Disney Cruise

We recently went on a 9-Night Southern Caribbean Cruise on the Disney Fantasy. While on board, we were able to enjoy the standard dining menu in Enchanted Garden.  Here are pictures of the menu and the food (some food is from prior sailings on the Fantasy and the Dream).

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Disney Cruise

Sea Day
Sea Day

Day 2 was our first sea day of the cruise.  We didn’t have any sort of agenda for the day other than relaxing.  Nancy and I decided to head to Royal Court for breakfast.  This breakfast is a sit down breakfast versus the buffet breakfast that can be found at Cabanas.  Royal Court is located right off the atrium.

After breakfast, we decided to head up to Satellite Falls.  Satellite Falls is part of the adult area of the ship and is located all the way forward on the top deck. It has a round splash pool surrounding a satellite dish.  There are lots of chairs located in the shade. We each brought a book up and read, and talked with our friends that came on the cruise with us.

As lunch time approached, the wind started to pick up quite a bit.  Nancy and I decided to head out and go off to the gym.

We got changed in the room and headed to the gym.  I’ve previously talked about the gym on the Fantasy.  We each got on the treadmill and walked for a bit.  I knew after going to the parks for a week and then doing a cruise, I would need some extra exercise.  After our walks in the gym, we headed back to room for a shower. 

Our youngest daughter was in the room watching movies.  Since we had a bit of time before dinner, we decided to try out room service.  We ordered the “All Hands on Deck” cheese and cracker appetizer.  We took it out on the verandah to enjoy while we looked at the ocean and talked.

Dinner tonight was at Enchanted Garden, which is located on Deck 2.  We have previously covered the menu for Enchanted Garden, as well as included some food pictures.  The food was great, but our service was spotty.  The issue was mainly with the beverage service and waiting forever for our drinks and refills.  I spoke with the head waiter as we were leaving the dining room.  It was still early in the cruise and I thought there was time to get it corrected before it got to be too bad.  He was glad I pointed it out to him and he said he would get it corrected.  Sadly, that didn’t really happen but at least there was an attempt.

Normally, Nancy and I would head back to the room to get some sleep, but our friends had other plans.  We all headed down to The Tube, one of the adult clubs on the ship.  We caught the end of a show called Snippets.  There are two teams that try to guess a song based on a few notes.  After the game show, Magic Dave performed a comedy/magic show that was outstanding. 

Magic Dave’s show was about 30 minutes, and then The Tube turned into the Silent Disco.  They hand out headphones to anyone that wants them.  Each headphone can tune into one of three different channels, each playing different music.  One person in our group wanted to dance, the rest of us tried to figure out the songs being played based upon how people were dancing.  We failed miserably, other than YMCA.

We decided to head out during the Silent Disco.  We got back to the room to see this guy.

The room was made up for sleeping, here is what it looks like when the two other beds are made up.

Coming up tomorrow is our second sea day, which includes lots of sleeping by the pool as well as brunch at Palo!

Boarding | Exploring | Sea Day 1 | Sea Day 2 | St. Maarten | St. Thomas | Sea Day 3 | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation

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Credit Cards, Disney Cruise, Disney Gift Cards

When you embark on a Disney Cruise, you will be given a Key To The World Card.  The card will not only unlock your stateroom but also uniquely identifies you to the crew.  It has a lot of information embedded on the card as well.  I’ll try to breakdown the information as well to show you some examples of the card.

A The dates of your cruise
The ship you are on
C Your name
D Your Castaway Club status
E Your lifeboat station
F Your dining rotation:

Fantasy

  • E – Enchanted Garden
  • R – Royal Court
  • A – Animators Palette

Dream

  • E – Enchanted Garden
  • R – Royal Palace
  • A – Animators Palette

Magic

  • R – Rapunzel’s Royal Table on Magic (Used to be C – Carioca’s)
  • A – Animators Palette
  • L – Lumiere’s

Wonder

  • TR – Tritons (Used to T)
  • TP for Tiana’s Place (Used to be P – Parrot Cay)
  • AP – Animators Palette (Used to be A)
G Your dining time
H Your check in line number
I Indicates you have a Disney Visa Card as your credit card (entitles you to additional perks)
J Your table number in every main dining room
K Your Castaway Club account number
L A for Adult, M for Minor
M P for Disney Transportation to the Port, A for Disney Transportation to the Airport, R for Disney Resort, PA for Port and Airport, PR for Port and Resort, and RPA for Resort to Port to Airport.

