checked in it was off to Cabanas. I keep trying to convince my family to try the sit down lunch but they love Cabanas. It was busy but not horrible. We were there about 12:30 iirc. I would later find the ship was at about 70% capacity just under 3000 guests. It had the energy you want without feeling super crowded. I think sailing so much during the reduced capacity era has me spoiled.

I don't do food pictures so I'll just have to comment that this was I think my favorite Cabanas boarding day lunch. The variety was back and the food was good. I had a lamb chop I really liked. I also have discovered the sleeper hit for desserts. There is almost always a warm dessert to the far right of the dessert case and it is usually served with ice cream on top if you want it. Embarkation day was an apple cobbler/crisp thing I think and it was good with ice cream on top!

When we boarded the Dream in April we were in swim suits wanting to ride the Aquaduck first thing. Then it was broken until late day 2. I didn't want to jinx us this time so I brought swim wear in my backpack but decided to wait a bit. Instead we headed to the kids clubs next starting with Edge.

No pictures of Edge, it is like on the Dream. We spent a few minutes chatting with the counselors. This would be my oldest's last chance to be in Edge. We got a waiver so her younger sister could go to Edge with her and her older brother. It was nice the three of them could hang out there. My DS 12 decided he had no desire to go to the Oceaneer's club this cruise even though it would be his last chance before he turns 13 and ages out. So when we went there to get locks for their magic bands we just turned his in.

If you aren't aware they have little plastic lock things you can request to make it so their magic bands won't fall off. If you didn't know those who go to the kids club (ages 3-12) have to wear a magic band which they use to check in/check out since it is a controlled environment. They provide the magic band but if you don't turn it in before the end of the cruise they charge you $12.95. In the end I think only my youngest ever went to the actual kids club. Everyone else just did Edge.



Our youngest DS (7) really loved the kids club this cruise. I think he is at the perfect age for it. While the Star Wars stuff looks cool I think he generally preferred the Lab side of the club and he always came back with crafts. He really likes making things there. Though all the kids got really into the ship simulator while we were touring the clubs.




After the kids clubs it was time to check out the teen club Vibe which on the Fantasy is accessed from Deck 4. My oldest technically could go to Vibe on this cruise as well as Edge. I think the entrance to Vibe is pretty cool.



She wasn't sure she wanted to go to Vibe though because on the Fantasy/Dream you have to get a special Vibe key card and she didn't want to give up her normal Key to the World Card because she keeps them from each ship and wanted a full set. We talked to the counselor though and she said she could get her normal card back at the end of the cruise, they just hold them when they issue a vibe card so people don't have two. In the end though she was happy in Edge and never ended up doing it.

As we left Vibe there was a photographer taking pictures on deck 4 which I've not seen on embarkation day before. So we made the kids stop for a picture.



By this time it was about time for our rooms to be open so we headed up there. When we originally booked this cruise we had only been on one Disney cruise and were still figuring out what we cared about room wise. We had adjoining obstructed verandah's in the aft part of the ship on deck 6. Maybe one was obstructed and one wasn't. Well a few months before we sailed I was browsing the site and noticed prices were still quite low and Disney was also offering all sorts of special rates for our sailing to try and fill it up. We now had sailed aft a couple times and weren't real big fans. On the Wonder the vibration was quite strong. On the Dream less so but I hated having to go through Cabanas to get to the aft stairwell from the pool deck. So I had our TA look into it and we were able to move to adjoining mid ship full verandah cabins on Deck 8 for minimal cost. We couldn't take advantage of the special rates without cancelling and rebooking and then we couldn't guarantee adjoining staterooms. However just changing cabins was a minimal cost increase and we didn't lose any of our reservations or anything.

We were in 8080 and 8078, port side just off the mid ship stairwell. I'm so glad we spent the extra and moved because we loved the location! We certainly enjoyed the verandahs, not sure if an obstructed would really have mattered so much but the location was a huge plus and no vibration. We surprised the kids with the Halloween decorations.



Note I think my wife had to put the blanket back, one of the kids moved it before she got a picture, hence the wrinkled look. I thought the package was worth the cost, it was right around $100 and also included a large magnet which isn't shown here. We got to bring it all home and will enjoy it for years to come. The kids even used the trick or treat bag on Halloween when we got home.

One minor glitch we didn't have our lanyards or Castaway Club gift when we first got into our room but they did come a short time later. Our luggage started showing up so we hung out and unpacked and my wife worked on decorating our doors. We went all out for this cruise.



Well pretty soon it was time for the sail away. We had a few minutes and vacation doesn't really start for me until I ride the Aquadunk/Aquaduck depending on the ship. So I changed hoping to ride right before the Sail Away Party which ended up working perfectly. We got up on deck for the safety briefing and a spot to watch the Sail Away. My wife and two of the kids held the spot while the others got one ride in, minimal line and then we all watched the Sail Away. We were on the deck 12 rail back by the entrance to the Aquaduck which I think is a good spot to watch from. I don't think the Sail Away Party is anything amazing but it is a fun way to kick off the cruise. I think I heard on our very first cruise that the Magic/Wonder had a new version. It has been long enough now and our Wonder cruise didn't have a Sail Away so I'm not sure if they were different or not. I'll be interested to see when we next sail one of the classic ships if it is different there.

After the Sail Away we headed back to the room to watch us really sail away from our verandah. Plus I needed to get cleaned up. We decided to watch the show that night which was MoonShot's Halloween show Squad Ghouls. I hadn't heard of them before but they ended up being a pretty fun Acapella group. I'm not sure if their regular show is as fun as their Halloween show but I really enjoyed it.

I do believe pre pandemic they had a "welcome" show on the Fantasy which I wonder if they will bring back. The idea of having an intro/kick off show the first night really appeals to me. I really enjoy the shows onboard. Squad Ghouls was a fun way to kick things off though especially for a Halloween cruise.

After the show it was time to see the Pumpkin Tree. This is a special little show in the atrium where they light the pumpkin tree. I'm not quite sure how but my wife ended up getting us seats on one of the padded circular benches right by the tree which was perfect. Maybe she left the show a bit early I'm trying to remember how it all worked out. I think maybe we had dropped my youngest at the kids club so she left early to get him and find a spot.

The Pumpkin Tree lighting was a cool little show. They have narrator come out and tell a "spooky" story and then reveal how we can get the Pumpkin Tree to light. It wasn't very long but it was a fun Halloween addition.



After the show the shops were open and we took a quick look and then it was time for dinner (we had second seating).

Our first night was in Enchanted Garden with the normal menu. When we had it on the Dream I didn't really like it. This time I tried the Prime Rib. I am often disappointed with Prime Rib but I really liked it. It wasn't too fatty and had good flavor. The only problem is our service was pretty slow this first night. As I would later learn our serving team was fairly new to DCL and I think the first night is often a bit chaotic regardless of how experienced you are. I did mention to our main server I really hoped we could pick up the pace for the next night. I was a little worried if we'd like our serving team after night one.

In the end we really loved our team of Nawe and Mbali. DCL is expanding and lost many servers with the pandemic. So they have to train new people. Our team maybe hadn't been with DCL for years and years but we saw they worked really hard and seemed to care. So we gave them some feedback and then were really friendly and recognized their efforts and called out the things they did we liked. I think that went a long way and really lead to us having a great relationship and enjoying them as much if not more than other serving teams we've had.

