Cruising on the one of the Disney Cruise Line ships during the holiday season is such a special experience. Because of my old school schedule, we cruised several times in early to mid November when the cast members were just starting to put up the decorations. Every morning, we would wake up to a bit more holiday spirit on board.
Two years ago while sailing on the Disney Dream, we decided to take the ultimate holiday cruise – spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on a Disney cruise ship. As you probably remember, those days fell on Tuesday and Wednesday this past year so, with the Fantasy sailing from Saturday to Saturday, they were right in the middle of our cruise.
As we walked aboard the Fantasy, the officers greeted us and announced our name as usual. The difference was that many of them were wearing red and white striped scarves that looked great with their white uniforms. Those scarves would pop up throughout the week long cruise.
As we entered the Fantasy’s atrium for the first time, it was great to see her decked out for the holidays:
As the cruise went along, it was fun to listen to where you would hear holiday music (hallways, etc.) and where you would hear the regular music loop (the pools and such). There were also holiday coffee specials in Cove Café (peppermint mocha, gingerbread and pumpkin).
Then, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we got presents! On the 24th, when we came back from dinner at Palo, there was a flat package on our bed. Inside was a special limited-edition commemorative lithograph.
According to the card that came with it, it is from Senior Character Artist Don “Ducky” Williams and is one of 4,900. It’s also signed by the artist and is so damn cute!
The next night (Christmas!) we had a sweet surprise when we returned to our stateroom from the special holiday dinner.
From start to finish, our Christmas cruise on the Disney Fantasy was truly magical. It’s definitely something we plan to do again and look forward to another white sand Christmas in the years to come.
thank you so much for your blog. The photos look magical. We are sailing this cruise in 2015. We flipped between doing this one or an earlier one (which was ALOT less expensive) so much, but we have now committed. Reading your blog has just made me feel that we did the right thing for us. one thing I did want to ask is, do you know if it was a full ship? the reason I ask is that I’m wondering if there is any chance that concierge may not be full up and a port upgrade might be a potential. to pay for concierge from the 4A that we are booked in to the same room , not even the suite upgrade, just the concierge upgrade, is double the price. I cant justify that but woudl pay something more reasonable if I had the chance.
Anyway thanks for sharing your experience .
It was a full ship and almost always is over the holidays. DCL rarely upgrades at all. Even with two more ships available, I haven’t had a client get an upgrade in several years.
Carla