The Force Cruised with Us! Eastern on the Fantasy with SWDAS (February 8-15, 2020)

KatieKepic

Mouseketeer
Joined
Oct 5, 2015
I've never written a trip report before but I love reading them so thought I'd give it a shot. My family and I cruised on the Fantasy a few weeks ago on an Eastern itinerary (Tortola, San Juan & Castaway Cay) with SWDAS.

Our sailing party:

Katie (me): the planner and travel enthusiast! I absolutely love researching and planning trips. I'm constantly planning our next adventure and adding places to my bucket list. I always joke that I missed my calling as a travel agent. I love the sun and being on the water, the beach in definitely my happy place.

DH: My husband who thankfully shares my passion for travel. He’s my sounding board during my decision making process and very seldom complains when I drone on for hours about traveling. He loves history and tends to prefer excursions with some tie to that.

DS: Our son who is eleven and has high functioning autism (I only mention this as it impacts some of our travel plans/decisions). He plays soccer and loves reading, Pokémon and sharks. He prefers Disney World to cruises but still loves to sail.

DD: my Minnie-me is nine and loves all things Disney and Disney cruises are definitely her vacation of choice, I think she’d live on the “Mickey boat” if we let her. She is a little fish and loves the water and beach like her Momma!

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Photo from our cruise on the Magic this past August.

Cruise Planning:

We had originally booked one of the 2020 Greek isles cruises on opening day with a placeholder but in June, we decided to cancel for a few reasons but mainly because we were taking our kids (9 & 11) to Europe for the first time in August and weren't sure how they'd do and were apprehensive about doing European cruises two years in a row with them. To keep our placeholder, we had to move the Greece reservation to a new cruise. We decided to try the Fantasy (we've only sailed the classic ships) and Port Canaveral. My husband is part Puerto Rican and hasn't been to San Juan and both he and the kids are Star Wars fans. Our school also has a winter break in February and this cruise coincided with part of that which was the deciding factor.

Even though we booked in June, we were busy planning our European adventure and didn't really start doing much planning for this one until well after we got home. This caused some stress for me as I'm very OCD and like to have everything planned out pretty far in advance. Coming back from three weeks in Europe and trying to get back on a schedule with school and activities for the kids and work for DH and I, we didn't have much planning time. That was followed by the holidays and then the end of the fiscal year for me (I'm a financial controller) which made planning time even more difficult. This was definitely the most unprepared I've felt for a cruise and I was still finishing FEs up to the day before we left.

Up next: Florida Bound
 
We decided to fly to Orlando the day before the cruise. We picked the kids up from school and headed to the airport.
476314We had a direct flight and soon landed and MCO and we're on the tram and headed to meet our driver and get our luggage.
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After recommendations from on here, we booked with Fl Tours to take us from the airport to our hotel in Cape Canaveral. Just as we were exiting the tram, our driver called and let us know he was waiting for us down by baggage claim. We found him quickly and made our way to get our luggage. After retrieving our mountain of luggage (I'm not a light packer by any stretch), we headed to the car. We had a Toyota Sienna which was clean and fit us and our luggage comfortably. We stopped at a Publix in Cape Canaveral and then were dropped off at our hotel. All in all we like Fl tours and would use them again. Our driver was very friendly and prompt, booking was easy and it was very reasonably priced. My only complaint was we had a little bit of difficulty getting ahold of someone to pay for our transfer. If you're getting a transfer to PC, they require you to pay a few days before hand as they've had a lot of no shows. This wasn't a problem for us and I actually prefer to have things prepaid as it's one less thing to worry about. However, I called several times to pay and was never able to get an answer. I will say though that I never left a message as with my work schedule, I'm not sure when I'll be able to answer a phone call. I finally ended up leaving a message as I was worried our transfer would get cancelled since we hadn't paid, I received a very prompt phone call back and was able to pay. Obviously it wasn't anything major and in the end it all worked out and we were happy with the service provided.