I bring it up because I have read plenty of comments about the service not being as good lately or on a particular cruise. I'm sure every situation is different. However I do think it is worth giving your servers some kind feedback when necessary, recognizing their efforts and giving things a chance. They can't learn any other way and generally people work harder to please when they feel their efforts are recognized. I think a lot of times your attitude can make a big difference. In the end we had fun conversations, puzzles and magic tricks, the pace of our dinners got where we wanted them to be, food wasn't ever cold and they knew what we liked and proactively had things ready for us. We had a great experience with them and I'd totally request them again in the future.

Unlike our dining team our state room host had been with DCL for many years. Rian was a ninja, things were taken care of without us necessarily seeing him. However he did make sure to appear a couple times a day to check in and make sure we were doing well. We also really enjoyed him. Our service onboard was just awesome on this cruise all around.

We will end day one with one of his many towel animals.



Up next Day 2 -- At Sea

 

[Girl of the South]

YAY! Another chapter! Great photos . . . love following along. Was REALLY glad to see that the DCL bus is 'wrapped' - during the pandemic I read that they were just gray buses? It's part of the fun, arriving in those buses. Looks like the bags went underneath? I am staying at the MCO Hyatt and I think they will take our bags from the hotel room - makes me a little nervous though.

Interesting that you had such a late PAT even though you were taking the DCL transportation. I have read that you would automatically get an early boarding group. After 90 minutes of frustration, I did get BG 3 . . but I wasn't sure if it was due to me being up at Midnight or the DCL transfer factor.

Your doors are EPIC!!! Did you use magnets to attach the lights?

Here is a question for you - how does the muster station thing work? I see I have "L". Do we go there as soon as we get on and um, scan something?? I did used to really not enjoy back in the day when we had to show up on a hot sunny outside deck WITH our life jackets on. And it was tough on my Mom having to only use the stairs.

I saw that you had a couple of meals (breakfast, lunch) in one of the MDR - did you leave a tip then? I used to leave a couple dollars when I ate in them but maybe not really a thing??

Did you ever do room service or the breakfast service and if so, did anything stand out as being tasty?

I know I will want to have a proper sit down meal when we board. My friend is from overseas and SHE is more comfortable with the buffet and not having to talk to anyone. But we can split up, easy enough.

Your family shirts are very cool, too. We did that one year . . . .

Anyway, very much enjoying your trip report. No hurry though, as long as you are done in 3 weeks!!! THANK YOU!

 

[greensombrero]

YAY! Another chapter! Great photos . . . love following along. Was REALLY glad to see that the DCL bus is 'wrapped' - during the pandemic I read that they were just gray buses? It's part of the fun, arriving in those buses. Looks like the bags went underneath? I am staying at the MCO Hyatt and I think they will take our bags from the hotel room - makes me a little nervous though.

So we left from the airport which is a bit different from the MCO Hyatt as I understand it. They had a separate luggage truck for us when going to the port but put the bags below coming back. I think they do that going because they send multiple busses and the luggage just shows up at your state room. Also we did see them using some non themed busses and were really happy we got a themed one as that was part of why we did DCL transfers, my kids really wanted to ride on them and have the cartoons.

Interesting that you had such a late PAT even though you were taking the DCL transportation. I have read that you would automatically get an early boarding group. After 90 minutes of frustration, I did get BG 3 . . but I wasn't sure if it was due to me being up at Midnight or the DCL transfer factor.

So we did take a bus well ahead of our PAT. We got latest PAT I've ever had because I had major problems with online check in right at midnight. I've not had the same level of issues before but this go around was just bad for me. I'm a software engineer too and can often navigate app problems pretty well and tried all my tricks.

I don't know if you have a transfer from a hotel if it is any different. Again they didn't care about the PAT to get in the terminal but had to wait for our boarding group. Someone on our sailing said they used to let you change your boarding group if you had Disney transfers but they weren't allowing it now, I didn't even try it wasn't that big of a deal.

Your doors are EPIC!!! Did you use magnets to attach the lights?

We had magnetic hooks we used to support the light strings and battery packs.

Here is a question for you - how does the muster station thing work? I see I have "L". Do we go there as soon as we get on and um, scan something?? I did used to really not enjoy back in the day when we had to show up on a hot sunny outside deck WITH our life jackets on. And it was tough on my Mom having to only use the stairs.

So the new approach is that when you connect the app to the DCL GUEST wifi and it goes into onboard mode one of the first things that shows up is you need to complete your safety drill. You go to your station, select it and it will ask you to point your camera at the sign and it takes a picture. I've heard some people have it not work but on our 3 cruises it has worked instantly. There are cast members around if you have any issues. Once you've taken the picture of the sign you are marked as done. They play the safety video/announcement ship wide still at 4pm including sounding the general alarm. However you can watch/listen from wherever you want. We like watching on funnel vision. You can also watch the video in the app or on your room TV if you wanted.

I saw that you had a couple of meals (breakfast, lunch) in one of the MDR - did you leave a tip then? I used to leave a couple dollars when I ate in them but maybe not really a thing??

We didn't have any meals in the MDR other than dinner, I've wanted to but family hasn't wanted to, not sure where I confused you. I don't know about tipping there but it would make sense you have servers who aren't part of your normal tips.

Did you ever do room service or the breakfast service and if so, did anything stand out as being tasty?

We did do room service after one of our excursions. I really liked the wings. My daughter loved the tomato soup. The key lime pie was also good. I've heard good things about the steak panini and the BLT. I split each with my son so we could try more and they were good but not incredible.

Haven't tried the room service breakfast, it is just cold items and we like a hot breakfast.

I know I will want to have a proper sit down meal when we board. My friend is from overseas and SHE is more comfortable with the buffet and not having to talk to anyone. But we can split up, easy enough.

Your family shirts are very cool, too. We did that one year . . . .

Thanks, that's all my wife's doing

Anyway, very much enjoying your trip report. No hurry though, as long as you are done in 3 weeks!!! THANK YOU!

I'll do my best!

 

[NAB]

You do not have to tip when using the sit down restaurants for other meals. Just go order and eat nothing to sign unless you get alcohol than you sign for that and is like the bars and automatic 18% goes on the bill.

Only extra tip is room serve you can give a couple dollars to the runner that brings it. Sometimes they are fast and out of the room before you do this…lol Never ordered anything hot for breakfast but coffee ,juice and pastries. Oh I maybe I did do a bagel once can’t remember.

 

[greensombrero]

Day 2 Oct 23rd - Day at Sea

I always sleep so well on a Disney cruise especially compared to a hotel on land. I never sleep well in a hotel the first night especially, but was just fine on the Fantasy. Probably the dark, I love their beds, and the rocking motion of the ship. Though this cruise I felt the movement the least of any of our cruises. Either I've got my sea legs or the seas were extra calm for us. I didn't even wear my sea bands most of the cruise.

I woke up early and slipped out to watch the sun rise as I ran laps on deck 4. I absolutely love running on deck 4. I've commented on my other TRs but Disney Cruising is what turned me into a runner. We did Coach to 5K to do the Castaway Cay 5K on our first cruise and I got bit with the running bug. This summer I completed my 10th half marathon.



I had some issues with my knees though this summer, long story and have had to reduce my running since my last race and have been in physical therapy. Fortunately I was pretty well back before we set sail which was a key goal so I could run on deck 4 on this cruise and at Castaway. Really glad I did the therapy because I forgot how much up and down stairs takes its toll and I really had no problems this whole cruise despite lots of activity.

