8 days on the Fantasy, notes on an October 2019 Eastern Caribbean cruise, transportation notes added 11/18

Mich123

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Just back last Sunday, October 28, 2019, and wanted to download a few notes on this Halloween on the High Seas cruise, since the DIS helped so much in the planning. Spoiler alert: it was a great trip!

8 days: We picked the 8 day cruise, the “extra” day appealed to us and the timing was right. My only hesitation was that it was a Halloween cruise and I’m not the biggest Halloween fanatic, but it was really fun.

Halloween: The schedule designates one day as Halloween. On our cruise, it was the fourth night, we had pirate night on the third night. I traveled with DH and two of our friends, and our DD20 and her friend. DH and I and our friends dressed up as Alice in Wonderland characters, I made my Queen of Hearts costume and really enjoyed making and wearing it. DH was the dormouse, our friends were the Mad Hatter and King of Hearts. We trick or treated and I really enjoyed seeing everyone else’s costumes. I gave out packs of cards to other Alice characters and did manage to resist bellowing, “Off with her head!” when I saw Alices walking around.

St. Kitts: We picked a Romney Gardens tour and hike for our Port Adventure and booked through Disney. We decided to book most of our port adventures through Disney because we were concerned about navigating the ports and getting back to the ship in time. This tour and hike was pretty fun. The Gardens were not very big, there’s a small building where batik is made and the tour included a presentation on batik making. Of course, there was a gift shop, I’m not convinced that all of the items sold were true batik. We didn’t buy anything except water and beer. We were then bussed to a rainforest which was located nearby. I should mention that the bus was not your typical bus. It was an open air vehicle with benches, the bus had 5 double rows of benches with 2 people per bench. It did not strike me as the safest form of transportation. At the rainforest (also the site of a zipline tour), we went on a hike with a likeable guide named Winston. Winston was a good teacher, the kids on the tour seemed to enjoy his discussion of trees, animals, and plants. We even saw monkeys in the trees! The hike was not difficult and was at a very leisurely pace. If you’re looking for a serious hike, this is not it, however, if you have elementary or middle school children that need field trip credit, this would be a good tour. I will also mention that the “bus” was an open air bus and quite different from a regular bus.

Before the hike, we went into town. There was a somewhat defined tourist area right off the ship. We went a bit past that area and the shops were a little depressed. The 20 year olds liked the flea market area and picked up some souvenirs.

Antigua: We chose the hike and beach Port Adventure for our Antigua day. This is my main motivation for writing this quick report. This hike and beach excursion could have used more description. It was a pretty serious hike! I would not recommend this for children unless your kiddos are regular hikers. It was steep at points, we walked along a trail that was wet (the tour guide joked it would be a “mud fest”, but luckily it wasn’t that bad) and along a hill, I worried that one slip and I’d be sliding down the mountain. There were prickly vines everywhere—the guide said he’d repeatedly asked Disney to tell guests to wear long pants, of course no one in the group wore long pants (it was hot and humid). We were scratched and poked by sharp plants, at one point I had the misfortune to lose my balance and slam my finger into a sharp end of a tropical plant—it was a deep puncture wound that bled and bled. Another woman became entangled in a barbed vine. The man in front of me was stabbed by a vine in the gut and laughed it off, but it looked painful. It was a long hike. The guide said 4 kilometers, my fitbit said 5 miles. Since I walk on my treadmill daily, I know the fitbit is accurate. My fitbit also said I climbed 179 flights of stairs that day. I definitely logged a lot of flights on the ship, but most were on the hike.

Then the beach. The beach was beautiful…but, do you hear the BUT, we walked by a gorgeous resort to a dilapidated covered platform with missing floorboards where there were no bathrooms or changing facilities and were allowed to enjoy the beach and water for 25 minutes. We walked past the sunbathing resort guests looking like castaways from the rainforest to our rickety hut. Not very Disney.

After the hike, we went back to the boat and had lunch, cleaned up and walked into town. Similar to St. Kitts, St. John also had a cruise ship tourist area that became ragged a few blocks out. The shops were ok, very touristy.

