Disney Cruise Line F A N T A S E A | Birthday Aircation to Tortola B.S.V.I. | RECAP & Camera roll Why I May Never Cruise This Cruise Line Again

So, I am finally ready to post this recap. This trip tested me and I needed time to really calm down and think about what I wanted to say. With anything there will always be pros and cons and I always hope to be able to give both and not just write something extremely one sided because one thing happened (or multiple) that I did not like. I have been on so many cruises. I love to cruise and I am anxiously awaiting hitting two decades of sails. I know many people have a lot of opinions on cruising especially now with Tiktok and other forms of social media exposing things. I am a seasonsed cruiser and my only goal is to share my experience and try to present the bad and the good.

And I can say I will never (most likely as a childless adult) cruise with Disney Cruislines ever again.

So, over the last thirty years I kept hearing Disney was the absoolute end all and be all of cruises. It was supposed to be better than any otther cruise ship according to everyone I have talked to that sailed many times. I live in Florida so I am no stranger to Disney or anytthing Disney related which is one of the reasons I waited to write anything because I love going to some Disney related places, but I am not a hard core Disney finatic.

So, there are a lot of things I loved about this cruise and want to highlight. The anticipation is great! I loved accessing the app and checking and seeing the little update with the photos changing counting down to my cruise. Booking and paying was so easy, but you don't get a lot of time to pay. I don't book vacations on credit and so it is like if I have the money I am going and that is it. I know some cruiselines have pay options like "KLARNA" etc and I am not familiar with any of that.

I started saving for this cruise about a year in advance. I actually had booked a Virgin Voyages cruise and because their last new ships inaugural cruise was delayed they cancelled my cruise and refunded my money and that is how I ended up here. Now, this was on Disney Fantasy which in the year that I sailed was ranked amongst the top 10 cleanest and best ships to my surprise.

This was TTHE MOST EXPENSIVE CRUISE I HAVE EVER BEEN ON.

Arguably, I could have flown to Europe and stayed for two weeks for what I paid for this 7 day, balcony suite cruise. Its expensive as hell.

So, Disney Fantasy is an older ship. One of the things I had trouble with when I booked is that I could not find any clear and succinct videos for the room I booked. Being from Tampa, I am used to cruising out in smaller ships because Tampa only does mid-sized ships as well as Port Canaveral. Driving down to Miami is no big deal, but it can have its own difficulties leaving from there as documented in ny Virgin Voyages recap.

I could not get a feel on how nice or how big this room was, but I made a video and I took photos so you all can see for yourselves .

I loved the room. I loved this room more than any other ship II have ever sailed on. First off, Disney puts so much time and attention to detail in everything on their ships. The lights, the lamps, the bedding, the curtains...everything. I thought the size of our balcony suite was nice and the couch on the other side can be unfolded to be a bed.

The items that are in the room I paid for beforehand and they were set up. Fresh fruit and flowers is like, my favorite things to have when I sail. I stopped drinking wine about 8 years ago and I really only have champagne or rose occasionally so I do not know if Disney allows you to bring your own wine bottles on like Royal Caribbean does.

I may not have gotten a photo of it, but this room has 2 bathrooms. Yes, TWO BATHROOMS. That is why this was tthe best room we have ever had. One bathroom was a full bathroom and one was a half bathroom. That is freaking awesome!!!

One of the things I loved about cruising with Disney is that from the moment you step on the ship they make you feel seen and like kind of special. I mean this in the way that they literally anounce every single family as they come through the gangway and cheer and clap for you. I was so shocked and it was my birthday so I was like YAAASSSS!

Boarding was really easy, but something weird happened and I don't know or have any proof of this, but I was wearing my blanket around my neck because it couldn't fit in my bag and the blanket is relatively thin; it could pass as a shawl or a scarf. However, this was at the time that the current world issues had started and I think they thought I was wearing a certain scarf that is worn by certain people and well, I was pulled to the side twice and questioned about the blanket and I kept explaining to them "it is just my blanket because I get cold, I always travel with a blanket". I think they thought it was a head scarf or something else if you catch my drift and that made me really uneasy.