I got a little over 3 miles in on my run that morning. It really is incredible to run at sea! When I got back everyone was up and getting ready to go to breakfast.

I will comment I think I enjoyed Cabanas breakfasts more this cruise than on others. There is more variety again. Every day there was something different to try and some of it was quite good. This morning we had biscuits and gravy. The big thing I wish Cabanas did better was eggs. I really don't like their scrambled eggs. Their omelettes are better but really not great in my opinion, just okay. I did like the eggs on the eggs benedict style offerings. The had the eggs with different other toppings throughout the cruise from ham to salmon to shredded beef or pork (not sure which it was). I just wasn't a huge fan of the english muffins they had them on.

Normally I love to eat outside and enjoy the views but we discovered on this cruise it was often hot enough even in the morning that we preferred eating inside though we dealt with the heat on some of the port days when the views were extra fun to see. We did a fairly quick breakfast because I wanted to do the Art of the Theme Show tour at 9:15 and the kids were anxious to get to Edge or the kids club.

I love that we can eat breakfast together and then everyone can go off and do their own thing, have their own vacation. My wife decided to join me for the tour. If you aren't familiar with it the Art of the Theme Show tour is an adults only tour of the ship focusing on the details and stories behind the theming throughout the ship. Every time it is a little different both because of the cast member giving it and because there is so much material they only cover a few things each tour. If you are into hidden Mickeys, the details behind attractions or how things are designed this is the tour for you.

We met in Meridian. I've done this tour on the Dream before so the Meridian part wasn't super interesting to me. It is a really cool lounge though and there are a lot of little nautical nods. So I highly recommend checking the space out and seeing if you can pick up on the theming and find all the little things there. We then headed over to Remy briefly.



Remy is everywhere in the restaurant but in subtle ways suitable for an upscale eating establishment.




How many Remy's can you find in this picture? Hint check the upholestry.



Bottle in the middle is the $25,000.00 bottle of wine referenced in the Ratatouille movie. Disney purchased 4 of them (2 on the Dream 2 on the Fantasy) to be "authentic" to the movie. I'm sure when it was put in the movie they had no idea there would be a Remy themed restaurant and Disney would need to buy a bottle. Apparently one of the ones on the Dream was purchased right before the pandemic shutdown. Not sure who would spend that kind of money. I don't drink but I can't imagine anything tasting 25K good.

After Remy we headed over to Palo. This mural is really cool. I don't remember now exactly how it was made, think it is little squares of glass but it makes it have a 3D effect not fully captured in this photo.



I'm really glad we went to Palo. When I did this tour on the Dream we did not visit Palo. Every time you may see different things. Touring Palo before we had our brunch later in the cruise let us appreciate things in Palo even more when we visited. If you have a chance I highly recommend looking at this mural in Palo. If you are super lucky maybe you sit at this table.



What food does this chandelier remind you of?

After our tour of Palo we headed down the steps to deck 5 I believe. I don't quite recall. We ended up slipping off the tour a bit early to head to our next event.

A couple days before our cruise Jeffrey from the D23 Inside Disney Podcast posted in our cruise group he was on our sailing and would be hosting a special D23 at Sea on our first sea day. I've heard him talk about D23 and the Walt Disney Archives as a guest on a couple other Disney podcasts over the years. He is like a VP in communications at Disney and he told us on his time off he cruises with Disney. Anyhow after his post and interacting with him briefly online I wanted to make sure to see his presentation.

These D23 at Sea presentations happen on the ships all the time as I understand it now. Normally you just get one of the entertainment staff hosting but having him host made it extra special and worth watching. They show a video and read a script that he writes (he apologized that he had forgotten it since writing it) covering updates across the Disney universe. For our sailing it was focused around announcements from the D23 expo. Given I had followed all of them pretty closely the content wasn't super exciting but hearing his comments were. He did trivia as well for prizes and hung around to answer questions. I won a pin for knowing the significance of the 23 in D23. It was well worth our time to go. I don't know that the normal ones are as interesting but when you have a special guest from Disney leadership, definitely fun.



That pretty much concludes our first morning at sea. After the presentation we sync'd up with some of our kids and changed to hit the pool deck and the Aquaduck. It was not the best time to ride from a wait perspective and there was a bit of a line but you gotta ride on your first sea day.

I took notes before I went to bed every day to help me remember for this TR. Reviewing my notes after the Aquaduct it says sunscreen. I don't know why. Maybe something funny happened, or did I just have to go back to the room and put some on? No idea why I wrote sunscreen in my notes. It was warm and sunny out because after the Aquaduck I actually did something I've never done on a Disney cruise before. I actually got in the pool with my kids. Normally the pools are crowded and I don't care that much for them to make it worth it. It was so hot though and it wasn't completely full. So I took a dip in Donald's pool with my DD to cool off. I think the fact it was Donald's pool also helped motivate me since he is number 1 his pool must be as well.

I left my phone in the room while on the pool deck so no pictures. It was getting to be lunch time and we did pool deck food this day. I had one of their burgers. The best part is their topping bar. I'm glad that is back. It made for a really good burger and I like their fries too. I don't think the burgers are necessarily anything special but when you can load up on toppings you win me over. I quite enjoyed lunch. At some point in this I decided I needed a special drink so I got myself a virgin pina calava. I really like the mix of coconut/pineapple flavor with the raspberry they put in the calava (different from a pina colada).

I even got some relaxing by the pool in. I tend to go go go when traveling and cruising helps me slow down and relax more. In the middle of lounging I got a message from my oldest. She wanted to know if I wanted to go to Disney trivia with her. Now here was a quandary. I was very comfortable relaxing and would have to rush to clean up at least a little to go meet her. On the other hand here is my teenager wanting to spend time with me on our own accord. Of course I said yes and she immediately messages back she just found out her friends from Edge were going too so I don't have to. I still could but didn't have to we had plenty of time left and there would be other opportunities as she put it. Pretty clear I wasn't really needed now, oh well. I let her go with her friends and relaxed a bit more.

Speaking of relaxing I need to go to bed so I'm going to leave it here and continue next time with the rest of Day 2 at Sea.

 

[greensombrero]

Day 2 Oct 23rd - Formal Night
I last left off relaxing on the pool deck. It was fun but we had other things we hoped to do before formal night. We headed down to the room to clean up and enjoy our verandah a bit. We realized we were sailing past Cuba, Havana specifically, we could see its skyline



We really enjoyed watching what we were sailing past at various points during our cruise. It made having a verandah nice though you could do a similar thing out on deck or with an ocean view cabin as well.

My wife and kids really like doing crafts onboard and wanted to run to a craft session. They had several Halloween themed crafts on our cruise including the one this afternoon. Most of the time they are paper cut outs of some design or another. While they don't really appeal to me I do think it is cool Disney offers them and they are very popular with my family.



While they did crafts I had to run to the Port Adventures desk. We got a notification on our phone we needed to pick up a waiver for our port adventure the next day in Cozumel. I noticed this cruise more than any other that Disney has doubled down on sending info via the app versus having papers in your room. We had no excursion tickets, time change notifications etc, everything was via the app and they pushed several reminders/messages out to us that way.

As I went I also ran into a couple people from our cruise group that I had only met online. It was fun to meet them in person and we had a good chat. I love how the Disney cruising community gives you a chance to meet and get to know people both before the cruise and onboard.

We planned to meet up after the craft and do Midship Detective Agency. We did do it on the Dream and I was looking forward to doing it more as that cruise was so short. Both my youngest DS and DD wanted to do their own case. So we split up I took our DD and my wife our DS. Fortunately she was wanting to do the Muppets case which I hadn't done on the Dream and really wanted to see.