Here is our first card, which was for a cruise to Alaska.  The only difference here is that we didn’t have any Disney Transportation booked, didn’t have Castaway Club status, and Disney had not yet started to indicate if you were using a Disney Visa Card.

On our second cruise, we had obtained Silver Castaway Club Status.  We went on a Spring Break cruise on the Wonder.

On our third cruise, we got a star added to our card.  This was to indicate that we had visited the Immigration and Custom Officials before the ship docked in Key West.  This cruise was a four night Caribbean cruise on the Wonder.  

Nothing new on this card for our fourth cruise.  Although, it is interesting to note that there is no check in line number on this card.  I think my Key To The World card got demagnetized on this cruise (and wouldn’t open my stateroom door), so it got reprinted while we were on board.  This was a five night Western Caribbean cruise on the Wonder.

This was our fifth cruise and it was our first time on the Fantasy.  This was a 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy.

Back on the Wonder for our sixth cruise, where we changed to Gold Castaway Club Members.  We also don’t have a check in line number for this cruise, but I remember that we did upgrade our stateroom in the cruise terminal.  This meant that our card got reprinted in the supervisor’s line. This was another five night Western Caribbean cruise on the Wonder.

For our seventh cruise, we returned to the Fantasy.  We also paid for Disney Cruise Line transportation from the airport and the port, so the card has a PA on it.  We also used a Disney Visa Card for the default credit card for this cruise, so they added the DV to this card.  We didn’t actually use the credit card, since all the charges were paid off using Disney Gift Cards.  This was a seven night Eastern Caribbean Star Wars Day at Sea Cruise.

Our eighth cruise was our first cruise on the Dream.  We again paid for round trip Disney Cruise ground transportation and used our Disney Visa Card.  This was a three night Bahamian Cruise on the Dream.

On our ninth cruise, we went on the Magic for a Very Merrytime Cruise.  We drove to and from the Port of Miami, so no annotation about Disney Transportation.  We used our Disney Visa Card as the default credit card for this cruise.  This was a 5 Night Very Merrytime Western Caribbean Cruise on the Magic.

On our tenth cruise, we went back on the Magic for a Sprint Break Cruise.  We drove to and from the Port of Miami, so no annotation about Disney Transportation.  This was a 5 Night Bahamian Cruise on the Magic.

Our eleventh cruise, where we were Platinum for the first time, was another cruise on the Fantasy.  We drove to and from Port Canaveral, so no annotation about Disney Transportation.  This was a 7-Night Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy.

On our twelve cruise, we went back onboard our favorite ship, the Wonder, for a Spring Break Cruise.  We left from San Diego on a 5-Night Baja Cruise.  This was the first time we had been on the Wonder since its refurbishment that added Tiana’s Place.  Disney Cruise Line changed the way the dining rotation was specified on the card to add two letters for the name of the restaurant so there was no confusion with Tiana’s and Triton’s. We actually didn’t sit at Table 57, as we discussed in the trip report, because we wanted to sit with our favorite crew member.   Since we took an Uber to and from the port (we had additional vacation days before and after the cruise), we didn’t use Disney transportation.

During some recent cruises, our daughter was old enough to go to the Vibe.  When the kids check in to the Vibe, they get new Key To The World cards printed on this special card to indicate they are allowed in the Vibe.  If they don’t have this card during a “Card Check”, they will be asked to leave the Vibe.  Our daughter indicated they do this check every so often.