We stayed at Courtyard Marriott-Cocoa Beach Cape Canaveral. We booked using Marriott points and were upgraded to their larger guest room which was a great size and had a balcony with a view of the port. Unfortuntaly, I didn't take any photos of the hotel room just a photo of the Fantasy from our balcony the next morning.
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We liked the hotel and we'd stay there again. We booked the shuttle to the port through them. We opted for the earliest time (10:15 am) and it was $7/person for one way. Our hotel was the first pickup and we stopped at two others after. When we got to the port, our driver took all the luggage off and then we got off shuttle. It was pretty quick. The porter made sure we had everything we needed and then took the rest of the bags. We then headed to the terminal. We made our way through security and then to the Castaway Cay line. Check in was quick and easy. They did go page by page through each of our passport to make sure we hadn't been to China. We received our KTTW cards, lanyards and a boarding group of 3. We then went to find some seats. The terminal was already pretty crowded but we found some seats in the window back near the vending machines. I headed to get a drink as I was in dire need of some caffience while DH sat with the kids. Once I got back, I took DS to the penny machines so he could pick his pressed pennies. This was our first time sailing from PC so he wanted one for each of the ships he'd been on and one for CC. We then went to sit back down. Awhile later DH noticed Goofy was out near the model ship and he and DD went to get in line for that. Shortly after they left, they called the family of the day so I decided to take DS and go meet them in the character line so we could board right after. I was very surprised by how quickly they seemed to go through the boarding groups compared to other ports we sailed from. We were still in line for our photo when our group was called. Goofy was switched out for Pluto but DD was just as happy for a photo with him.
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She got her photo and we headed toward the Mickey cut out to boad the ship. I have to say, of all the ports we've sailed from, this one seemed to be the most confusing to get on the ship. People were standing all over and it was hard to tell who was actually in line to board and who was still waiting for their group to be called. We weren't the only ones having a hard time. We finally made our way through all the people waiting and were being welcomed onto the Fastasy.

We prefer the sit down restaurant for embarkation lunch to Cabanas and today it was in AP. We headed there and got in line to get a table. They asked if we wanted a shared table or if we wanted to wait a bit for a private table. I'm very social and can talk to just about anyone so I wouldn't have a problem with a shared table but as I mentioned earlier, DS is autistic and embarkation day is already overstimulating for him so we opted to wait for a private table. The wait wasn't too long and we were soon sat.
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Lunch took a bit longer then expected and we noticed our waitstaff was switched out partway through. The head server came over and asked how everything was and apologized for the wait (it hadn't bothered us and we made sure to let him know but I guess they had received a lot of complaints on wait times). The USCG had come onboard and was doing drills which required 100% participation. Since the entire dining staff had to participate and they are limited to being able to work 14 hours in a day, they had to work with 1/2 the staff they normally do for lunch and switch out partway through. After lunch we headed to our stateroom to drop off our carryons.

Next up: Stateroom 9540 and Sail Away
 
We were on this cruise with you! So excited to read along. We actually stayed on the same deck as you. We were in 9120. Great start.
 
We were on this cruise with you! So excited to read along. We actually stayed on the same deck as you. We were in 9120. Great start.


Thanks for reading :) I hope y'all enjoyed the cruise as much as we did. I got momentarily distracted with the new itineraries but now that 2021 is booked, I should have the next piece posted this afternoon.
 


Thanks for reading :) I hope y'all enjoyed the cruise as much as we did. I got momentarily distracted with the new itineraries but now that 2021 is booked, I should have the next piece posted this afternoon.

We did! This was actually the first time in 10 cruises we booked a placeholder! Thinking we would do Alaska next, until I saw the prices that came out yesterday! Yikes! Guess I will wait a bit to book 2021.
Can't wait for your next installment.
Hoping you were at Serenity Bay on CC and got footage of the shark?? My camera messed up and I didn't get it. :(
 
We stayed in 9540 which is a 5A Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah. We enjoyed this room and the location. My only "complaint" is that I couldn't use forward stairs (closest to our stateroom) to go down to deck 5 to get the kids from kids club. The photos aren't the greatest and for some reason I must not have taken photos of the split bathrooms but here is our room. We ordered the Star Wars stateroom decorations package (included a pillow, blanket, window cling, magnet, picture frame and 5 hanging pieces), the beer mug and the robe package (included 2 robes, champagne, rose and chocolates). DH had been talking about getting the robes for awhile and since we were cruising over Valentine's day I thought this would be a good gift for him.


476946476948476947476954After unpacking the luggage that had shown up (I'm one of those that has to completely unpack and hates living out of a suitcase), we headed to Muster drill. The USCG was still onboard to observe the muster and there were those families that just show up so of course it took longer then it should have. Once the alarm sounded and we were dismissed, we headed up to deck 11 for sail away. We've only sailed the classic ships so this would be our first time seeing the Sail Away deck party. It was fun and we enjoyed it but I have to say I personally prefer the Sail-a-wave deck party.


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After the deck party, we headed back to our room to watch the sail away from our verandah and finished unpacking as the rest of our luggage had been delivered.

To be continued.
 

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