For those who may be unfamiliar with it, Midship Detective Agency is a fun onboard activity on the Dream and Fantasy. I'd describe it as a scavenger hunt version of Clue that takes you all over the ship looking for clues to eliminate suspects and determine who did it through the process of elimination. It features what was some innovative tech at the time with little mini games all driven through your detective badge/card (a cardboard card you get when you begin) and interactive video picture frames. It was built around the time when the Wii was first coming out and the idea of using a device to point at a screen and interact with it was new.



On the Dream and Fantasy if you look closely some of the art work will suddenly come to life and start moving or changing. Many of those are the interactive picture frames for Midship Detective Agency. When you stand in front of them and hold up your card they change into the game mode. Otherwise they look like normal pictures except for if you watch closely they will start to animate. It is a really fun thing I think that Disney did.

Back to Midship Detective Agency they have three different stories and each time you play it randomizes the case and who the culprit is. One is based on classic Disney characters, another the Muppets and the final 101 Dalmatians. I've only done the first two and liked the Muppets we did on this cruise the best but I love all things muppets.

We had fun as we kept running into each other as we went throughout the ship. At one point we were on deck 4 and I suggested to my DD we investigate something I had heard about. The Vista Cafe I believe it is called on Deck 4 has speciality coffees etc and more importantly a dessert case with fun little desserts like the Cove Cafe. So we stopped for a treat. Then my wife saw and they stopped as well. I'm using one of her photos of the rice crispy treat stick they had. These treats are all included and it was a fun discovery.



It can be pretty exhausting playing the game. You go back and forth from aft to forward and up and down decks. The Muppet's plot line actually has you go and look at what might otherwise just appear to be random theming on the ship. We ended up having to go back to Pepe's door and the Muppets display outside the Buena Vista Theater multiple times. I really should have taken pictures so we could refer back instead of running back and forth. I enjoyed how they incorporated parts of the game in the general theming of the ship, I never would have expected those areas were anything other than just Disney theming touches.

Eventually we tracked down that Camilla the Chicken was jealous that Gonzo was performing with the Aquaduck thinking he was cheating with another bird and so she was the culprit. My DW and DS had a different guilty muppet for their case. The randomization of the guilty makes it so you can play it again and it will be different.

After running all over the ship I was tired so I laid down for a bit but didn't have too long because we had to prepare for formal night! Up first was attending Aladdin. It was a phenomenal show, really, really liked it. I always love Iago, Jafar's bird companion and of course the Genie was hilarious with lots of good improve/jokes. He continually breaks the 3rd wall and makes jokes/comments about the cruise itself. I also like how they incorporated some of the story/plot elements from the live action film. I love all the DCL Broadway Style shows but Aladdin is definitely a don't miss in my book.

After the show it was picture time. The photo ops were not surprisingly very busy tonight with formal night. You don't have to dress up and those who participate usually want pictures so we had lots of lines which drove the kids a bit crazy. They weren't quite as onboard as I hoped but we got through them and got some pictures I think turned out well and made hauling the formal clothes worth it.





Maybe we are a bit goofy in that one but I liked it. They had like 4 backgrounds plus the statue and the grand staircase as photo locations.



Because we were in line I didn't really focus on it but it did appear the Captains Reception was back. There were waiters wandering handing out drinks to people in the atrium. I saw a few people in line offered them but no one ever approached us. Given we don't drink I wasn't particularly interested but I saw they had non alcoholic options too. If you wanted them you just had to seek them out a bit.

With the lines photos took pretty much the whole time from the show to dinner. The kids were hoping to change before dinner but no such luck. Fittingly we were in Royal Court this night for dinner with a menu we all love. The food was quite good tonight. My wife commented the brie appetizer was very good, on other occasions it hasn't been for us.



I love how cruising provides a risk free opportunity for my kids to try new foods. My youngest has discovered he loves escargot. He was excited to have it again. We all enjoyed our dinner and things moved quicker than the night before.

After dinner I went for a walk around the ship for a bit and then it was back to see our towel animals and head to bed. Our first sea day and formal night were very enjoyable.



Up next Cozumel and our big excursion!

 

[Minniemoo15]

Day 2 Oct 23rd - Formal Night
I last left off relaxing on the pool deck. It was fun but we had other things we hoped to do before formal night. We headed down to the room to clean up and enjoy our verandah a bit. We realized we were sailing past Cuba, Havana specifically, we could see its skyline

View attachment 716504

We really enjoyed watching what we were sailing past at various points during our cruise. It made having a verandah nice though you could do a similar thing out on deck or with an ocean view cabin as well.

My wife and kids really like doing crafts onboard and wanted to run to a craft session. They had several Halloween themed crafts on our cruise including the one this afternoon. Most of the time they are paper cut outs of some design or another. While they don't really appeal to me I do think it is cool Disney offers them and they are very popular with my family.

View attachment 716505

While they did crafts I had to run to the Port Adventures desk. We got a notification on our phone we needed to pick up a waiver for our port adventure the next day in Cozumel. I noticed this cruise more than any other that Disney has doubled down on sending info via the app versus having papers in your room. We had no excursion tickets, time change notifications etc, everything was via the app and they pushed several reminders/messages out to us that way.

As I went I also ran into a couple people from our cruise group that I had only met online. It was fun to meet them in person and we had a good chat. I love how the Disney cruising community gives you a chance to meet and get to know people both before the cruise and onboard.

We planned to meet up after the craft and do Midship Detective Agency. We did do it on the Dream and I was looking forward to doing it more as that cruise was so short. Both my youngest DS and DD wanted to do their own case. So we split up I took our DD and my wife our DS. Fortunately she was wanting to do the Muppets case which I hadn't done on the Dream and really wanted to see.

For those who may be unfamiliar with it, Midship Detective Agency is a fun onboard activity on the Dream and Fantasy. I'd describe it as a scavenger hunt version of Clue that takes you all over the ship looking for clues to eliminate suspects and determine who did it through the process of elimination. It features what was some innovative tech at the time with little mini games all driven through your detective badge/card (a cardboard card you get when you begin) and interactive video picture frames. It was built around the time when the Wii was first coming out and the idea of using a device to point at a screen and interact with it was new.

View attachment 716511

On the Dream and Fantasy if you look closely some of the art work will suddenly come to life and start moving or changing. Many of those are the interactive picture frames for Midship Detective Agency. When you stand in front of them and hold up your card they change into the game mode. Otherwise they look like normal pictures except for if you watch closely they will start to animate. It is a really fun thing I think that Disney did.

Back to Midship Detective Agency they have three different stories and each time you play it randomizes the case and who the culprit is. One is based on classic Disney characters, another the Muppets and the final 101 Dalmatians. I've only done the first two and liked the Muppets we did on this cruise the best but I love all things muppets.

We had fun as we kept running into each other as we went throughout the ship. At one point we were on deck 4 and I suggested to my DD we investigate something I had heard about. The Vista Cafe I believe it is called on Deck 4 has speciality coffees etc and more importantly a dessert case with fun little desserts like the Cove Cafe. So we stopped for a treat. Then my wife saw and they stopped as well. I'm using one of her photos of the rice crispy treat stick they had. These treats are all included and it was a fun discovery.

