Disney Fantasy | Eastern Caribbean | Let’s Embark!!

Well our friends over at Brownie Bites finally convinced us to go on our first Disney cruise! We boarded the Disney Fantasy for a 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise in April for our 5 year anniversary.

When you cruise with Disney, you will have a designated boarding time to prevent bottleneck at the port terminal. Efficiency at it’s finest. We breezed through security, up the escalator and entered quickly into the queue line for official check-in. They snap a quick pic and you are off to wait for your number to be called.

Quick side story, my passport was still in my maiden name, so the Disney cast member insisted my “Key to the World” also be in my maiden name to make my return trip through customs easier (p.s. they never looked at that key card in customs). Everything was booked in my name, including the room, so Remington was referred to as Mr. Dillener by room service one day. Hah!

While you wait, there is this cutesy model of the ship to get you even more excited for the real deal.


Look at the itty bitty theatre and rooms.


There is also a balcony area outside where you can snap portraits in front of the ship, but since they called our number almost immediately, I did not see it until we were boarding.
Once they call your number, you are escorted through a giant Mickey face into another line where they will take a professional family portrait before you board.

As you get near the entrance to the atrium, a cast member will ask for your last name. Then another one with a microphone will announce to everyone already onboard your arrival. “Welcome the Brown family!” [clap clap clap]

You can see on the far right of this picture a few of the cast members lined up to welcome new passengers onboard.

And our first character siting was a Disney Princess! One of my favorites – Cinderella. She played the part well with dainty hand gestures, twirling her dress just so and she even spoke in a soft high pitched sing-song voice. Magical.


After lunch we headed out on the decks. It was a gorgeous day, but a little windy.


The family pool area (that we avoided like the plague) was already filling up. It was NOT warm enough to go swimming in my opinion. I don’t know how those kids are doing it.

We decided to hit the bar instead to celebrate our first Disney cruise (and first real vacation in two years) with a tasty beverage. This bar is up in the adults only area of the ship – a section we acquainted ourselves with quickly.

I had a mai tai and the hubs got a mojito. His mojita was perfect. The bartender took the time to muddle the ingredients in the glass and just topped it off with a splash of club soda.

We took our drinks up to Satelite Falls, which is unique to the Fantasy, at the front of the ship while we waited for our room to be ready.

Rooms are usually open at 1:15 or 1:30. We headed that way to drop our carryon bags and check out the view from our verandah.

There was a Carnival ship docked at Port Canaveral with us.

Before you can sail away, everyone must take part in an emergency drill at 4pm. You are assigned an Assembly Station based on your room number – we were in C, which was in the Walt Disney Theatre.

That tiny cast member was our Assembly Leader – she also plays most of the kid roles in the shows the cruise puts on each night inside this very theatre. She was incredibly energetic! Guess you’d have to be to perform two shows each night (some days three shows) back to back.

Next Up – Sailing Away!