Cruising on the Fantasy with the WBI Family

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Continuing our bike tour.

 

After CP snapped those pictures of the adults area, we hopped on our bikes and headed back.

 

 

 

 

This is my attempt to get a picture of the low flying airplane sign:

 

 

 

Hey look a gigantic palm tree:

 

Around here we saw some runners, I guess they were running the 5k route but why would you wait until the heat of the day to do that?

 

 

 

We got back and dropped off the bikes and saw that the Pelican Plunge line wasn't too bad so I headed there while CP and W went to our chairs.

 

I fast walked towards the water and then swam past some slow pokes to the slide platform.  Did I mention that Pelican Plunge is out in the water and you have to swim to it?

 

Here I am in line looking around:

 

Seeing this water cannon reminds me, earlier when W and I were looking around while CP snorkeled we found the water cannons on land and no one was using them.  So we walked up to them and I turned on so we could play with it.  You should have seen all the people around us, they had no idea they worked or how to turn them on.  But once they saw me they all wanted to try them out.

 

The slides, there are two, one open and one closed:

 

 

There's tons of details out here:

 

 

 

 

I could see W and CP in the distance so I zoomed in on them in this pic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around here I overheard a dad explaining that the closed slide is faster than the open, so I decided I wanted the closed one.

 

\

 

 

 

 

 

Hey look the Fantasy:

 

 

Once I reached the top and took that pictures I realized there wasn't a line for the closed slide so headed over.  I had my camera on my wrist and was wearing my sun glasses.  I quickly put my camera in my pocket and off I went.

 

As I'm going down I realize I'm going to lose my sunglasses when I hit the bottom so I took them off and held them.  This slide was fast, next thing I know I hit the salt water!

 

And it went up my nose!

 

It was bad, lol

 

Like salt water would drain out my sinus every time I bent over the rest of the night bad. lol I learned my lesson.

 

 

After one slide down I headed back to the family to give CP a chance to ride it, I made sure to warn her about holding her nose and she was able to avoid that experience.

 

Walking back you can see that a lot of people have already left.

 

So while CP went to Pelican Plunge W and I grabbed a free tube and floated and played in the water.

 

That's 30 pictures, up next we walk back to the ship but take lots of pictures on the way.

 

WBI

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Wow, you were quite a distance away from the ship on the bike trail.  That would have made me nervous.  Was the bike trail a loop or an out and back?

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

When we hit CC we rented the snorkel gear for both of us but we took it to the adult beach. No on said anything to us about needing vests so I didn't grab any and no one said anything down there about it. Not sure if they usually enforce that at the adult beach. While it didn't have the special stuff in the water there were some submerged items there and tons of fish to see.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I was waiting for your description of the salt water going up your nose.  When I wrote about the slides in my DCL trip report a few years ago I called that update "Nature's Neti Pot".  LOL.  

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

Finally caught up! Love the costumes. CC looks very nice, but more crowded than I thought.

 

You guys get up early on vacation... I'm impressed! 

 

All the food looks awesome. 

 

 

Yay for the sun!

 

I'm sure you were glad to see it.

 

That's great that you got so many rides on the Aqua Duck. That's a definite advantage to a 7 night cruise.  People have more of a chance to ride it and aren't all competing with each other to ride.

 

I am not sure what the actual camera policy is on the Aqua Duck. On the Dream, I have used mine right out in the open, but on our last cruise heard the Go Pro thing.  Also, they were experimenting with an automatic ride camera on the first hill of the ride.  I guess they gave up on that idea.

 

Looking forward to the photos from Falmouth.  I've never been, and I'm not sure I know anyone who has been to that city on the island.

 

TCD

 

You do know someone who has been to Falmouth. We even ventured out! http://www.fortfiends.net/forum/topic/12435-freedom-from-the-polar-vortex-the-gdf-family-sails-rccl/page-9

 

Sadly, the place that we went to and loved and since been torn down. They're building a high end resort there instead. 

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

You know how I blame Nacole for me now searching for trucks?

Yeah well now I blame you for me searching for cruises.

If only I played the lottery.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Ghost

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

You do know someone who has been to Falmouth. We even ventured out! http://www.fortfiends.net/forum/topic/12435-freedom-from-the-polar-vortex-the-gdf-family-sails-rccl/page-9

 

Sadly, the place that we went to and loved and since been torn down. They're building a high end resort there instead. 