View attachment 716510

It can be pretty exhausting playing the game. You go back and forth from aft to forward and up and down decks. The Muppet's plot line actually has you go and look at what might otherwise just appear to be random theming on the ship. We ended up having to go back to Pepe's door and the Muppets display outside the Buena Vista Theater multiple times. I really should have taken pictures so we could refer back instead of running back and forth. I enjoyed how they incorporated parts of the game in the general theming of the ship, I never would have expected those areas were anything other than just Disney theming touches.

Eventually we tracked down that Camilla the Chicken was jealous that Gonzo was performing with the Aquaduck thinking he was cheating with another bird and so she was the culprit. My DW and DS had a different guilty muppet for their case. The randomization of the guilty makes it so you can play it again and it will be different.

After running all over the ship I was tired so I laid down for a bit but didn't have too long because we had to prepare for formal night! Up first was attending Aladdin. It was a phenomenal show, really, really liked it. I always love Iago, Jafar's bird companion and of course the Genie was hilarious with lots of good improve/jokes. He continually breaks the 3rd wall and makes jokes/comments about the cruise itself. I also like how they incorporated some of the story/plot elements from the live action film. I love all the DCL Broadway Style shows but Aladdin is definitely a don't miss in my book.

After the show it was picture time. The photo ops were not surprisingly very busy tonight with formal night. You don't have to dress up and those who participate usually want pictures so we had lots of lines which drove the kids a bit crazy. They weren't quite as onboard as I hoped but we got through them and got some pictures I think turned out well and made hauling the formal clothes worth it.

View attachment 716512

View attachment 716513

Maybe we are a bit goofy in that one but I liked it. They had like 4 backgrounds plus the statue and the grand staircase as photo locations.

View attachment 716514

Because we were in line I didn't really focus on it but it did appear the Captains Reception was back. There were waiters wandering handing out drinks to people in the atrium. I saw a few people in line offered them but no one ever approached us. Given we don't drink I wasn't particularly interested but I saw they had non alcoholic options too. If you wanted them you just had to seek them out a bit.

With the lines photos took pretty much the whole time from the show to dinner. The kids were hoping to change before dinner but no such luck. Fittingly we were in Royal Court this night for dinner with a menu we all love. The food was quite good tonight. My wife commented the brie appetizer was very good, on other occasions it hasn't been for us.

View attachment 716516

I love how cruising provides a risk free opportunity for my kids to try new foods. My youngest has discovered he loves escargot. He was excited to have it again. We all enjoyed our dinner and things moved quicker than the night before.

After dinner I went for a walk around the ship for a bit and then it was back to see our towel animals and head to bed. Our first sea day and formal night were very enjoyable.

View attachment 716517

Up next Cozumel and our big excursion!

Love the update ! Midship detective agency was on our to do list but after reading this we will definitely make the time … I think my girls would have a blast. Can’t wait to read about your Cozumel day.. we are heading there as well but have excursions planned as of yet.

 

[greensombrero]

Day 3 Oct 24 - Cozumel

We had a time change heading to Cozumel and gained an hour so we awoke early and caught this glorious sun rise. Nothing like watching the sun rise/set at sea.



We had a great time watching the sail in on our verandah. Before we knew it we were docked at the Punta Langosta terminal at Cozumel. For those who aren't familiar there are like 3 cruise terminals in Cozumel and Disney seems to use Punta Langosta which is right in the center of things.



First thing on our agenda was a quick breakfast in Cabanas because we had a big excursion planned for today. There is a bit of a story to this one. Several months before our activity booking window I happened to read a travel blog post about a family who did a private boat charter in Cozumel to go snorkeling and to a place called el cielo. The pictures were incredible and I knew I wanted to do something similar. I looked into a private boat charter but we were a little nervous about booking a long excursion outside of Disney plus they were expensive.

Disney does offer private boat charter options you can request but then I noticed they had a new port adventure offering in Cozumel called the Ultimate Snorkeling by Yacht (CZ-00). It was still quite pricey per person but for our family would come in a bit less than the private charters and it would go to the places I wanted to visit. When our booking window opened though it wasn't available. So I decided to email and investigate maybe just doing a private charter and mentioned I really wanted that port adventure. Meanwhile we booked a backup option. I got an automated reply they wouldn't look at anything until closer to the cruise.

Then just about 2 months out I got an email we were confirmed on the Ultimate Snorkeling by Yacht and it was automatically added to our plans. We were now double booked and the advised us to remove our other booking. I think maybe this is an excursion they don't always offer unless there is interest and then they arranged it and also made it available to others.

The basics of the excursion per the description are a boat ride out to a coral reef, snorkeling, then you visit el cielo and they offer you food and drinks onboard as well. As we found out there is a bit more to this particular port adventure. We headed down to the Walt Disney Theater and got given sticker number 6 no characters for us. We noticed there weren't very many stickers and as I suspected this was basically a semi private adventure. We had one other family of 6 join us on the excursion for a total of 12 people, 1 guide and 3 crew members onboard the yacht. I don't think it could have held many more.

We were walked off the boat and along the pier where we met our guide and he took us right to where the yacht pulled up for us to board. We got some pictures of the beautiful Disney Fantasy as we pulled away and started on our adventure.



I'm always amazed at how striking the Disney ships are. They really are beautifully designed.




Sailing around the stern is always fun, I love to see the stern art. Dumbo was looking good today.

We ended up heading to the top of the yacht where the captain sat. They had a seating area up there for us. The other family took the bow. I speak Spanish and had a fun time visiting with the captain, crew and our guide as we sailed over. We found out we had about an hour sail around to the tip of the island where the reef was at. We were told once we got there we'd make 3 stops all of which were close together once we got out to that area. The first would be snorkeling at the reef. Then we'd visit a star fish preserve, and finally a shallow area to play (el cielo).

Here is a picture of us sailing. It was a bit of a ways out there but sitting on a boat sailing on the ocean is not something we get to do ever at home so it was definitely different than my morning commute.



I had a fun time chatting with the guide and crew. It was interesting to hear how things were during the pandemic and how happy they were that tourists were returning. Most of the people on the island do depend on tourism dollars.

Eventually it was time to prep for our snorkel. We brought the younger kids masks from home so they could snorkel with equipment they were familiar with. We would learn maybe we should have brought masks for all of us as my wife's unfortunately had some issues fitting right for her. The main reason we didn't was just luggage space. However I think it was just some bad luck and the fact that as we would learn on this adventure it wasn't easy to just go back and try another. The other big miss, which I've contacted Disney about and want to understand, is why they weren't better prepared. They didn't really have the right sized life jackets for my younger kids. They gave them ones that were too big for them and it ended up making things hard for them. Fortunately my kids are all comfortable in the water and we've practiced snorkeling in the pool as well as having done it a couple times on cruises now. I don't know if our tour didn't realize my kids ages or if the boat was just lacking them for some other reason. It was the only big miss on this adventure. Don't want to focus on that though.

Let's get to some pictures of what we got to see. My wife had our GoPro and took videos. I've pulled just a few frames from what she got. It was hard to decide what to include. Also I lost quality with how I did it and also had to keep the image sizes reasonable to be uploaded here. Suffice to say it looked even better in real life.





The real star of this snorkeling trip for me were the coral formations.





The coral and fish were exactly what I wanted to see and show my family. There is a particular coral formation that wasn't super common but really cool and I couldn't find a sample of it in the video we got. It was a green coral basket/bowl, don't know how else to describe it and I saw a few examples of it. The reef was just super cool and everything I hoped for.

