Disney Fantasy: Day 1

Well, we booked a cruise on the Disney Fantasy. It was our first cruise with the kids. The husband and I cruised a lot before kids, but we used Princess. This time, with kids, we wanted to try Disney. I am a teacher so we had to pick a time that would work for my schedule. Our school district is closed for Rosh Hashanah each year so we booked during that time. We were a bit worried about hurricane season given that the cruise was in September-October time frame, but we made sure to buy INSURANCE through Disney Cruises and BOY are we glad we did!! Let’s start first with the planning.

So you know how you book a Disney World trip and you spend months and months planning, creating spreadsheets, worrying about dining plans and stressing over every little detail? There is no need to worry about any of that on a Disney cruise. I literally booked our cruise and that was it. Well, I did research the best things to do at each excursion stop, but it wasn’t anything like a Disney trip. A few things to note when you are booking your cruise: 1. Make sure you choose Early Dining or Late Dining. We always pick early dining because we usually eat dinner at our house around 5:00pm EST and I get HORRIBLE heartburn if I eat late. 2. Be sure you get insurance. If you don’t want to use Disney insurance, that is okay, but get insurance to cover your trip. You will see why when you read this review!! 3. Don’t stress about getting “special tickets”. A lot of first time cruisers sign on and are upset when princess meet and greets are sold out or Disney Junior breakfast tickets are gone. Once onboard, you can request tickets and they usually have some. My guys never want to do special things like meet and greets so we didn’t have to worry about that!

So, the cruise is booked and we are trying to decide how we will get to port. We debated renting a car or using Disney transportation. We debated between staying on Disney property or staying at Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport. We loved this hotel. As I was researching I found that you ALWAYS want to fly in the night before your Disney cruise. I decided to give us some wiggle room and booked a flight that would get us in the afternoon before the cruise. Our flight ended up being delayed until 5:30pm (if we had done this the day of the cruise, we would have missed our cruise!!). We landed at MCO around 8:30pm and we were EXHAUSTED. Walking straight to the Hyatt was heaven. We went to the front desk, boys were fussing, I was crying a bit and I asked if they could run down and grab out luggage. This is the BEST SERVICE. I gave them our claim tickets and off they went. It cost $10.00 and we tipped the guy $10.00 and it was seriously the best $20.00 of our trip. By the time our luggage arrived to our room, we had settled in and ordered burgers from room service. I could have cried again when I opened the door and all of our luggage was there! So helpful! When we traveled you used to be able to tell the Hyatt at check-in that you were taking a Disney cruise, fill out paperwork and viola, Disney would get your bags from your room and deliver them onto the ship. NOW, you have to notify Disney that you are staying at the Hyatt or book through Disney at the Hyatt and they will still handle your luggage. Hate the idea of someone handling your luggage? You can also just carry your luggage down yourself. I never leave anything valuable in my luggage and I hate to carry luggage so it works for us! So what to learn from this paragraph: 1. Always fly in for your cruise a DAY early. Don’t wait until that morning. The stress is just too much! 2. If you plan to use Disney transportation from MCO to Port Canaveral, stay at the Hyatt, notify Disney transportation and Hyatt and they will handle your luggage to the ship. Don’t forget to pack valuables, money, passports, medicine, swimsuits, sunscreen into your carry on bag.

Okay, so we survived the night at Hyatt on very little sleep. Were the beds not comfortable? Oh no, we were just so EXCITED to get going on a Disney cruise. We all bounced out of bed and went to breakfast at the Hyatt. We had decided to NOT catch the first bus that left MCO at 9:30am. I read that getting to the port early meant sitting at the port and honestly, the MCO airport was fun so we ate breakfast, went back to our room to use the bathroom and then let the boys take a picture with Mickey at MCO:

My goal was to catch the bus at 10:30am and we were spot on. Finding the Disney Cruise buses is super easy….just follow the signs! We hopped onto our bus and away we went. When we got close to port and saw the ship I started to cry and the boys were bouncing and cheering. Notice how I dressed my kids? They both had on their swimsuits and their crocs. It was October 1st and the weather was HOT. I knew the boys would want to swim as soon as they saw the pool and wanted to be prepared. I had also sunscreened them up so they were ready to go!

When we pulled into port, I saw a HUGE line of cars and thought, “crap, this will take forever” but the bus just zoomed around them and went to a secret entrance. It took us about 5 minutes to get through security, 5 minutes to get through the line to check-in and right after that, our names were called. Listen, there is a HUGE line of people waiting to sign their kids up for the kids club. DO NOT wait in this line. Once on board, you can sign your kids up/get their bracelets at the actual club. No wait and so easy! We were group 5 so we went up the gangplank area and they were ready to announce our family:

So, your room will not be ready until 1:30. Bring a bag with wheels or a backpack. We brought a backpack with stuff in it. It was about 12ish so we headed to the top deck to get food and to let the boys see the cool pools, slides and kid play area:

The boys played for a while and then we went down to the kids club area. Remember I mentioned NOT waiting in that horrible line…there was NO line and we quickly got bracelets for the boys and explored the kids club. There are times where the kid’s club is open and you can stay and play with your kids during this time. When you embark, the kid’s club is open, you CAN’T drop and leave the kids, but you can explore together. We loved it:

Once we explored the kid’s club on deck 5, it was 1:30ish and rooms were READY. We booked room 5654 because of the HUGE balcony. This is a room with a larger than normal balcony and we figured with the kids we would want more space. This balcony held two traditional chairs, a table and two chairs that reclined. It was AMAZING!!

After we checked out the room, the boys stayed out on the balcony area with daddy while I unpacked our crap and got ready for muster drill. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go to muster drill on time. It is HOT standing on deck waiting for late people to show up! Be kind to your fellow cruisers. Show up on time so everyone can get the safety info and go back to having fun!

Most of our luggage came before muster, some came after and we went to dinner. I was so excited to try all of the various restaurants! Our first night was Animator’s Palate. It was a perfect start to our cruise:

I won’t bore you with a lot of food photos, but if you love food, Disney does it right:

After dinner, we explored the ship and watched the sunset. We were so tired and when we went back to our room, they have magically transformed the sofa area into bunkbeds for the boys and left a cute towel animal:

Day one was wrapped up and we were so excited to wake up the next morning and explore the ship. We had a day at sea as we zoomed towards Cozumel. We were praying that Hurricane Matthew would stay FAR AWAY and not ruin our plans. Stay tuned for DAY 2!! Formal night on the ship AND Disney has the BEST ships and shows for kids!!