Celebrating a Fantasy Come True: A July 2016 Eastern Caribbean PTR

ZFamily5

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 13, 2010
Once upon a time, a college student joked with her grandma that they should have a joint birthday party. Cupcakes, fruit punch, friends; what more could you ask for on your birthday? The college student’s grandma took the idea and ran with it. She ran so far, in fact, that she decided instead of a birthday part at home the whole family should take a Disney cruise.

As you may have guessed by now, I am that college student! My name is Brenna, although sometimes I go by Thing1 on the boards since I have two younger sisters. Like I mentioned, I am a college student and am studying elementary education. Besides my adoration of all things Disney, I love reading and rollerblading. This will be my fourth cruise (two on NCL and one previous Disney) and I can’t wait! Word of warning: We (namely my sisters and I) frequently make faces in photos, not because we are unhappy but because we think it is funny. Prepare yourself for many bad (funny) pictures over the course of this PTR.

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Before I share more details on the actual trip, let me introduce you to the rest of my wonderful family.

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My mom and dad are so excited for this trip. They both work full-time so we love taking advantage of our vacations to spend a lot of time together soaking up the sun and eating (a lot of eating). This will be their fourth cruise as well and while Disney is significantly more expensive than other lines, they agree that the service and atmosphere is unbeatable.


T (or Thing2) is fifteen years old and a sophomore in high school. She is very involved in speech team and drama club, along with her piano lessons. When she’s not snuggling with her puppy, you can probably find her binge-watching Netflix while doing her homework. T is extremely humorous and I’m hoping she will chime in here from time to time to add her own thoughts in.


K (or Thing3) is eleven years old and in fifth grade. She is in competition dance and doesn’t have time for much else. Seriously. She has dance for roughly 25 hours a week. I can’t imagine how she’ll manage it if she continues into junior high and high school but she loves it. K loves the AquaDuck but is afraid of swimming. We’ll have to see how that plays out on this trip.


Last but certainly not least is the mastermind behind the trip, Grandma Z. My grandpa passed away when I was young and T, K and I are her only grandchildren. We see Grandma Z a lot and she definitely spoils us. We took our first Disney cruise to celebrate the end of her chemo in 2014 and she got hooked. She’s not big on plane travel but when she knows a cruise is at the end of the flight, she’s on board.

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I know this has been a lengthy first post, just a few more details for today! We are on the Eastern Caribbean itinerary on the Fantasy that departs on July 16. This trip is celebrating a whole lot of milestones for us. T turns 16 in June, my parents’ 25th anniversary is in July (while we are on the cruise), I turn 20 in September, and Grandma Z turns 21 again ;) in October. K’s next birthday isn’t a milestone but we felt bad leaving her out so we decided she can also celebrate the end of competition season for dance, as she will have just gotten back from Nationals a few weeks prior to the trip.

We are all eager to begin planning more details of the trip and hope that you’ll be along for the ride. There’s not too much planning involved but it would be great to share excitement with other Disney cruise fans leading up to the trip. Thank you for reading!
 
Hi all!

The cold Midwest winter (although let's be real, it hasn't been as dreadful as some winters) is making us dream of the cruise even more. We've been thinking about excursions a lot lately. I found a charter boat company in St. Thomas that has great reviews. If we go with that option, we will do a private boat charter for a day. The rental comes with snorkel gear, soda and water. It sounds like you get to choose where the captain takes you. A potential fault with this is that K (and probably Grandma) aren't keen on snorkeling. Maybe if there is a place where some can snorkel and some can play in the sand?

As far as Tortola goes, the Baths look very scenic, I'm just concerned about how crowded it would be. T and I did standup paddle boards in St. Thomas last year and loved it. If there was any place to do that again in Tortola I'm sure we'd be on board. If anyone has any suggestions on this (or other good beaches in the area), please let me know.

Short update for today but hopefully when I'm home for spring break next week we can get more of this figured out. Hope you all have a great rest of your weekend!
 
I am hoping to book the Fantasy 7 night eastern Caribbean for Nov 2017 so I'll be eager to read your report. Thanks for sharing!
 
Following along - we are doing this trip in April 2017 on The Fantasy and traveling all the way from Oz to do our second DCl cruise.
 



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