A Fantastic Voyage to the Eastern Caribbean with 2 Teens and a Worn Out Teacher

CatDenver

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 5, 2013
Just got back from a fabulous 7-night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean on the Disney Fantasy.:( In fact, I'm still feeling the rocking of the ship. The best way to recover is to relive it via a trip report. By the way, I will include pictures. I still need to get all of them uploaded but wanted to at least get the report started. So here we go!

Travellers
Cat (me) - wife, mom, and IT nerd
BJ - DH who is supposed to be semi-retired (more on that!)
Michael - 16 year old son
Catie - 13 year old daughter

Itinerary
June 1 - arrive in Orlando; stay at the Radisson Resort at the Port
June 2 - chill day at the Radisson
June 3 - embarkation
June 4 - sea day
June 5 - sea day
June 6 - Tortola, BVI
June 7 - St. Thomas/St. John
June 8 - sea day
June 9 - Castaway Cay
June 10 - debarkation; national day of mourning

This was our 4th cruise and 1st on the Fantasy. The first cruise was a Bahamian out of Galveston on the Wonder. The second was the Eastern Caribbean out of Port Canaveral on the Magic. The third was the Wonder again but this time to Alaska.

A bit of background on this past year. Those of you with teenagers know how busy life can be with them. That plus my husband and I who also are busy with work and our church involvement. DH is supposed to be retired though he works on occasion as a substitute teacher in the Catholic school system here in Denver. This year, however, due to a tragedy with one of the teachers he ended up teaching the entire school year. Those of you who are teachers know what that entails. Gone are the leisurely Sundays and instead he faced lesson plans, homework papers, and test prep. As the school year was winding down I could see in his face how it was wearing on him. :faint:Sometimes, though, you do what you have to do and he powered through.:banana: But I think of all of us, he was the one who was in most need of this cruise.

The last day of school was supposed to be June 2nd but because I prefer to be at our designated port at least one day in advance, and two if we're flying to Florida, school ended for him and our middle schooler on May 31st. I booked on Frontier to arrive in Orlando on June 1, giving us a couple days before embarkation to shift into vacation mode. For BJ, I suspected he would do his best Rip Van Winkle imitation and get a lot of sleep.

As far as planning, I always use a TA for booking our cruise. That way she can deal with any changes and track potential deals if something comes up. Saves me time from doing it myself. I book our excursions through DCL. Yes, I can find the same excursions for less but I like the security of DCL knowing where and who we're with in case something goes wrong. It's a bit of insurance I'm willing to pay to minimize risk. I have no desire for my family to be shown on YouTube making a mad dash on the dock trying to catch the ship. And yes, I buy trip insurance. I wouldn't cruise without it. If we can drop $8K for a cruise we can lay out a couple hundred more for the peace of mind knowing we're covered if something goes wrong with the trip. My company insurance has us covered from a medical perspective so it's really to protect the trip itself.

I also joined the FE for our cruise. That's always a bit of fun that adds something extra to the trip. :yay:It's also nice getting on a ship and knowing people in advance. The travel planning chatter on the DIS and on FB is always fun. It's helpful too, sharing information and ideas.

So that's my intro. I'm going to get pictures uploaded so I can include them in the report. More to come!
 
Excited for your report! We're on the Fantasy next November, heading to the Eastern Caribbean as well. Can't wait to hear about any excursions that you did!
 
Joining in :D Can't wait to hear all about your adventure! We are booked on the Fantasy in December with this same itinerary with our 2 boys ds14 and ds11. It will be the first time they can go to the Vibe and Edge, so we'll be paying super close attention to any pics and details you have from your experience :)
 


joining in! I was one of the admins of the FB group so it will be nice to read about the trip from someone else.
 


Following. I am planning on Eastern Caribbean itinerary with DS (teen) in 2018.
 
Following along! Can't wait to hear more.

I am also a tired teacher, cruising in a week.
 

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