What I hadn't expected though was the intensity of the snorkeling for this part. I had figured it would be like other snorkeling trips, the boat would stop, we'd snorkel around for a bit and could get back in. This was actually a 45 minute or so open water swim along the reef with the boat following along from a distance. There wasn't a chance to go back early and the water was a bit choppy from other boats in the general area. It wasn't bad but not smooth either. If you aren't comfortable swimming in the open ocean then this isn't for you. We all had life vests but it was still quite physically intense. Some of my kids are bigger swimmers than others and I think it was at the limit for some of them. They all agreed it was cool after, but a bit more than some of them really wanted or we expected. Nevertheless we had fun though maybe weren't all super photogenic at this point.



The guide was with us the whole time narrating and pointing things out. It wasn't super easy to hear him to be honest but I also lagged behind a bit with my kids at points. One of the crew members was also in the water with us taking up the rear and making sure we kept up and were ok. He took the photo for us. He tried several times to dive down with our go pro and get an underwater family picture for us but getting all the kids in the same area with their faces in the water at once just proved too difficult to get a good shot.

I was glad we had him though because at one point my youngest was having issues with his mask and I was helping him and accidentally dropped his tube that had come off his mask and didn't realize it until it had fallen down. Fortunately Sebastian was able to dive down and retrieve it, the sea floor it fell on wasn't too deep at that point.

Per the guide the reef went on and there was lots more to see but we were at time and had other areas to stop. To be honest we were all ready for a bit of a break anyways. So the boat pulled up to where we were and we all got back aboard.

I'm at my photo limit and there is more to see so to be continued ...

 

[greensombrero]

Day 3 Oct 24 Cozumel -- Snorkeling Adventure Part 2

After snorkeling at the reef we had a short ride over to what we were told was a star fish preserve. The water here was not as deep and the main thing to see would be star fish. This part wasn't as long of a swim and was definitely unique as the photos will show.

I don't know that this photo really shows how big the star fish were, definitely some of the bigger ones I've seen.



This one gives you a better idea for how many we saw, there were lots and we were told by the guide the quantity has really been reduced in recent years between hurricanes, environmental concerns etc.



Not sure my photos really did this stop justice but it was definitely a big part of why I wanted to go and it lived up to my hopes. Really cool to see!

Next we pulled up to "el cielo" which means heaven or sky in Spanish.






Talk about amazing blue water! This is a shallow area you can stand/float and just hang out. Our boat had a larger prop so we couldn't pull in as close and had to do a short swim to the shallows. The guide helped me shuttle the kids using one of the boat's life rings. The other family on the excursion only sent two people out, the others were done with the water I guess.

One thing I don't really like about our Go Pro is it can be hard to really see what you are photographing. We wanted a family photo and our guide was happy to help. What none of us realized though is we had a big water spot/smudge when this was taken, oh well.



One thing I didn't plan on for this part of the excursion is that we'd get to play with Mr. Ray and his friends.



They came up close our guide said looking for food. They were quite friendly but they totally freaked my older DS out. I think he was hamming it up a bit but he kept leaping into my arms like Scooby does with Shaggy when they got close, and come close they did.



It was a super cool unexpected addition to our sea life adventure. What is kind of crazy is if anyone should be scared of rays it should be me. At the end of our 2016 Disneyland trip we had a beach day at Newport Beach and I was having too much fun boogie boarding and forgot to do the "stingray shuffle" and stepped on one sunning itself in the shallows and got stung. I don't think we had any risk of that here though I made sure to shuffle my feet in the sand just to be safe. They are not fun stings though now it makes for a fun battle scar/story.

The guide told us we had about an hour here but we were tired and hungry. So we didn't stay that long. Back onboard they had guacamole and chips, fish ceviche, pico de gallo, rolls, ham and cheese sandwiches, fresh fruit, and maybe something else. It was all good. My only complaint was their selection of non alcoholic drinks or lack there of. They had plenty of bottled water and then coke and lots of beer, oh well after all the exercise water was what we needed.

They started the cruise back as we were eating. We had about an hour ride back and we were all tired. It sure was nice to see the Fantasy and know we were "home" after such a long but fun adventure.



We really saw lots of incredible sea life and had the sort of adventure I was hoping for. It was a splurge to book this excursion but I'm really glad I did, I thought it was definitely worth the money and let us see things we've never seen before! It definitely isn't for everyone, you need to be comfortable swimming and snorkeling in the open ocean. For us though it was probably a once in a lifetime experience we won't soon forget and I'm glad we did it!

We were all hungry and wanted to get cleaned up but there was only about 2 hours left before all aboard and we wanted to do some shopping too. There are a couple shops right at the end of the pier and then an elevated walk way over to a mall/shopping center right there. I'm sure they aren't the best prices and it is rather touristy but gave us a quick/close chance to do some shopping. We had three things we specifically hoped we'd find.

As we were driving to the airport we realized we left my younger DD's Halloween costume at home. So we hoped to find a Mexican dress for her to wear and she could be from Coco or Encanto. She ended up finding a cute one, I'm sure I have pictures when I get to Halloween day.

My oldest DS didn't bring his rash guard and he wanted to find a short sleeved sun/water shirt. After a little searching we found something for him as well. We've added a set of floating shelves to our family room where we collect momentos from our travels. So we needed to find something to represent Cozumel there.

We found this little pyramid and I found a flying fish I wanted for my office. This reminds me I wasn't fast enough to get a picture but we saw several groups of flying fish as we were sailing to our snorkeling spot. Since I didn't get a picture I got the flying fish to remind me of the cool experience and look, it worked!



My DS and I were behind the rest of the group as his shirt took a bit to find. They had lots and lots of long sleeved but we found a short sleeved like he wanted. As we went back I stopped to take a picture for someone else on the pier and they returned the favor.



I love how they had fruit/cucumber water and a cold towel waiting for us as we boarded the ship! This concludes our Cozumel Snorkeling Adventure. I'll do another post for our evening activities of Day 3.

 

[greensombrero]

Day 3 Oct 24 Cozumel - Evening

One back onboard we were all tired and hungry and decided to avail ourselves of the included room service. The food on the excursion wasn't bad but it wasn't particularly filling and we had swam a lot. My son and I ordered the wings and we each wanted to try the BLT and the steak panini so we ordered both and split them. I also tried the key lime pie. My daughter loved the tomato soup in the dining room the other night and said the room service was as good. I can't remember what other things people got, think there were some burgers, chicken fingers and of course mickey bars. Which reminds me I failed to get a Mickey Bar on the cruise yet again. Guess I'll have to cruise again lol.

Our youngest wanted to go to the kids club and didn't care about missing that evening's show so we dropped him at the club and headed to see Frozen. I do feel that Frozen is done a ton but was blown away when we saw Frozen on the Wonder. So I was excited to see it again and it didn't disappoint, such a well done production. Olaf and Sven were hilarious and the rest of the cast talented. It is a big production with good effects, very enjoyable show.

We love live theater but honestly don't go that often at home so the shows are a huge draw for us on DCL. We did just see the touring production of Lion King when it was in town. It was incredible and obviously bigger and longer than a DCL show. However when I think about what I paid for that event and then the fact you get three pretty comparable from an enjoyment perspective shows onboard a cruise it is definitely a value add for us.

After the long day we weren't going to make the kids do pre dinner photos but we did a few while they were at the clubs.



This was a fun magic shot



Looking at our photos looks like my girls found a chance to get Cinderella shots too.