So, it is our first night and this is one of the things I did not like about that cruise. They do rotating dining which in theory is an awesome idea, unless you don't really like who is serving you and thatt is what happened with us. The first nights dinner was in the Animator’s room or whatever it is called; it's basically for children, lots and lots of children. It's very loud in there and it was luckily, only on our schedule for dinner two times out of the seven day cruise.

Things were going pretty ok though, I mean, I was over dressed and we had no kids, but because I have Celiac Disease I mostly always attend the dinners because I can not eat the buffets due to cross contamination and a lack of gluten free options.

Well, I startted out simple with just spaghetti with gluten free noodles and wow when I tell you the spaghetti sauce was loaded with sugar; it was obviously made for kids. Well, I asked for something else, but our waiter or server acted like he was dumbfound and shocked that I did not like the spaghetti and he kept asking what is wrong with it. I was like, it tastes like straight sugar! Given his response to me sending food back I knew he was going to see me as an issue for the duration of the cruise, even though the chicken dish they replaced it with I thought was great.

I must say, this is one of the reasons we really wanted to sail with Disney, because everyone kept telling us "they have the best food" the food is so much better than "Royal Caribbean" etc etc. While I thought the grade of the quality of the food was better, it really wasn't any better or worse than Royal Caribbean and obviously , it did not touch Virgin Voyages. Was the food great? I would say no, was it good or decent? yes. It was mid at best. The first night was rocky and little did I know how rough it was going to get.

EXCURSIONS

I really enjoyed the one excursion we actually did do. Disney has such a range for excursions. If you have the money you can have a co.pletely different trip than everyone else and I always tell people that who put cruising down. Like, money will get you into spaces that no one else will be. I say this because in Tortola they had a lot of excursions that went up to 7k. Like pure luxury type stuff. I did not even know that really existed on cruises. I personally have cruised many cruise lines and this was the first time I saw excursionslike that.

I haven't really seen that on any of the cruiselines I have been on, but things are always changing. If I had money to blow I would have definitely booked one of those luxury excursions. The beaches they went to were way way nicer than the beach we went to, although I did like the beach we went to. It was just ok.

TORTOLA B.S.V.I.

I thought our excursion was very organized and it was great for us. Like I said, I had many excursions booked, but the first one actually took me out so badly because the ride was so rough I had to cancel the rest. That was around the time I was still healing from my tailbone injury for reference.

ST.TOMAS U. S.V.I.

ADULTS ONLY AREAS

So, we spent a lot of time in the "adults only areas" because we did not want to be around a lot of kids. Obviously , so obviously tthere are a million kids on the cruise. You may ask, "Why come on a Disney cruise when you have no kids?" well, we were told by a multitude of people that they had a lot of "adults only areas". This is the main reason why I will most likely not cruise with Disney again. These adults only areas exist xt and they are small and tucked away in the back areas of the ship almost forgotten. No music, no fun, no thing. Most of the time we were in these areas children s still came into them because no one was enforcing it. I encountered children and kids in the bar areas multiple times with no adults with them.

What I learned very quickly is atleast this ship was basically ruled and run by kids. Like clockwork every night around ten pm everything was shut down because they rely on room service (for free and no service charge) while that is great, its boring. So, we were bored, kids are bored and basically from ten to whenever kids just ran wild all over the ship unsupervised completely . It was not just at night it was all day. In the hallways just kids running up and down over and over again screaming lets race!

At night in the bar/lounge that had live music, kids running and screaming.

Eating on the deck, this table of children having an absolute meltdown because they did not want to eat the healthy food on their plates first they wanted the chocolate now and were screaming. I remember sitting there and my husband was so agitated and he walked off and this mother just looks at me and starts saying "I am sorry Maddie is having a really tough day, its hard for her" and I was laughing to myself like, how hard can it be to be five on an expensive cruise with your friends and family and all you gotta do is eat two slices of fruit in order to eat your cookie next. And while sitting next to me screaming and having a fit and almost knocking my food off the table multiple times, she turns to me and says "Maddie is having a badd day" and it was not even 1pm.

