Merrytime Disney Cruise Trip Report

[dcrunnergirl52]

We returned on Christmas Eve from a 7-night Merrytime Disney cruise on the Fantasy. Here is my trip report/review. For background, we’ve cruised 4 times before with Disney, including in March 2022 during covid precautions.

Pre-Cruise: Our cruise departed on Saturday, 12/17, so we flew from DCA to MCO mid-day on Friday, 12/16. Trip was relatively easy, and no issues other than a long wait to get our checked luggage. However, our flight arrived at what appeared to be a new terminal at MCO, so we had to take a shuttle bus to get to the main terminal for our hotel. The shuttle wasn’t hard, just not expected.

We stayed Friday night at the Hyatt MCO, which is right in the main MCO terminal. It was all easy. We just checked in, got dinner from the airport food court, and went to bed. On Saturday, we ate breakfast in the airport, shopped at the Disney and Universal stores, and then took our transfer to Port Canaveral. We used ACE Luxury Transportation, and they were great. In the past, we used Spaceport Transport, but they seem to have gone out of business. ACE was much nicer anyway.

Embarkation: Our port arrival time was 1:15pm, but we arrived around noon (I booked the transfer too early). They let us right into the terminal for check-in, and there was no line. In March, we had about a 90-minute wait in a long time, so having no line was a pleasant surprise. The document check was easy, and then we went upstairs and waited about 15 minutes for our boarding group to be called. We were on the boat and heading to lunch by 1pm.

Food: The food overall was good. Not as good as last time—just a few misses here and there. But, overall, we enjoyed many, many Mickey bars, Mickey waffles, delicious desserts, etc. I really didn’t care what it tasted like, as long as someone else was cooking and serving my kids, LOL.

For our dining rotation, we did Animator’s Palate three times, and Royal Court and Enchanted Garden each twice. On our March cruise, the dining rooms had big character shows and parades and/or shows on the screens during every dinner. It was so much fun, and we were really looking forward to it again. However, that was apparently just a covid thing since they weren’t doing character meet-and-greets at the time, so we were bummed they were gone. AP, however, still had Turtle Talk night and drawing/animation night, which is really the best.

We did the late dinner at 8:15pm, which I really like. It would be even better it was slightly earlier, like 7:30pm, but overall, late is our preference. It gives us more time after our afternoon activities to rest and we’re actually hungry by dinner time versus if we ate at 5:45pm.

Rooms: We had two connecting verandah rooms on deck 7. They were great, and solidified our love of having a verandah. We spent a lot of time out there. The coolest thing was that on embarkation day, a rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center, and we were watched it from our verandah, which was amazing.

Our rooms were right by the aft elevators. I was nervous this would be loud but we really liked the location b/c we could take the elevators right up to Cabanas or the kids could take the stairs down two levels to the kids club.

I decorated our doors with new holiday themed magnets from Etsy, and put our magnets from past cruises on the wall between the doors, which is also magnetic. Coming “home” to see all our magnets made me so happy each time.

Pools: In March, the pools had a covid-related system where they only allowed in a certain number of swimmers at once. It wasn’t a problem and meant the pools were never crowded. I was nervous that without the system, the pools would be very crowded, but most of the time, they weren’t at all. If we got down to the pool around 9am after breakfast, it was empty. The kids had it to themselves and were able to ride aquaduck with almost no line. You could ride aquaduck basically continuously if you went around 6pm, during the early dinner time. On our last night, we rode as a family about 6 times in a row with no line, and then DS1 and DS2 rode about another 10 times by themselves before dinner.

Shows: We don’t go to many, if any shows. But, this time, we saw the Aladdin show, and it was good. DH, DS1, and DD also saw the new Avatar movie in the movie theater and loved it, so much so that DS1 sat through the entire 3.5 hours again a day later.

Characters: In March, there weren’t any regular character meet-and-greets, the few they had were socially distanced. However, you did see a ton of characters walking around that you could snap pics with. This time, it was back to regular meet-and-greets. Tis time, only DS2 (9 years old) and I were into the characters (we’ve met them all in the past at WDW and DL), so he and I went to a bunch of meet-and-greets. For most, you needed to get in line at least 15 minutes early. For Mickey on the last day, we were in line about 25 minutes early but we were also first in line. The character interactions were amazing—back to giving hugs, autographs, etc. DS2 was so joyful about the whole thing.

Kids/Tween Clubs: The kids club was back to normal operation..no reservations needed unlike in March. DS2 (9 years old) and DS3 (4.5 years old) spent probably 2-3 hours in the kids club each day, although DS2 was really only happy going if a friend he met there was also going. When they were there, they had lots of fun.

DD and DS1 (12 years old) loved the Edge tween club, especially DS1, who basically spent every waking moment in the Edge if we weren’t doing a family activity or at dinner. We basically let them roam the ship and do their own thing with friends, which they loved (and was good for DS1 who struggles socially at home). After dinner, they would be at the Edge until midnight and just come and put themselves to bed. Having big kids has its upsides. DS2 also went to the Edge during open houses a few times for a change of pace. We let him go alone b/c we knew DS1 would be there too.

Other Ship Activities: We did a few other ship activities but not a ton. DD and I did some crafts and and a drawing class. DH also took the kids to the pirate night fireworks. I LOVE the fireworks but I hurt my knee that day and decided to just stay in the room. DS3 declared that the fireworks were amazing and “exploded his brain!”