 

Dang.  I went back and re-read that page or your report, and I remember now.  I guess it didn't stick with me that you were in Falmouth, and that beach you visited was awesome.  Is that what is being made into a resort?

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Oh, and WBI, major, major respect from me for all that you did on Castaway Cay!

 

You guys were the first off the boat, and you're still there in the late afternoon.  And with a toddler, no less.  Good job!

 

The late afternoon is my favorite time on the island.  I love it when everyone else has already headed back to the ship, and you feel like you've got the whole place to yourself.

 

TCD

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Wow, you were quite a distance away from the ship on the bike trail.  That would have made me nervous.  Was the bike trail a loop or an out and back?

 

Yes its quite a ways but no worries mon its a Disney Island and we were on the designated path with people around. 

 

It's an out and back with a side loop at one point.

 

When we hit CC we rented the snorkel gear for both of us but we took it to the adult beach. No on said anything to us about needing vests so I didn't grab any and no one said anything down there about it. Not sure if they usually enforce that at the adult beach. While it didn't have the special stuff in the water there were some submerged items there and tons of fish to see.

 

Thanks Jason that's good to know.

 

In the family beach area and in the cabanans roped off area we heard life guards yell at people a few times who didn't have vest.  Of course the person didn't hear because they snorkeling.

 

I was waiting for your description of the salt water going up your nose.  When I wrote about the slides in my DCL trip report a few years ago I called that update "Nature's Neti Pot".  LOL.  

 

haha I remember that, and it really is true.  I wasn't exaggerating, the rest of the night if I bent over I had salt water run out of my nose, it was an odd feeling.

 

Finally caught up! Love the costumes. CC looks very nice, but more crowded than I thought.

 

You guys get up early on vacation... I'm impressed! 

 

All the food looks awesome. 

 

 

 

You do know someone who has been to Falmouth. We even ventured out! http://www.fortfiends.net/forum/topic/12435-freedom-from-the-polar-vortex-the-gdf-family-sails-rccl/page-9

 

Sadly, the place that we went to and loved and since been torn down. They're building a high end resort there instead. 

 

Thanks! 

 

CC was more crowded than I expected too, but it was never an issue.  For some reason the first beach you come too was more crowded than the second one.

 

Yes we do wake up early on vacation, CP has always been a morning person and W usually wakes up pretty early so I've adjusted.  Plus we knew we had tons we wanted to do and only a little time to do it.  Don't worry though we still relaxed enough during the day that we were never tired.  The one morning we slept in to 8:30am we really felt like we wasted some precious time.

 

I forgot about your stop in Falmouth, that's a fail on my part, but I guess if the place you sent to is no longer there I didn't miss it.

 

 

You know how I blame Nacole for me now searching for trucks?

Yeah well now I blame you for me searching for cruises.

If only I played the lottery.

 

haha sorry!

 

 

Dang.  I went back and re-read that page or your report, and I remember now.  I guess it didn't stick with me that you were in Falmouth, and that beach you visited was awesome.  Is that what is being made into a resort?

 

TCD

 

Yeah I missed that too.

 

Oh, and WBI, major, major respect from me for all that you did on Castaway Cay!

 

You guys were the first off the boat, and you're still there in the late afternoon.  And with a toddler, no less.  Good job!

 

The late afternoon is my favorite time on the island.  I love it when everyone else has already headed back to the ship, and you feel like you've got the whole place to yourself.

 

TCD

 

Thanks TCD!

 

We really wanted to have plenty of time on CC and luckily W napped in the beach chair so we were able to stay. 

 

I agree that afternoon was great, not as many people, free tubes, a lot quieter, the only problem was we were starting to get red and tired.

 

I just checked and it looks like we got back on the ship at 4:10pm so that was a full day.

 

I'm going to try and post my last CC pictures in this next update.

 

WBI

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Update time.

 

I left off with us getting ready to walk back to the ship.

 

On the way we passed the new Frozen place:

 

Wandering Oakens

 

This picture is rotated in photobucket, not sure why this keeps happening.

 

 

 

Empty chairs:

 

 

Shops were closing up:

 

 

 

I noticed that CC has a lot of log benches, but I don't think they are the same wood as the Fort.

 

 

Are those bags of towels?  In case you don't know when you exit the ship they have huge racks of towels to take with you but I guess they go and pick them all up to bring back to the ship, I bet there's a lot of sand.

 

 

Mount Rustmore!

 

Man I'm rocking a Seaside hat and shirt...

