Our last minute Fantasy - booked 23 days before sailing!

[SCMouseFans]

Hello everyone! I am so excited about our upcoming vacation! I am usually an avid trip planner, trips are booked well in advance and I spend a lot of time researching. We booked this cruise 4 days ago, which is throwing my planning off, but on the other hand, when you book a cruise at the last minute you have much less time to wait for it!

My husband had plans to take the week of July 8th off from work, and we were going on a road trip with my Mom. Well, my Mom cancelled on us on Wednesday. DH has been having a really stressful time at work lately, and I wanted to do something fun and relaxing. We sailed on the Dream in November 2011 and had the time of our lives, so I checked the DCL web site, saw there was a Fantasy sailing coinciding with his vacation, called him, called the travel agent and within 4 hours we were booked! We booked an IGT stateroom, so I guess we won't know where will be for another week or so. We are going to look into an upgrade when we arrive at the port, but really we will be happy just to be on the ship, so as long as we have beds somewhere on the Fantasy we'll be good!

Our first cruise was a three night on the Disney Dream. Our son was two weeks shy of 2 years old on that cruise. We had a wonderful time! One of my fondest memories was soon after we boarded the ship, we were wandering around just checking things out when we ran into Pluto in a hallway. Pluto got down on the floor and played with my son. My son was delighted and pulled at his whiskers and just had a great time. We were the only people in the hallway and Pluto stayed for a few minutes. Our servers were also fantastic. The first night my son was a little fussy at dinner and it seemed like a fruit bowl magically appeared for him! Every single CM was dedicated to keeping our son happy, and all of the parents out there know when your kid is happy you are happy!

We are really looking forward to experiencing more of that Disney magic in a few short weeks!

 

[SCMouseFans]

Two weeks from now we will be on our way to Port Canaveral!

We are eagerly awaiting our stateroom assignment. I know from others on our cruise that some of the VGTs received their room assignments yesterday. I'm hoping ours will show up today!

I've been busy planning a few surprises. My DHs birthday is about a week after we get off the cruise. I was surprised to see Disney already had this noted on our reservation, so I guess he will get that special birthday dessert one night. I'm packing a surprise bag for him with some champagne, his favorite candy (for movies), and a waterproof camera for pool and beach pics. I'm going to keep it in my carryon and hope he won't notice.

For my son I have packed a sand pail and a few inexpensive sand toys, along with some of his favorite snacks. I'm going to wrap this up and keep it in a suitcase to surprise him with on our second day.

I've purchased a really cute Elmo backpack for my son, and a few new books and small toys to hopefully keep him entertained on the drive down and back. Thankfully our son is a very good car traveler, so we shouldn't have any problems.

We have decided not to book any excursions right now. I think we will just walk around Grand Cayman and maybe take the bus over to 7 Mile Beach. All of the excursions at Costa Maya seem too long for a toddler to handle. We might book something to the ruins in Cozumel once we get on board. Once the port adventures desk opens on the ship I plan to get my husband on the waitlist for the JetSki excursion at Castaway Cay! I know he will love it! We missed Castaway Cay on our Dream cruise due to weather, so I'm really hoping to finally see that beautiful island!

We are also hoping to have brunch at Palo and utilize the nursery for our son. I've read some different things about how much fun a 2.5 year old might have there. I'll be sure to write about our experience for other parents who might be curious. My son has recently become pretty outgoing, so hopefully he will enjoy being in there and there will be other 2 year olds he can play with.

 

[Princess Row]

Hey you will be on our sailing!! :]
Feel free to stop over to our thread for the meets section, we have also created a FB group which is rapidly growing and we talk on there all day long.

I will be along to read your PTR-TR, and mine is just below this post feel free to stop by!