I don't even know where to add this tidbit, but there was just no diversity on this cruise line and that is not their fault. Like I said it was super expensive and I guess to me it was strange that in a lot of the spaces there was no one that looked like me, so a lot of the people were looking at me like "how did she get in here" and yes, I even had a run in with a racist Karen who shoo-ed me like a fly to get out of her way while I was trying to order food. The lack of diversity is what stood out to me a lot especially when it came to the main dining at night because the team assigned to our table, they did not like dealing with me at all.

But I mean in general it would be nice to be on a cruise where I am not 1 of only 3 Black people onboard. No shade, I just felt like that was not even my space because I am used to more diversity.

So, this is where we spent a lot of time, but for the most part, we stayed in the room even though that was the most noisiest place because a group of boys would just run up and down the hall all day and all night. I got no sleep on the cruise at all and what I can say is that I booked a lot of excursions and due to the lack of rest we cancelled quite a few. They were pretty flexible about cancelling excursions for a full refund as long as we did it 24 hours beforehand.

I will talk about the private island lower down in this post, but pretty much the adults area on their private island is also a tucked away and hard to get to by comparison shell of the rest of the island. You can not even swim on the beach and no food is offered down there. It was relatively empty because its lack of appeal.

SHOWS & ENTERTAINMENT

Most of the shows and Entertainment is kid friendly. They go all out for character nights and it was pretty cool. It creates an ambiance of belonging and whimsy that really would make you remember what it was like to be a child that loved Disney everything (if you grew up that way).

For me, I actually have never even been tto the Magic Kingdom because we did not have money for it as a child. I had a lot of Disney movies on VHS as a child and my parents always took us to Downtown Disney (which is now Disney Springs) because that was free. Later as a teen my dad got us some tickets to Epcot and that twas my first time going. I remember being a child and my favorite movie was "Beauty and the Beast" and I remember watching it 1,000 time lol probably driving my family crazy.

We did not go to a lot of shows and performances, but the ones we watched were awesome like this woman here.

MAIN ISSUES WITH FOOD

ITS DISGUSTING

So, I mentioned above that Disney does this rotating dining service so that no matter which restaurant you dine at (included in the cruising for free) the crew assigned to your area will be there with you. This was a problem. The second night of the cruise a roach was in my food. And I mean, that has never happened before in all the times I have cruised. And I literally almost ate it, you can see in the photos, I cut it with my knife. If it werent for how meticulous I am with eating I would not have seen it. The thing is, yes, this roach could have just been in the lettuce from wherever it came from or it could have come from the actual l kitchen of the ship.

The issue with this is that it brought up way more questions than answers and I ruminated for months like, should I even mention this in my blog post? What if I get retaliated against? What if it was not their fault.

The thing is, when I told our server there was a roach in my food, he did not react.

He just said, Ok, you want another salad? And I was like, why in the world do I want another salad when this one had a roach in it? How do I know all the food doesn't have roaches in it?! And he just took the salad and left. Then he comes back with a manager and she makes the chef come out and apologize to me, but they kept saying "Well, this has never happened" like, that was the apology. But they were acting really weird about it. So, the manager brings out sparkling wine comped and I am trying to tell her I don't drink wine and my husband doesn’t drink and she is insiting that I take it.

But for me, it was the lack of sincerity. And they kept asking for my Instagram info the rest of the week as well. The guy, the main guy serving us he basically just acted like he did not care to talk to me the rest of the cruise, like he only spoke to my husband and this happened on night two. I am feeling like damn, you all are supposed to be the end all be all of cruises, but I got a roach in my salad on night two? You guys prepped this and plated it and brought it out and did not see this roach at all?

And if there is one roach then there are more.

I rely on salads on cruises because they are the one thing I can get that is glute-free and now I am wondering do they have a roach problem or was this just an isolated incident .

The rest of the week we kept getting complimentary sparkling wine and zero proof sparkling for my husband. I very much felt like they were trying to make up for it, but no one ever just said they were sorry. They kind of were acting like maybe I was the reason it happened if you know what I mean. Or maybe afraid I would talk about it on social media. So, I became worried about it when having to do my recap. But we paid for this trip, it was not sponsored and I feel, my readers deserve to know about my real experience.