 

Around here my camera battery died.  But I was able to turn it back on and snap a picture for the remainder of these, until finally right at the ship it died completely.

 

Empty water sports.

 

 

 

Here's a great shot showing the ship, beautiful water, a wave runner, and the mini dredge:

 

By the way the tide had gone out at this point so the boat in this picture had run ashore and was having trouble getting in.

 

 

 

A shot of the dredge, you can see where they've already worked, its darker.

 

 

Looking back at the sign:

 

I took these next pictures for people at work. Do you see the tubes?  They are strapped to the pipe that connects to the dredge.  I thought it was a funny way to float the pipe but hey it works.  The dredge pipe went under the bridge and over the sand dune to somewhere.

 

 

 

Too many pictures for one post so I'll break this one up.

WBI

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Selfie.

I think this is where the old Shark used to be that you could pose with.

This sign had a big discussion in a previous Disney cruise trip report:

Hey look CC gets a cannon but the Fort doesn't, that makes sense.

Air mail:

Looking up at the aqua duck:

That's the last of the Castaway Cay pictures, but not the end of the day.

Up next we get dressed for dinner, watch sail away from our balcony, and do a million other things including riding the aqua duck at night.

WBI

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

CC looks like so much fun!

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Sorry for the delay but we went camping over the weekend at Toledo Bend South State Park so I'm just now getting back in to the groove.
 
I'm back now though and want to get this trip report wrapped up.
 
When I left off we had just boarded the ship after our great day at Castaway Cay around 4:10pm, so we headed to our room to get ready for dinner.
 
Once we got ready we headed out on the balcony:
 

 
We started to sail away.

 
We enjoyed a nice drink while getting ready and took some more pictures on the balcony:

 

 
Twins!

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 
I did some posing shots for CP:

 

 

 

 
CP posed for some shots too.
 

 

 

 
Then we headed out to the atrium to have a look around.
 
It was our last night and we wanted to do as much as we could, plus we had to look at all our pictures, book a cruise, and return W's magic band to the nursery.
 
In the atrium we lucked out and found Donald with almost no line.
 

 
Notice W is finally warmed up to the characters, I think this is the first one where he would stand next to them and touch them.
 
High five:

 
Then W had to go to his spot on the stairs:

 

 

 
Pretty soon it was time for dinner so we headed in to the Royal Court for our last dinner on board.
 
Tonight we both had the seared tuna and escargot and some other appetizer to share:

 
W once again had his potato chips and then his cheese pizza and fries came out early:

 
This is the app I can't remember:

 
Tons of food to start with:

 
I also got the lobster bisque.  I had a good laugh because it was mostly crawfish.  We had a good laugh about the crawfish bisque with the table next to us, we all were pretty surprised by it, but turns out the menu said it was lobster and crawfish, but we all missed that.  Either way it had an odd taste to it, I'm love crawfish and lobster but something just wasn't right with it.

 

 
I'm sorry but I have no idea what CP had for dinner but this is it:

 
And here's mine:  Beef Wellington:

 
Both of our dinners were ok but not great.  After we finished we had a good conversation with the table next to us.  This was their sixth Disney cruise so we picked their brain about a few things, they agreed about the dinning room food not being extraordinary and summed it up pretty good about how they have some good things but never fully execute things to make them great.
 
They were also DVC owners and have been for a long time, I was really intrigued by DVC while on board and we talked about it a lot, and since being home I have researched it more.  All the DVC cruiser talked about how their cruise was so cheap with points but my research showed that it takes a lot of points to cruise but maybe I'm missing something.  They also mentioned that they bought in to DVC when they were $45 per point and that now that its $160 per point its way too much.  The other thing people said was it makes them take a family vacation every year, but that's not something I have a problem doing, I want to take multiple vacations a year.  I really think if we weren't regular staying at the Fort but instead always stayed at a deluxe resort then it would be worth it for us, but as of now I've talked myself out of it again.

Picture limit.

WBI

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Continuing on:

 

Sorry for the DVC side track, here's the desert menu:



For some reason we didn't take dessert pictures, probably because we were talking so much.

After dinner we went back to the atrium and I believe at this point I stood in a short line to book a future cruise.


We thought about booking a placeholder but we decided to pick one for Dec. 2016. Then we thought we'd book one out of Galveston on the Wonder since its so close to home but we talked and decided we really like the newer ship so we chose a oceanview on the Fantasy...but by the time we price checked with the lady we chose a Navigators Veranda for a few hundred more. After booking the cruise to lock in the onboard savings and OBC, I really didn't think we'd keep the cruise, it was way more expensive than I wanted. Since then I've checked and realized that W will be 3years old at that point so they charged more for him and while this is way more than I want to spend on a cruise, it doesn't hurt to hold onto it for now, we can always cancel later.

