Mini Trip Report – Disney Fantasy June 2023 (Wednesday-Thursday)

(all the pictures will be in a gallery in the last post. Whenever that comes.)

St Thomas – Wednesday

Breakfast today was, once again, at the Cabana’s buffet. We didn’t have any planned excursions, but we wanted to take the kids on the “Skyride to Paradise Point” gondola, because there were some nice views up at the top, and we thought they’d enjoy the ride.

The gondola ride was basically right across the street from the port, so we loaded the kids up in the stroller, and off we went. After buying our tickets, we had no wait, and got right on the gondola. When we reached the top, we strolled around a bit looking at the shops, and trying to get some good pictures. Then we sat down at one of the restaurants up there, and had some drinks. I had a drink called a Bushwacker, Tracy had a rum punch, and Tommy had an alcohol-free fruit punch (that he didn’t really like all that much)

We wandered around a little more, then caught the gondola back down to the bottom. We walked back through the shopping mall to the port, where we had a bit of a wait at the security checkpoint because a whole excursion group from the Norwegian Escape (which had docked next to us) had made a wrong turn, and headed for our ship, rather than wherever it was that they were meeting their excursion guide. Several people nearby commented that Disney was much more organized when it comes to excursions. (If you haven’t done an excursion booked through DCL here’s how it works: everyone meets in a particular place on the ship, and is issued a colored sticker with a Disney character. Then, you follow a crew member (who has a sign that matches your sticker) off the ship, and are met by representatives from the tour company, who also have a sign that matches your sticker.)

Once we got back on the ship, it was time for lunch. (We could have had lunch at the restaurant where we got our drinks, but why pay for food when you can get it on the ship for free?). I don’t remember what we did all afternoon.

Dinner was at Royal Court, and was pretty unmemorable. I maintain that DCL needs some new menus, and the 2nd rotation through each restaurant tends to be a lot more uninteresting (at least to me) than the first rotation. I think I had the fettucine with parmesan crusted chicken. Dessert, however, was the amazing chocolate lava cake, so that kind of made up for it. And, as a bonus, Tommy only had a few bites of his, so I got to finish that.

3rd Sea Day – Thursday

What do you do when the ship is in international waters? Race babies! We entered Lily in the Jack Jack’s Incredible Diaper Dash. She was in the 1st heat. When the race started, she … sat at the start line for a little while. Luckily for her, the other babies in her heat did the same thing. Finally, she started moving towards the finish line, along with one other baby. It was a very close race, but the other baby beat her by half a hand. (If Lily had been in the 2nd or 3rd heat, she probably would’ve lost badly, since all the babies in those heats started pretty much immediately, and the heats total elapsed time was shorter than the time Lily spent sitting at the start line.)

A lot of people say that Lily looks like “Boo” from Monster’s Inc, especially when we put her hair up in pigtails. So, we played into that. She wore a pink shirt with purple shorts (Boo’s “human” outfit, not her monster costume for when she got stuck in the Monster world). Tommy wore a green shirt that Tracy had painted to look like Mike Wazowski, Tracy wore a yellow shirt with CDA stenciled on it, and I wore a blue shirt with some purple paint splotches that looked like Sully. (I feel like I’m a bit typecast as the “big hairy guy” 😉 )

Right after the race, we took the kids up to the nursery. Tommy, happily enough, didn’t fuss when we left him. Why did we have to put them in the nursery? We had a reservation for Palo Brunch. The brunch was fantastic. Our server was attentive without being overbearing, and made some good recommendations. I think the lasagna there is among the best that I’ve ever eaten.

After brunch, we picked the kids up from the kids club, and took them up to Deck 11 to get them some food. (Unfortunately, the Nursery no longer feeds meals when kids are in there, only snacks. Another covid cutback that has yet to return.) I think we may have done a quick trip to the Splash pad also.

Then it was back to the room, where, miracle of miracles, Tommy actually fell asleep for a little bit. (Granted, he fell asleep at 5:15, and dinner was at 5:45. He woke up while we were deciding who would stay with him, and said that he wanted to join us for dinner, so we all headed down to Animator’s Palate.

Tonight was the Animation Magic show. As has been true since before kindergarten, I’m a terrible artist. Tommy had fun scribbling on the paper, although his skills at staying inside the lines are, if possible, even worse than mine.

After dinner, I went to see Frozen with Lily and my parents, while Tommy and Tracy headed back to the room and watched it on the TV.

Permanent link to this article: https://eric-abrams.net/2023/07/mini-trip-report-disney-fantasy-june-2023-wednesday-thursday/

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