San Juan, PR: First off, full disclosure, I am a big fan of San Juan, our family has vacationed there before. For this reason, I did not book our “adult” excursion through Disney. I did book Family Beach Day for the 20 year olds.

Our adult excursion was the Bacardi factory. DH and I had been there before and really enjoyed it, we took our friends back for the Mixology Class. This was not offered by Disney, there’s another tour that Disney offered and we saw a lot of fellow cruisers at Bacardi’s beautiful pavilion. The Disney version is described as a 60 minute tour and the cost is $46. Online, there is a Historical Tour that costs $15 and includes a welcome drink and glass.

Our self booked Mixology Class was $60 (I used a retail-me-not coupon for 15% off, so $48 for us) and included a welcome drink, Bacardi plastic “glass” to take home, and a class that included three drinks: Cuba Libre, Mojito, and Daiquiri, all delicious! The Mixology Class set up was so professional. Each person had their own bar space, tools, and fixings. We had a great teacher, and learned a lot about technique (Slap the mint! Don’t bruise the mint! Season the ice!)—if you’re interested, all of the recipes are available online. We took an Uber to and from Bacardi, it was about $12. You can also take the ferry which is located at the port, it’s 50 cents, but only runs every 45 minutes.

Before the tour, we walked around the old city for about an hour. If we’d had more time, I would have gone to the fort, which is definitely worth a visit. I’d also recommend El Yunque, but would want more time for that as well.

The 20 years olds liked the Family Beach Day. This excursion included lunch, the kids said the food was good. DD20 told me they were offered welcome drinks (the drinking age is 18 in PR) and that some children (elementary aged) were offered the welcome drink, too. Luckily, an adult realized this error before the children took the drink.

Tasting classes onboard: We signed up for two mixology classes onboard, Whiskey and Mixology. I so wanted to like the Whiskey tasting, but I was too tired! The class was offered at 10:30 p.m. on our first full day at sea and I was exhausted from my efforts to get to Florida and power tour WDW for two days (including 6 a.m. entry at DHS) before we boarded the ship. The teacher was informative and really gave the history of whiskey, which I wish I could tell you, but I can’t because, sadly, I dozed off. I hate when that happens! I drank as much whiskey as I could, but I found my throat burning from the straight pours. Honestly, I just wanted to go to sleep because I was so tired (not because I was bored). Offered at a different time, I’m sure I’d like this class a lot better.

Mixology was a different story. We had Mixology the following day, which was a sea day, at 1 p.m. We had breakfast and lunch in advance, which was a good thing because there was a lot of alcohol involved! This class was fantastic, the teacher was Damian and the class was at Meridian, the lounge between Palo and Remy. We made 5 drinks, everyone had the opportunity to mix drinks for the group. The bar was set with 5 stations, each station had 5 rows of 5 glasses. The participant would go to the bar and make a row of drinks (all the same) and pass them out. The drinks were super tasty and somehow we were able to function after this class (possibly thanks to our never being hungry for the previous 48 hours). We had a fruity “mojito” made with basil instead of mint, a Texas sunrise (think tequila sunrise made with Tito’s), a prosecco-based drink, a rum-runner type drink, and a cinnamon toast crunch shot (horchata and fireball). Damian gave us the recipes on Saturday, which was nice.

Bars: On the Fantasy, each bar has a different feel. We tried out all of the bars except Ooh La La, and ended up at La Piazza almost every night. We also liked The Tube as well. We had poor results at Skyline, it was mentioned that both the server and bartender were new—we just didn’t love our drinks there. Fernando at La Piazza did a great job of making our drinks and we enjoyed his company.

Senses Spa: After our Mixology class, my friend and I had massages. This was the first of three spa appointments, I call that a perfect week! I had the 75 minute Poultice Massage, my friend had the Bamboo Massage. We both enjoyed the massages. On my intake form, I made the following request: “Please do not offer me products after the treatment.” My therapist was lovely and this was not an issue.