Another day, chocolate covered strawberries were sent to my room with no info about who it was from or why. Could this be another attempt to say sorry without saying "We are sorry a roach was in your food". I don't know. I asked who sent it and the guy delivering it just gave a coy answer which was not a real answer.

Next, the main deck for lunch (not formal)

My God, they have unlimited snow crab legs!!!!

Did you hear me?!

If you sail eat them the first 3 days only! They taste amazing! On the regular lunch deck (sorry I can not remember the name and I keep thinking Lido Deck which is Carnival ) the crab legs get very picked over, literally swarmed over, but they are there. They are at their peak freshest the first three days.

We had them three days in a row and by the third day they were so nasty it left such a bad taste with us we did not eat crab legs the rest of the year and this was in February.

ATTTENTION TO DETAIL

This was the cutest shop.

I just loved how it looked in here, but really they had one thing that was GF (the macarons) and it was not safe to eat because obviously there are a bunch of other items containing gluten right by them. But wow, these sweet treats looked amazing! There was also salty snacks and candy, but I really don't eat those things.

HOW CELIAC DISEASE IS HANDLED

So there are pros and cons to how dietary restrictions are handled on the cruise here. Like many cruises, it is highly referred that if you have food allergies and Celiac Disease that you do not eat anything from the buffet due to the element of cross contamination. You can however, speak to a manager or even put in an order request the day l before to have something set to the side and left in the back for you. Meaning, if you want to eat at the pool deck you can tell your manager (usually at the formal dining room) and they will write down your order and have it there for you for breakfast or lunch.

Most cruise lines do this for the dinner and breakfast and lunch for the formal dining spaces only. I have done about 14 Royal Caribbean cruises and they have done it ad well. It's easy to get caught up during the mid breakfast to lunch hours and not have anything (GF) gluten-free if the ship relies on room service during those times.

So, like most ships there is pizza. The pro that Disney has is that like all Disney restaurants they make sure to have GF food for the kiddos. So, like the kids, my husband and I do like pizza, fries, chicken strips when we cruise. We prefer it late night, but nonetheless, we like it. The pizza station doesn't stay open that late, I think it closes at 12am (on RCL it closes at 2 or 3am for comparison).

I got pizza there during the evening and late night. While the pizza was good it was never fully cooked. They really just seemed to struggle to get a full cook on whatever gluten-free dough they had so I resorted to just peeling off the cheese and toppings and eating it with French fries.

The main PRO AND CON for Disney handling dietary restrictions is that a trained manager or chef HAS TO BE ON SITE WORKING TO TAKE YOUR GF ORDER. So, if the person trained to handle gluten cross contamination and all that is not working when you come by or even when you call room service it is TOO BAD SO SAD. They are they only people who can take and execute that order according to my experience.

One day I did miss lunch and breakfast and I just wanted a salad from the buffet and they just told me a flat no. They said nothing was gluten-free except the lettuce lol. I was like, what about the ham and cheese and tomatoes? They just said no don't eat any of it. If you have Celiacs Disease it really isn't worth the risk.

I do however want to point out: I was able to speak to a manager and two days in a row he took my order and he had the crab legs waiting for me and sometimes delicious Indian food. And...and...my crab legs were in much better condition than those that had been picked over at the buffet. So that was GREAT.

When I called room service late night because we missed the pizza I was told there is no Chef here trained for that all I can give you is chocolate or a banana. So, I made sure to get my pizza early after that because I was stuck that night.

So, the same goes for t he main (more formal dining. Every night they ask me to look at the menu and tell them what I want for dinner the next day and they will take the lunch order as well as breakfast if you want that. It's basically like that on most ships.

PRIVATE ISLAND

What. an I say? the private island is great. It is beautiful and it's large and spread out. My husband and I are very introverted and we like to find a nice shady spot and relax for from things.

I really liked the vibe here.

As far as the buffet here, it's the same deal. You have to put in your order ahead of time and then go to the counter at the edge of the buffet to have them look it up.