Some friends sailed in a Concierge Cabin and were kind enough to share their Key To The World card with us.  As you can see, they had Port/Airport transfers and also used their Disney Visa Card as the default payment.  The card is gold because they were Concierge guests and had access to the Concierge Lounge.   There are two interesting items to note with this card.  One first is the Concierge check-in desk number “993”.  The second item is the crossed Mickey Keys in the bottom left, which also indicates a Concierge guest.

We just added some information on how you can store your Key to the World Card as well, talking about Lanyards available from both Disney and Amazon.

If you have enjoyed this article, please be sure to check out our Disney Cruise Line information page, which has useful hints in addition to our cruise trip reports!

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Disney Cruise

Today was the last sea day for our cruise, in addition to being Star Wars Day At Sea!  The Fantasy hadn’t been overtaken too much during the cruise with Star Wars other than all the movies being shown throughout the cruise.  All of that changed in the morning.  As soon as we stepped outside the room into the hallway, you could hear the Star Wars themed music playing (which went on all day).

Our plans for the day included going to hear the special guest lecturer, Leland Chee.  He was talking in the Buena Vista Theatre at 10:00 AM.  We also had character meet and greets at in the late morning and early afternoon.  The girls really didn’t have any interest in any of the Star Wars activities, they went off to their clubs and we hardly saw them all day. 

Nancy and I made our way to the Buena Vista Theatre and settled down to wait for the guest lecturer.

Leland Chee got up and began to tell us his background of working for Lucas Arts.  He’d started as a game tester and worked on lots of the Star Wars games from the mid 1990s on.  While working at Lucas Arts, he came across a job description that required database experience and “extensive Star Wars knowledge”.  He knew he had found his dream job.  He became the keeper of the Holocron, which is a database that stores everything that Lucas Arts (and now Disney) considers part of the Star Wars canon (the official story line). 

Every planet, ship, weapon, and person in the Star Wars Universe is cataloged in the Holocron and it is used across the company to keep everything aligned.  This includes not only movies, but animations, stories, and merchandising. 

One of the benefits that Leland got to experience as the Keeper of the Holocron was working with the merchandising department.  When they needed faces to use for Jedi figures, he got his likeness portrayed as one.  Wired magazine did a story on Leland at one point that highlighted his role at the company.  Soon after, George Lucas started to call him to ask him Star Wars questions.  Leland said it was one of his favorite moments of working for Lucas Arts. 

After talking for about 45 minutes, Leland opened the floor up for questions.  One of the best questions was about the color of the Jedi Light Sabers.  Leland explained that each Jedi must seek out a crystal and bond with it.  The crystal takes on special properties from the Jedi it bonded with.  That gives each light saber a particular color.  He then told us that Mace Windu was the only one with a purple light saber, and it was because Samuel Jackson’s favorite color was purple.

After the questions were over, Leland continued to talk with various people and was nice enough to take pictures with people if they wanted to. 

After the lecture, we headed up towards our first character meet and greet.  However, on the way, we ran into a Gamorrean Guard.  These are the guards for Jabba’s palace.  He was nice enough to pose for a quick pictures.

Our first character meet and greet was with Chewbacca.  We had previously met Chewbacca at Hollywood Studios, but he is always fun to talk to.  We tried to get the girls to join us, but they had no interest in it since they had already met him.  The meeting location was Deck 1 forward and we were assigned a time of 11:30 AM.  We were at Deck 2 forward and tried to go down the stairwell, but there was a long line.  Chewbacca wasn’t moving very fast and the queue to see him had grown pretty long.  We eventually got to the front of the line.  The cast member there was happy to use our camera to take some photos.

Our next character encounter wasn’t far behind at 12:30 PM.  I believe this one was at Deck 1 midship, but we encountered the same issue of a backed up line.  This meeting was with Kylo Ren, who we had also met at Hollywood Studios previously.  I don’t personally think this was a great character for a meet and greet since he just stomps around and points a lot.  He also tries to force choke you, which totally didn’t work on me.