Two days later, on a port day, my friend and I had the 75 minute spa special: Swedish massage, facial, scalp massage, foot and ankle massage. This was actually my favorite treatment and the most reasonably priced.

Finally, on our last day, DH and I had a couples massage. DH had hot stone massage and I chose a therapeutic massage. I had been told I’d have the same therapist as my second treatment, but that didn’t happen which was unfortunate because the last massage, while good, was not my favorite. The pressure level was a little too intense for me and I should have mentioned it. DH was happy with his hot stone massage, he said the pressure was just right.

Dining: We chose late seating as we have on previous cruises. We like to eat later so we have time to enjoy happy hour and see the shows. This was our 5th Disney cruise and our servers were exceptional. Really, like no servers we’d had before and I feel a little bad saying that because we have had really good servers. So, no offense to servers past, but the team of Wira, Saul, and Yoga was just amazing. They really worked hard to make sure that we had great food and food that we liked. After realizing how much we enjoyed the Samosas at a midweek dinner, Wira treated us to Indian food options at subsequent meals. Yoga and Saul kept an eye on the kids to help them to make good choices and whisked away things that they didn’t like or refilled items that they did like. I would be thrilled to have this team again and will go out of my way to make the request, if we should find ourselves on the Fantasy any time soon. Overall, the food was good. Yes, sometimes it feels a little bit banquet style, but one thing I noticed on this cruise was that both beef and seafood dishes did not seem as if they had been sitting under hot lights—beef was prepared as requested (medium rare), which was great.

We also ate at Palo twice, once for dinner and once for brunch. Brunch was delicious. California Grill still gets my best brunch vote, but I have no complaints about Palo. I most enjoyed the first course choices and the desserts. I think the weakest part of the meal would be the entrees. The hazelnut chocolate lava cake was extraordinary—do not miss that!

Dinner at Palo was very good. Similar to the brunch, I enjoyed the cheese and marinated vegetable offerings from the cart. I ordered the filet, which was well prepared and a nice cut of meat. I had the chocolate soufflé for dessert, yummy, but not as good as the brunch dessert.

Transportation: We used a private company to get us to the port, our goal was to get there early as we had PAT of 10:45 a.m. and didn't want to miss anything on the ship on our first day. This worked well. We were picked up at The Dolphin at 9 a.m. and then headed to pick up our friends at a Universal hotel and then on to the port. A quick trip, the only hang up was the backlog to get into the port once we were on Disney property. It seems that the prior cruise was going slow through customs and the sad post cruisers were waiting on curbs with luggage to leave. I would estimate that it took us about an hour to get to port, then about 15 minutes in traffic. We took note of this and decided then and there that we'd do walk off the following Sunday.

On Sunday, we walked off and it was very easy. People lined up early, but the line moved quickly. For our transportation back, we rented an SUV at Hertz because we needed a "locker" to hold our baggage while we went to WDW for the day before our flight out at 4 p.m. This worked well, we walked off at 8 a.m., got the car, dropped our friends off at the airport and were at MK gates at 9:30 a.m. I purchased DCL transfers for the kids because I was worried we wouldn't have room for their luggage and the kids, which turned out to be a valid concern. We had 8 suitcases, 4 carry ons, and 4 adults in a Suburban and there wan't room for anything else.

The kids used DCL transfers both ways. This worked well for them, they didn't mind getting to the boat at 1 p.m. and they left in a leisurely fashion after having a nice breakfast. I'd note that the transfer information wasn't as clear as I thought it would be, in fact, there was no written information on these transfers at all, except for the receipt that they were purchased. At The Dolphin, we were told that WDW resorts no longer provided letters to guests and that the kids should just show up at 11:30 a.m. So, no luggage at the door the night before and no instructions given as to pick up. On the boat, there were no instructions either. The kids went to breakfast and then to the DCL bus to MCO. DD20 said they didn't ask her for any information. So, I guess it's on the honor system? They arrived at MCO in plenty of time for their 1 p.m. flight.

Thanks to all of the info on the DIS for helping me to plan this trip! I hope my mini report will help with your planning!
 
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Thanks for the report, sounds like you had a great time.
 



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