After that we headed to the theater:



W was wound up and running like crazy:




As the show was starting we decided to bail, we didn't want to make W sit there:

Leaving the theater:






At some point in all of this we bought some souvenirs, I actually couldn't find the tervis tumbler I wanted so I learned a valuable lesson about not waiting to buy something.

Around this time we also went to go through all of our professional pictures from the week, the picture area was mad house, most people did like us and waited until the last night. There were tons of good ones but we were able to narrow it down to three that we had to have. Also while going through these one of the photographers we had gotten to know over the week brought W a present, she had loved him and always talked to him so she gave him four of their professional pictures of the ship and characters, that was awesome and she was awesome!

Then we headed back to our room and found this guy:


We quickly got changed into our swim suits and headed to the elevators:


We still had to ride the aqua duck at night.

 

CP went first so while I waited I snapped this picture of the movie on Funnel Vision, it was Froze:

 

They did a great job with the lighting on the ship:

 

 

 

 

 

Here's W enjoying the water at the end of the aqua duck:

 

Here I am going for my turn:

 

 

 

 

After the Aqua Duck, we also had to play Goof Golf to mark it off the LOF.

 

Heading that way:

 

 

A CM vacuuming the grass:

 

After a little goofy golf, we hit up the goof court:

 

 

The balls were already put away but W loved it in there:

 

 

I'll stop here but up next we head back to the atrium for the good bye show

 

WBI

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I'm starting to get worried that you didn't win a medal on this cruise.

 

CP should have gotten one for running the 5K.

 

I am hoping that you hurried up and did something to win a medal, but it's not looking good.

 

TCD

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

I'm starting to get worried that you didn't win a medal on this cruise.

 

CP should have gotten one for running the 5K.

 

I am hoping that you hurried up and did something to win a medal, but it's not looking good.

 

TCD

Well I hate to say it, but I did not win a medal on this cruise.

You are right about CP though, she did win a nice rubber medal for the 5k, here it is this earlier picture:

 

Then we walked over to the finish line and look who we bumped into:

We didn't see her cross the finish but she did right after we got there. She said the course was hot but still fun.

Then she paid her respects to the biggest summer fan of all:

WBI

That reminds me, I need to do a LOF status update.

WBI

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Well I hate to say it, but I did not win a medal on this cruise.

You are right about CP though, she did win a nice rubber medal for the 5k, here it is this earlier picture:

WBI

 

Jeez, I didn't even notice the medal.

 

But, now that I see it- I want one!

 

Those are new since the last time we cruised. The medals they used to award were just a black Mickey head, and they were the same as the medals awarded for other events on the ship.  The one CP is sporting is custom made just for the Castaway Cay 5K.

 

TCD

[rm0530 5]

Jeez, I didn't even notice the medal.

 

But, now that I see it- I want one!

 

Those are new since the last time we cruised. The medals they used to award were just a black Mickey head, and they were the same as the medals awarded for other events on the ship.  The one CP is sporting is custom made just for the Castaway Cay 5K.

 

TCD

You can thank runDisney's greedy pockets for this.

These medals debuted back in January for the Castaway Challenge. Run any race during marathon or princess weekend followed by the cruise and you get a special challenge medal (an actual medal AND the new plastic version) for completing the island 5k. All participants now receive this re-design.

All that being said, I also want one! We wont cruise again till Sept 2016. There's no telling what will change before then.

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Jeez, I didn't even notice the medal.

 

But, now that I see it- I want one!

 

Those are new since the last time we cruised. The medals they used to award were just a black Mickey head, and they were the same as the medals awarded for other events on the ship.  The one CP is sporting is custom made just for the Castaway Cay 5K.

 

TCD

 

Yeah those were some nice medals from what I had heard they have been giving them out since the Castaway Cay Challenge.

 

You can thank runDisney's greedy pockets for this.

These medals debuted back in January for the Castaway Challenge. Run any race during marathon or princess weekend followed by the cruise and you get a special challenge medal (an actual medal AND the new plastic version) for completing the island 5k. All participants now receive this re-design.

All that being said, I also want one! We wont cruise again till Sept 2016. There's no telling what will change before then.