We then headed towards the atrium, where we had previously seen lots of characters walking around.  The Tuskan Raider was particularly hard to get a photo of, because he would try to take your phone or camera and keep it (or give it away to someone else).  Nancy managed to get a great photo by demonstrating her phone to him.  Here is a photo of a selfie in action, in addition to the selfie! 

There were Jawas trying to sell some of the props in the atrium to anybody that would buy them.  They were also tough to get pictures of people they wouldn’t stand still for them.

Nancy cornered Boba Fett as well and got a nice selfie.

Zam Wesell from Attack of the Clones was also on board, hopefully she met with a better fate at Castaway Cay than she did in the movie.  This was an odd character to have on board, since she spent most of her time creeping around and nobody quite knew who she was.  We had to google for about 15 minutes to figure out who she was.

We met most of the characters we wanted to, then headed to Deck 4 to relax and enjoy a beer.  While we were relaxing, these two guys strolled up and told us to be on the look out for rebel activity. 

Sometime during the day, we went off for brunch.  I wasn’t very hungry, so I just got the Cherry Crepes for lunch.  I believe the brunch was served in Royal Court.  No special Star Wars menu for lunch though.

There were a lot of different Star Wars activities spread throughout the ship.  We didn’t particularly search any of them out.  We did see a lot of them just walking around the ship.  Here are some pictures of the costume contest.  There were a good number of people dressed up for Star Wars Day (maybe about 10% or so of the passengers).   The Jedi Knights were introduced first, high above the atrium.  There was one knight that had some Rapunzel going on as well, but she seemed to make it work.

Down in the atrium, there was a kids costume contest.  There were lots of dressed up kids on the ship, most of them carrying light sabers.  Each one got to show off and talk about their costume.

That was most of the Star Wars things that Nancy and I took part in.  I believe there were other activities as well, but we basically enjoyed the day at sea and relaxed.  Dinner tonight was back at Enchanted Garden, but was definitely had a Star Wars theme. The child menus also doubled as masks!

The menu tonight was a special Star Wars Menu, complete with some normal food items that took on Star Wars names.

The bread service didn’t have any sort of special name, but it was good.  I’m not positive, but I think the dip was the roast red pepper dip that they normally serve in Animator’s Palate.   

Here is the menu for Star Wars Day At Sea.  The menu was a bit hard to photograph because it was sort of holographic.  It was shiny and sparkly as well.

This was the only night that I got a little annoyed at our server team.  They asked the girls if they wanted BB-8 cups to drink out of.  They, of course, immediately said yes and mentioned what they wanted in them.  At this point, the assistant server mentioned that they were an additional cost.   We could have refused, but I would have preferred to have been told the additional cost before she offered them to the girls.  They did bring the cups home, so we have them at the house and they occasionally drink out of them.

For appetizers, we ordered the Bantha Steak Empanadas, Gungan City Dumping Soup, and the Padme Amidala Souffle.  Our server tried to talk me out of the soup.  I wasn’t feeling very well (I had a sore throat), so I decided to chance it.  It wasn’t too bad, basically tomato soup with meat balls.  The Empanadas were fantastic.  I didn’t try the souffle.

We ordered various entrees and all of them were really good.  This might have been one of the better nights on the cruise for entrees. 

Then it was dessert time.  The dessert menu was themed as well.

We all ordered a dessert and they were tasty.

The award for the best themed dish of the night went to the Princess Leia’s Warm Apricot Pudding.   Just look at it!

After dinner, the girls scattered to their clubs and Nancy went to the room.  I wanted to go up to watch the Star Wars Summon The Force Show.  Nancy didn’t have any interest in it or the fireworks that would follow.  I ran into the cruise director, Jimmy Lynett.  Jimmy was the cruise director for our very first cruise to Alaska on the Wonder.  He was nice enough to pose for a photo with me!

