Mitura
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2016
We also got off the Fantasy on NY EVE. My observations (Fantasy cruise, 12/24-12/31, Eastern). Sorry about the long post.
The ship was packed. We had never seen the ship this crowded even before the pandemic. I was given estimates of 3800 on board. So much so that my son said there were over 50 in the 18-20 club. The Edge was so packed my other son gave up by the second day trying to do anything with the club.
Dining was out of sync. We had this issue with our June cruise and with this cruise. What was explained to us this cruise and in June is that most experienced wait staff went to the Wish, so the servers are "newer" and Disney can't get any replacement staff trained fast enough. Dinner on Christmas was a special dinner (I asked in an earlier post and it matched the response in the post). This Christmas dinner replaced the "Pirate" night dinner. The weird thing for us was our dinning rotation doubled the first 2 days. We have had back-to-back nights before, just not the first 2 nights.
We also experienced differences in dining surrounding the food and such and it was explained due to logistics and availability. Meals we remembered one way were now different, substituted ingredients. One example is the Chicken Schnitzel, it was half the size from the June cruise. Also the Animator's Palette butter knife is now gone.
But to us the big dining deal was the elimination of the Pirate Night buffet. What was explained was that meals were made for 3000 guests and only 500 actually ate and most guests have little ones who would go straight to bed. I was told if a guest was hungry enough, Mater's Grill was open. This happened in the past month or so.
Shopping was very limited. There was an exclusive white Merry Time Cruise T and Hoody that was just ok in the shops. We got to CC early hoping to get some items that were sold out during our June cruise. But we didn't find anything to our liking. Sizes were missing or just the same items as previous cruises. So ship and CC merch was the same to us.
Being a Christmas sailing we did receive an exclusive Disney print. It is very nice. The authenticity card says that ~5000 were made.
Captain was Michele Intartaglia, Trent was the Cruise Director.
Shows were the standard Frozen, Aladdin and Believe. All shows were packed! Even the 1:00 showings. Movies were Avatar (even in the big theater), Black Panther, Strange World and Lightyear (from what I remember). There were more but they were the ones we saw. The sea day Black Panther afternoon show was at capacity, so we couldn't see it.
The weather was beautiful all week, 80's, but the water was very cold. So cold on CC we barely went in the water. We left PA during the 12/22 rain deluge (before the hard freeze). When we got on the ship (12/24) it was ~30 degrees F. We were wearing coats and hats on the pool deck during sail away. But there were the die-hards riding the Aqueduct (LOL). We were 11:15 group 5 PAT but boarding was delayed by .5 hour. So we boarded at 11:45.
Also for us this was the first time we did a GTY reservation. We got cabin 2522. We never had a Porthole cabin and we loved it. For us being on deck 2 was a little secret! We were close to dining, the atrium, the shops, theater, disembarking. The downfall is being far from Cabanas. But we would get an elevator on 2 and nobody would be on it! We were used to balcony rooms, but the porthole room didn't diminish our experience. One big plus is the temperature. Opening the balcony door would play havoc with the temperature/humidity of the cabin. Here we didn't have to worry about that.
We did Cane Garden Bay in Tortola, St John's during our St Thomas stop and CC. We noticed at CGB and St Johns that all transportation prices went up. So if you are planning any self excursions expect to pay more that may have been reported. We also mentioned this at Trunk Bay (St Johns ) and they said that admission probably will go up soon.
Thanks for reading and Happy New Year.
The ship was packed. We had never seen the ship this crowded even before the pandemic. I was given estimates of 3800 on board. So much so that my son said there were over 50 in the 18-20 club. The Edge was so packed my other son gave up by the second day trying to do anything with the club.
Dining was out of sync. We had this issue with our June cruise and with this cruise. What was explained to us this cruise and in June is that most experienced wait staff went to the Wish, so the servers are "newer" and Disney can't get any replacement staff trained fast enough. Dinner on Christmas was a special dinner (I asked in an earlier post and it matched the response in the post). This Christmas dinner replaced the "Pirate" night dinner. The weird thing for us was our dinning rotation doubled the first 2 days. We have had back-to-back nights before, just not the first 2 nights.
We also experienced differences in dining surrounding the food and such and it was explained due to logistics and availability. Meals we remembered one way were now different, substituted ingredients. One example is the Chicken Schnitzel, it was half the size from the June cruise. Also the Animator's Palette butter knife is now gone.
But to us the big dining deal was the elimination of the Pirate Night buffet. What was explained was that meals were made for 3000 guests and only 500 actually ate and most guests have little ones who would go straight to bed. I was told if a guest was hungry enough, Mater's Grill was open. This happened in the past month or so.
Shopping was very limited. There was an exclusive white Merry Time Cruise T and Hoody that was just ok in the shops. We got to CC early hoping to get some items that were sold out during our June cruise. But we didn't find anything to our liking. Sizes were missing or just the same items as previous cruises. So ship and CC merch was the same to us.
Being a Christmas sailing we did receive an exclusive Disney print. It is very nice. The authenticity card says that ~5000 were made.
Captain was Michele Intartaglia, Trent was the Cruise Director.
Shows were the standard Frozen, Aladdin and Believe. All shows were packed! Even the 1:00 showings. Movies were Avatar (even in the big theater), Black Panther, Strange World and Lightyear (from what I remember). There were more but they were the ones we saw. The sea day Black Panther afternoon show was at capacity, so we couldn't see it.
The weather was beautiful all week, 80's, but the water was very cold. So cold on CC we barely went in the water. We left PA during the 12/22 rain deluge (before the hard freeze). When we got on the ship (12/24) it was ~30 degrees F. We were wearing coats and hats on the pool deck during sail away. But there were the die-hards riding the Aqueduct (LOL). We were 11:15 group 5 PAT but boarding was delayed by .5 hour. So we boarded at 11:45.
Also for us this was the first time we did a GTY reservation. We got cabin 2522. We never had a Porthole cabin and we loved it. For us being on deck 2 was a little secret! We were close to dining, the atrium, the shops, theater, disembarking. The downfall is being far from Cabanas. But we would get an elevator on 2 and nobody would be on it! We were used to balcony rooms, but the porthole room didn't diminish our experience. One big plus is the temperature. Opening the balcony door would play havoc with the temperature/humidity of the cabin. Here we didn't have to worry about that.
We did Cane Garden Bay in Tortola, St John's during our St Thomas stop and CC. We noticed at CGB and St Johns that all transportation prices went up. So if you are planning any self excursions expect to pay more that may have been reported. We also mentioned this at Trunk Bay (St Johns ) and they said that admission probably will go up soon.
Thanks for reading and Happy New Year.