Yup that's what I thought.

Honestly its not a bad deal to get that medal for "free" I would have liked to got one but I don't like to run.

WBI

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Well I'm slacking with updates but there isn't much left to this trip report so I'm going to try and wrap it up this week.

I left off with us riding the Aqua Duck at night and playing some goofy golf, then we ran to the room to dry off so we could go run around the ship some more and maybe see the farewell show in the atrium.

 

So here we are in the Atrium, W took up his spot on the stairs but you can see everyone waiting behind us.

While W was playing on the stairs one of our new CM friends came and asked us who our favorite character was. 
 

Mickey of course.

 

She then said ok stay right here, I'm going to form the line behind you.

 

Winning!

 

Pretty soon the show started.

 

I have no idea who this guy is but he came out and talked.


 

Then the characters started coming down:

 

Goofy!!

 

As you can see we were right up front in the middle of the action.










 

And the big cheese himself, Captain Mickey!









 

Mickey walked right up to us and we were the first family to get our picture with him.

Notice W is next to him, that's a big deal, he finally warmed up to Mickey!

 

After that we saw Goofy still had a short line so we rush over.

 

I thought W would be fine with Goofy too but nope here you can see W climbing up my neck:

 

But we still got a family picture.

 

After the Goofy all the other lines were long so we slipped away from the crowds and walked around some.

 

We ended up on Deck 4 looking down where we were able watch all the characters leave.


 

See the crowd I was talking about:

 

Oh hi Daisy!

 

Donald playing peek-a-boo





 

Mickey heard us saying goodbye so looked our way!

 

Pictures limit, I'll finish up the night in the next post.

 

WBI
 

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

After the crowds were gone, we ended up back in the atrium, where W was running around and having a blast.

 

 

He found some gold Mickey confetti and was collecting it on the stairs.

 

We did a lot of moving around at this point so the details are blurry, but I snapped this picture in a stairwell.

 

 

And this one near an elevator.

 

At some point we put our suitcases in the hall to be picked up.  Then while we were still in the room we heard some teenagers in the hall, I stuck my head out and caught them moving someone's bag.  It wasn't a  big deal but I said something like "what are yall doing" and they quickly apologized over and over and ran away.  They called me sir and I officially felt old.....
 

W was getting sleepy at this point so we headed back to the room.


I left CP and W in the room and I went out for some snacks, first stop was deck 11 for drinks.

 

These next two pictures are in the elevator:

 

Up on Deck 11 I got us some waters and a couple slices of pizza.

 

I dropped all of that off at the room and then rushed to Small World Nursery to return W's magic band.

 

Then I went and tried out one of the Midship Detective agency portals, I had to play to mark it off the LOF.

 

Then I ran down to LaPiazza to get some of the late night snacks, I loaded up two plates and brought them back to the room were we now had tons of food, lol.

 

While doing this running around I was shocked by how many people were still out and about everywhere late at night, it was well after 11pm but there still lots of people everywhere having a good time!  My kind of people!

 

We ate as much as we could and tried to soak in as much of our DCL experience as we could but eventually we went to sleep.

 

Next up our disembarkation and drive home.

 

We may have stopped by one of my favorites places on earth on the drive.

 

WBI

 

 

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

What great pictures!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

That's some major pixie dust being the first ones to meet Captain Mickey at the goodbye party.

 

W is almost there with the characters, isn't he?  It looks like he's trying to like them, but he's just not quite ready.

 

It looks like you did a good job trying to get a lot done on your last night of the cruise.

 

I am sad to think that this trip report is nearing the end.

 

TCD

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

What great pictures!

 

Thank you!

 

That's some major pixie dust being the first ones to meet Captain Mickey at the goodbye party.

 

W is almost there with the characters, isn't he?  It looks like he's trying to like them, but he's just not quite ready.

 

It looks like you did a good job trying to get a lot done on your last night of the cruise.

 

I am sad to think that this trip report is nearing the end.

 

TCD

 

Yes it was!  All of the cruise events people really liked W so that helped us out on a few occasions.  It was pretty funny the amount of CM's that knew his name.

 

Yes he was almost there, especially with Mickey, by that last day he was comfortable with Mickey but not so much with the others.  Hopefully he'll remember that for our next Disney trip but I have a feeling we'll be back at square one.

 

We did a lot that last night and like I said lots of people were still out and about.  I really liked how fun and active that night was, it kept me from thinking about how the cruise was almost over.

 

WBI