Here is the video I took of the show:

The Star Wars Day At Sea was a lot of fun, but I’m a Star Wars Fan.  If you aren’t a fan, you could have avoided most of the Star Wars activities and enjoyed a quasi normal day at sea.  You could also immerse yourself into the activities if you are a fan.  We did make sure to watch Rogue One again during the day, even though we had seen it over Christmas Break when it was released.

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Disney Cruise

Day 2 – At Sea

Our first day at sea promised to be a busy one.  We had several activities planned for the day.  The first activity was the Gold and Platinum Castaway Reception!  We skipped our first chance at the reception on our Spring Break Cruise last year, which was our first cruise as Gold Castaway Club Members.  We had talked with some friends who said it was nice, so we decided to go.  The reception was held in The Tube, so we headed down there.

As soon as we walked into the reception, we were offered drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) along with fruit and cookies.  Pluto was walking around taking pictures with everyone as well.  After Pluto worked the crowd, it was time for the officers to take their turn.

We spoke with the officer in charge of guest relations.  She was super nice and answered any questions we had.  The officers in charge of the ship systems, the cruise director (JIMMY!!!) , and other officers as well worked the crowd as well.

Once the officers were done talking to the guests, Commodore Tom Forberg got up to talk.  He talked a little about the two new ships that Disney was building and the shipyard where they were being built.  He didn’t provide any information that wasn’t already public knowledge, so we didn’t learn anything new from his talk.  He asked people about their favorite cruise destinations and talked in general about Disney Cruise Line.  Overall, the reception was nice, but I don’t know if I would do it again.  If you want to meet some of the officers or get a free drink or two, it is a fun thing to do though!  (Note: as of May 2017, Disney Cruise Line has announced that the Gold and Platinum Castaway Reception will only be held on 8 night or longer cruises).

Our next stop was Palo brunch!  Nancy and I love Palo brunch and we always try to book it at least once each cruise, since our first Disney cruise to Alaska.  The brunch has a combination of entrees you can order as well as a buffet.  This works well for us because I’m not a breakfast person, but Nancy is.  We both can find something to enjoy at the brunch. 

The brunch is $30 per person, plus whatever gratuity you choose to give to your server.  We were seated at a nice table right by the window so we could enjoy a view of the ocean.  We both looked over the entree menu before approaching the buffet.  I ordered the Lasagna Bolognaise and Nancy ordered the Rollatini Melanzane.  We then went off to the buffet to begin our meals.

After eating way too much food, including our delicious entrees as well as dessert, Nancy and I ordered some coffee.  Our server then brought us a decorated plate (and a rose for Nancy) in celebration our 20th wedding anniversary.  Our travel agent, we found out later, had notified Disney Cruise Line after our other cruise we had booked for our 20th anniversary had been canceled by Hurricane Mathews.  

After our fantastic brunch at Palo, we had our second activity of the day, the Mixology class.  I’ve already described it in another post, so I won’t go over it again.  Needless to say, I was in a great mood for the rest of the day, until I wasn’t.  Nancy and I went off to find some special “rare” characters that were listed on the navigator for the day.  Nancy managed to find the White Rabbit and Jiminy Cricket.

After meeting the various characters, we got together to go see the show for the night, which was Aladdin.  The show was good, but I think we had previously watched it on our other Fantasy cruise.  It’s basically an abbreviated version of the Aladdin movie.  We got ready for dinner at Enchanted Garden. 

Here are the pictures of Nancy’s dinner.  I was not very interested in dinner as the Mixology class was finally catching up to me.  Nancy ordered the Ahi Tuna and Avocado Tower, the Spinach and Raspberry Salad, and the Pan Seared Sea Bass.  She had the Esterházy Cake for dessert.  I ordered the Slow Roasted Breast of Chicken, which was the plain chicken with very little spice. 

The girls went off to their clubs and Nancy and I went back to the room to get ready for bed.  We had this waiting for us when we got there.  The note indicates that we should adjust our clocks to one hour ahead.  We set the clocks and went to bed.  The girls came in from their clubs much later in the night, which let us know they were continuing to have fun with the friends they had met the night before.

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