Dinner tonight was in Animators Palate with the Crush show. I love this menu, and while I do prefer the "classic ship" animators Crush can be a lot of fun. This was one of those moments when Disney got us. The souvenir Crush cups were just too cool and so my youngest two decided to use some of their souvenir budget.



Well unfortunately everyone was super tired after the day's adventures. This was a night that late dining was definitely not great for us. With the time change for us we usually don't mind it, especially as we prefer the earlier show. However everyone wanted to go back to the room early and I was the only one who saw Crush. Our serving team was great about it and sent me back to the room with desserts to go.

Looking back at it now I love the adventure we had and can see how everyone just got tired and a little grouchy by the end of the day. However at the time I had to deal with a little bit of "teenager" attitude from my oldest and was feeling a bit down about it. After eating the desserts back in the room everyone else was out but I needed to decompress a bit and went for a walk.

If you ever are feeling a bit down on a Disney cruise though you might just find some Disney magic waiting for you around the corner. Look who I ran into and got photos with no wait with.



Then it was



Followed by almost no wait for my favorite character who is always #1



After that I took a walk around deck 4 and then may have decided to do stairs and gone to 11. While I was there I had to sample some soft serve. Between seeing characters and eating ice cream I was feeling better. I did decide to lounge on a deck 4 lounger and read a chapter of my book before heading back to the room and bed. It was an incredible but exhausting day and we had 4 more left.

We were glad that our next day in Grand Cayman didn't start early and we didn't have any specific plans. As it turned out we would have another fun adventure exploring on our own though of a bit different kind. More on that in my next post.

 

[greensombrero]

Looks like I'm on a roll today! It's cold, windy and wet outside. We are having a lazy day indoors. DW and the kids decided we are putting the Christmas Tree up and other than helping with that I actually don't have anything else I have to do. Remembering tropical weather and fun is more enjoyable than anything else in this cold. I did get a run in this morning. I always hate running in the cold because it is so hard to get started. However half way through a run in the cold I'm always more comfortable than half way through a run on Castaway in the heat and humidity. Had to remind myself there are advantages to the cold.

Anyhow I'm going to try to get another chapter up while I watch the World Series.

 

[greensombrero]

Day 4 Oct 25 - Grand Cayman

We are early risers so despite being tired we didn't sleep in too late. Didn't catch sunrise but here is our morning view from our verandah.



I decided I had just enough time to run a mile or so on deck 4. I just love running at sea. We did need to get everyone up to Cabanas and fed before 9:00 AM because I booked the Royal Gathering for this morning. My kids are getting older but I didn't want to believe they weren't up for princess photos. We weren't due in Grand Cayman until 10:30 AM.

I think I commented that we had different items in Cabanas every morning. I don't remember if it was this morning or maybe it was yesterday when we were in Cozumel but they had a really good Mexican style taquitoish thing for breakfast. I wish they had it more often. I also discovered the yogurt parfait things they had with different types of fruit were quite good. I'm a big breakfast fan and generally DCL's breakfast have not been my favorite. They just don't rank super high on my list in general but I did enjoy them more on this cruise than prior ones. The banana pancakes they had a couple mornings were also a new favorite.

In case any readers haven't heard about it, the Royal Gathering is a chance to get photos with a bunch of princesses at once. There are lots of meet and greets with princesses throughout the cruise that you can just do. The Royal Gathering just allows you to go from princess to princess with minimal wait. You do have to reserve it ahead of time though in the onboard fun section. There is no cost but it can be popular. They didn't open booking for it until 30 days before for us. When the online check in was giving me grief I switched over and grabbed our reservation.

We decided we wanted to be ready after the Royal Gathering to head down to the Walt Disney Theater to get in line for a tender. Grand Cayman is a tender port so they can't dock and instead shuttle you to and from shore in local tender boats. The ones here are pretty big and can take they said around 200 people at a time. Grand Cayman has a lot of reefs of its coast which is why they haven't built a big pier. After our snorkeling in Cozumel I understand better why you wouldn't want to endanger a coral reef by building a cruise channel to allow big ships through. The side effect though of when I had our Royal Gathering is I was better dressed to visit Arial under the sea than the royalty we actually met.



Cinderella isn't my favorite but my younger sister was a "special friend" to Cinderella, Belle and Arial when she went down to WDW for the college program. So I always have to say hi to them for her.



We got to tell Belle about my youngest DS recent reading achievement. She of course was happy to hear he is reading.



I asked Rapunzel how the shampoo on board was for her hair. She said it is fine except she goes through a full bottle each time .



Princess Tiana is a family favorite. I think she is my DW favorite and I really enjoy her story. She reminds me of my wife who also makes a mean pot of gumbo and man catching beignets, though it was her stew that caught me. The beignets just keep me .

We ran into a few characters on our way and took advantage of the photo ops. I love random character encounters!





This is one of the best things I think about a Disney cruise. I like meeting characters but not enough to wait in lines very often. The random encounters on DCL are more fun and magical.

From what I understood they were running tenders from multiple points on the ship. One spot was for port adventures and the other for people going on their own. They also did have some port adventures that met onshore rather than onboard. I had wondered if they ever did that. We did have a port adventure booked at one point but it didn't leave until 12:30 PM. I was worried we wouldn't have much time to enjoy on our own if we had to meet it onboard because we couldn't really go and get back very quickly and wouldn't have much time after. We ended up cancelling it weeks before the cruise and I'm glad we did. It was our backup snorkeling experience before we got our Cozumel one confirmed. Good to know though for the future that some do meet on shore.

Anyhow we got on the first tender I think. In case you haven't figured it out yet I love the views of the ship you get when going ashore.



I didn't know much about Grand Cayman until we had it on the itinerary for our Christmas 2020 cruise on the Magic. Of course we all know what happened to that one. I was excited we'd actually get a chance to visit. It is a British island, independently governed but part of their commonwealth. It is a fairly safe island to explore on your own and that was our plan. We figured we'd want a down day after our snorkeling and that turned out to be very true. At one point we planned to go visit the Turtle Center they have on the island. I was going to pre-purchase tickets but then I decided I wanted to be open to doing whatever we felt like. Glad we did as we really weren't up for rushing or trying to get our money worth. A casual day going where the winds of adventure took us was what we wanted.



We explored the port area and did some shopping. I realized I left my hat onboard and as much as I don't like to admit it I don't have the amount of hair I used to so I prefer to wear one in the sun. Fortunately I also like to collect hats when I travel so I got myself a Grand Cayman one you'll see in later photos. Since we'd pass back through the port area we decided to wait to purchase anything else.

One other fun thing Grand Cayman is known for is there fun and animated traffic officers. He was super fun to watch. This is just one frame from the video when he signaled us by wiggling his fingers to cross the street.



We checked out a few more shops as we explored. The Cayman Islands are also famous for pirates. They have a whole pirate festival in October but unfortunately no activities on the day we were there. We did see lots of fun pirate things though. I'm out of photos so need to continue in next post.

 

[Minniemoo15]

really enjoyed all of the updates today .. reading them got me in quite the DCL spirit ..57 days and counting ! Thanks for the tip about the princess gathering … I will definitely add that one when I can as my girls would love it . I hate waiting in line for characters so hopefully we are just as lucky with the random meets as you were !

