I spent the New Years holiday on board the Disney Fantasy, one of the four Disney cruise ships. It was an absolutely amazing vacation! This was my family’s fourth cruise but we had never been on one over the winter holidays so it was cool to see the ship all decorated and the temperatures of the places we went were a bit different than usual but still a lot warmer than home! I heard it was about -8 degrees on New Years in KC!!!
We spent the first two days at sea as we made our way to St. Maarten, a half Dutch, half French island. At St. Maarten, we boarded a bus that took us to a rainforest reserve at which we rode a gondola up to the top of the mountain to get a 360 view of the island. The views were absolutely breathtaking and the bus ride to the rainforest was something else. While St. Maarten didn’t get completely wiped out because of the hurricanes a few months ago, there was still much hurricane damage to be seen as we drove through. It was heartbreaking and it was a good reminder to me that places down here in the Caribbean still need help!
The next day we were in the U.S. Virgin Islands on St. Thomas. It was stunning! The water was so blue and so clear. We took a boat tour around the island, went snorkeling, and went to the beach. Not as much hurricane damage occurred at St. Thomas but much of the coral reefs have been destroyed. Still, it was so warm and beautiful and we even saw a sea turtle while snorkeling! I fell in love with the place!
The last port adventure was a day at Disney’s private island called Castaway Cay. We mostly just relaxed on the beach and took some tubes out on the water. But we also did something that my family does every cruise when we stop at Castaway Cay which is to take a bike ride around the island. If you bike out far enough to the middle, there’s this lookout tower that you can climb up and get a great view of the island from.
On the days spent at sea on the boat, my family enjoyed all that the ship had to offer. We rode the Aquaduck (a tube water slide that goes around the boat), relaxed by the pool, went to the spa, got facials and manicures, played Bingo and Trivia, watched movies at the theatre (I saw Coco finally which was so good), watched Disney movies galore in our room and on the pool deck, ate tons and tons of banana chocolate ice cream cones, played mini golf, saw a magic show, and spent good quality time with the fam. Oh, also a tidbit I thought I would include, I saw a Disney Channel celeb lol! It was one of the actors from the show Liv and Madi. Kinda cool:)
The cruise was so much fun and such a good holiday vacation. Prior to going on the cruise we also spent two days at Disney World to visit the new Avatar land, Pandora, in Animal Kingdom and went to all 4 parks in 2 days. I love Disney so so much, as does my family. We have spent many vacations enjoying Disney all around the world from Disneyland to Disney World, Disney cruises to Adventures by Disney in Europe. I am so blessed to have gotten the opportunity to travel with Disney and travel in general as much as I have and love creating memories to look back on and enjoy from all these vacations.
Here’s to cruising into the New Year! Welcome 2018!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