 

[greensombrero]

This was one of the fun pirate things we found. After a bit of shopping and exploring we decided we wanted to head to a beach for a bit. I did a fair amount of research before our cruise and saw taking the public bus in Grand Cayman is pretty easy. They of course had cabs and plenty of tour guides offering us transport right outside the port. I wanted to give my kids a more international experience and have lots of memories of riding buses in other countries. So we walked the couple blocks to the central bus depot. We walked through a cool place called hero's square that had lots of statues but I couldn't get my kids to stop for a picture. So it was not only a short walk but had some cool things to see.

The buses were more like mini vans and the drivers helpful and friendly. I had researched that route 1, yellow would take us right by 7 mile beach. The first bus up in the line was yellow number 1 and the driver confirmed he would take us to the beach. He did confirm that was the beach we wanted and I asked if he had another suggestion. He said there were nicer more expensive ones but 7 mile is where the locals go which worked for us. As we got in a few other tourists came up and talked with him. I think he was hoping to get more people on his bus and soon we were full.

Riding the bus in Grand Cayman ended up being one of my favorite memories of the whole trip. Our fellow passengers were from the MSC ship in port with us. One was a family from Colombia and the other a couple from Chile. I studied one summer on an exchange in the Catholic University in Valparaiso Chile. So it was fun talking to them and the family from Colombia was a lot of fun. They were all older kids like 20s traveling with their parents. They practiced their English and I got lots of Spanish practice in. It was one of those opportunities to see how similar we all are around the world.

A big part of why I like to travel internationally with my kids is to give them experiences like we had in Grand Cayman. There is a lot you can learn and see by traveling and seeing new places and different people and cultures. You also learn despite our differences we aren't all that different in the end.

With the fun conversation we were at the beach before we knew it. Seven mile beach was busy but we didn't plan to stay too long and found a spot to put down a couple of the towels we brought off the ship. The beach was beautiful. There were vendors there offering chairs, drinks, food etc. They had basic restrooms of the caliber you'd expect at a public beach/state park in the US, ie not great but usable.



We took turns sitting on the beach watching our stuff while the others played on the sand and in the water. There were a lot of people there and I wasn't going to trust leaving anything unattended. I'd like to think nothing would have happened but better safe than sorry.

The water was beautiful, warm and a lot of fun to play in.



I love his expression here.



You can kind of see the Fantasy in the background here in my selfie.



We really enjoyed our little beach break. We didn't stay too long but we totally could have made a day of it. If we walked a bit in either direction from where we entered things thinned out. We also could have paid for a lounger/umbrella etc. We knew we'd have Castaway though so we didn't need a full beach day here.

On the way back to the bus stop I had to get a picture of the famous chickens that wander free on the island.



We were just leaving the beach for the bus stop when I saw a bus drive by. No worries though the driver told me they come by regularly. Then the bus suddenly stopped, turned around and came to get us. They saw us!

We were welcomed into the bus by a man I would learn was the father of an Italian family from Rome in port on the MSC ship. This bus ride was even better than the last. He was a lot of fun. He was trying to use his Italian to speak Spanish though English is the language on the island. However he lucked out and kept welcoming people onboard the bus who spoke Spanish such as myself. We got some locals who were from Cuba and came over to work. He had a translator device that didn't do English very well but handled Spanish better. We had a great time on the ride back. More great international experience!

Today was a big contrast from yesterday. We spent far less money on our excursion. The bus ride for all 6 of us was $15.00 USD each way. It was a completely different day but every bit as enjoyable. I wouldn't trade either of the days but it was a good reminder that you don't have to spend a lot on excursions to have fun in port. This would prove useful tomorrow when things didn't go accordingly to plan but more on that later.

We had a quick walk back from the bus terminal. I'm really glad we took the bus versus a cab or something that would have been less of an experience. We found a fun photo op at the port.



We found a really fun item for our memento shelf very fitting for tonight being Pirate Night!



Grand Cayman really is a beautiful island, I enjoyed the views as we tendered back to the port.



We wanted to make it back for lunch before Cabanas closed and just did. The food variety was great. I don't remember what we had but remember enjoying it, except for dessert, that I remember. They had a warm chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream at the station to the side of the main dessert case, it was really good.

We ate in our swimsuits so we could ride the Aquaduck after. The line wasn't long and it was a fun ride. We wanted to go for a quick second ride. Unfortunately a girl ahead of us got stuck in the ride somehow and they had to shut it down to rescue her and then reset the system. It was going to take longer than we wanted to wait. So we headed to the room to clean up.

I wanted to go to the Theme Park Trivia and Elliott was going to join me. We headed down and then realized it was adults only. Elliott told me I could go without him but I didn't really want to go alone. They were having villain quotes trivia in just a few more minutes so we headed there instead. We didn't do so well but it was fun!

After that it was time to get ready for one of my favorites, up next Pirate Night!

 

[greensombrero]

Pirate Night!
We love dressing up for pirate night. We realized though there is one photo op we've never done before. So we got ready and went down to get in line early to get a photo with the infamous Captain Jack.



I'm glad we did because the line got quite long, if you want his photo you need to get there early which is probably why we haven't done it before.

Timing worked out perfect after him to see Pirate Donald, another new photo for us. I was happy to catch him.



We then did the photo ops. Got to have our annual family pirate portrait! This I think was a new background for us we haven't seen before.



I love how they have music in the atrium in the evenings. They had a really fun violin player while we were in line for our photos. I enjoy violin music and love that we've had fun violinists on our last couple sailings.

After our photos the kids wanted to change out of their pirate costumes and my youngest wanted to head to the kids club. However as we were heading to our next activity we saw pirate stitch and my kids wanted one last photo.



With lots of photos taken we were ready for other pirate activities. We did pirate trivia which was fun but we didn't win. Then we played Who Wants to be a Pirate. My DD got picked to be a captain which was fun. The entertainment staff running it did a good job. After the games we grabbed some ice cream and some of the family wanted to watch Mickey's pirate show on deck. I didn't really care and just hung out for a bit doing something or maybe nothing, I don't recall until dinner time.

On our Dream cruise in April they had brought back the pirate buffet and it looked so good but we had no room after dinner. This cruise we planned to forgo dinner and eat at the buffet but we found out in advance that they had just decided to discontinue the buffet the sailing before ours or maybe it was two before ours. We didn't get a clear answer as to why. It was a disappointment for us but at least we found out in advance.

For dinner we were back in animators which is actually a fun place to be on pirate night. I didn't take any pictures but they display pirate artwork and concept art on the screens. It changes and cycles throughout the evening and was really fun to see. I actually quite like the pirate menu too so I wasn't disappointed by the food, it was really good. My only complaint is that nothing is as spicy as I think it should be on DCL. I just proactively told our server I'd need the tabasco. We all enjoyed our meal, I think the dessert I got was the Bananas in Paradise and it was excellent. The pirate night menu has a bit of a bad rap I think sometimes but I really enjoy it.

After dinner my girls headed out to be in the Vibe/Edge flash mob. My oldest actually did it on our very first cruise but we didn't know when it would happen and missed it. It happens at the very end after the fireworks, we were prepared this time. We got more or less our usual spot for fireworks, deck 12 port side. I like that they have roaming photographers on deck usually beforehand and we snagged a photo while we waited.



The show isn't incredible but I find it enjoyable and the fireworks at sea are cool. We always enjoy them.

Actually got to see the flash mob this time. They are just in the middle of the deck so my spot ended up being perfect to take a video. My DDs enjoyed doing it.



All in all Pirate Night was a success and we all headed to bed glad our day in Jamaica didn't start too early. Though we'd find out our planned later excursion departure time would come with a bit of a disadvantage.