The most fun activity was Santa’s Wonderland Celebration in the main atrium. They serve hot and warm chocolate (so little kids don’t burn their mouths) and cookies, have kids sit down in the front, and sing Christmas songs, the characters come out, and then Santa arrives. And then at the end, it snows indoors and the characters come into the audience and dance and play with the kids! It was magical!

Ports: Our ports were Cozumel; Grand Cayman; Falmouth, Jamaica; and Castaway Cay.

Cozumel: After much research, I bought a pass on resortforaday.com for Allegro Resort b/c I read it had great pools and snorkeling. We had a great time…the pools were beautiful, the little kids pool was perfect for DS3, it’s an all-inclusive pass so it includes free drinks and the pina coladas and daiquiris were amazing, and the ocean looked beautiful. However, DH took the older kids snorkeling and didn’t see anything and said it was really grassy, so that was a bust. But the rest of the day was amazing, and it was very calm, especially after the chaos of the ship.

Grand Cayman: This was a bust too. The boat didn’t arrive to GC until 10:30am, and then you had to wait to take a tender. We spent the morning swimming on the ship and attempted to get off around noon, and it still took us about an hour to get on shore. And, we had to be back on the ship by 5pm, so not much time. After stink eyes from the kids and DH in a bad mood after the tender situation, we decided to just walk around the port. On the way, I tripped over DS3 running in front of me, and blew out my knee. That basically put a huge damper on that day. I was fine after some rest other than some horrible road rash, but not our best day.

Falmouth: We have been here before and wanted to just stay on the ship. DH just got off for a bit but that was it.

Castaway Cay: We were all looking forward to this, but when we arrived, it was overcast and windy. We made our way to the family beach and staked out a spot. DH took the big kids snorkeling, while I tried to take DS3 into the water. However, the wind made the water really choppy. You couldn’t even see your own feet. DS3 asked to go to the on-island kids club instead. He stayed there about an hour, while the other kids snorkeled but couldn’t see a single thing b/c of the chop. Eventually, we decided to just get back on the ship, so we were back around 12pm. That ended up being a good decision b/c it started to rain and then thunder and lightning, and we watched from our verandah as everyone ran back to the boat and waited in huge lines in the rain to get on board.

Debarkation: Our flight on Christmas Eve out of MCO was at 11:50am, and b/c it was a holiday, we wanted to get off the ship as early as possible. We ate breakfast at Cabanas (which is new for debarkation day…in the past, you had to go to an assigned dining room for breakfast), and then walked off the ship, carrying our own luggage. I much preferred that than putting out our luggage the night before and finding it in the port terminal. Our transfer was waiting for us to go to MCO and check-in was quick. We spent about 2 hours in the American lounge, and our plane ride home was easy. We were so thankful, given all the trouble from that point forward with air travel.

Other Randoms: A few other random notes:

--I noticed that people are much more casually dressed in the dining rooms than pre-covid, us included. We let the kids just wear shorts and t-shirts every night to dinner. I’m over fighting with them about it on my vacation. I’d say 75% of people did the same thing…and if they weren’t dressed casually, lots of people wore Christmas PJs to dinner. It didn’t take away at all for me b/c I don’t care about that type of thing but I know others like the “fanciness” of getting dressed up for dinner.

--I paid $100 per room for holiday decorations to be placed in the room at arrival. I wasn’t going to do but it was SO worth it. We all loved it, and the decorations are really nice. Each room had a really cozy Disney cruise holiday blanket and adorable pillow, Goofy scarf, and holiday banners. Definitely worth the money.

--We wanted this cruise to be relaxing for all of us, so we let DS2 and DS3, who get overwhelmed with sensory overload easily, have a decent amount of downtime in the room, just watching TV or playing on their Switch. In the past, I would have freaked out about this—why did we spend so much money to just let them watch TV!? But, it made everything better b/c they were overall calmer and not overstimulated all the time, and it gave me time to just sit on the verandah and relax, read, listen to podcasts, etc. DH and I spent any time we could get in the adult area. It is our happy place.

I think that’s it. I’m so, so glad we did this over the holiday break even though it cost quite a bit more. We had a terrific time, the weather was beautiful, and it was so much better than spending the holiday break at home for 2 weeks. I think that I’m going to book this week to do it again next year, but on the Wish instead.

[egishere]

This sounds really nice!

I have a question about the two rooms...we have only been one one of the short Disney cruises and just did one room because our kids were 5 at the time. I would like to do another one but will definitely get two connecting rooms. Are they strict about having an adult in each room or does the room attendant not pay attention to that? I figure you have to book it with one adult in each room but when you arrive can you just put the kids in one room and adults in the other?

[dcrunnergirl52]

Dec 30, 2022 14:55:40 GMT -5 egishere said:

This sounds really nice!

I have a question about the two rooms...we have only been one one of the short Disney cruises and just did one room because our kids were 5 at the time. I would like to do another one but will definitely get two connecting rooms. Are they strict about having an adult in each room or does the room attendant not pay attention to that? I figure you have to book it with one adult in each room but when you arrive can you just put the kids in one room and adults in the other?

They aren't strict at all about it once you're on board. We try to have the kids all in one room and DH and I in the other (although it doesn't always work out that way b/c inevitably DS2 or DS3 ends up getting into bed with us at least once. The room attendant knew what was going on but didn't care--I suspect it's pretty common--but we also always have the door open between the two rooms, so we always know what's happening in the other room.

To save money, I did consider booking a verandah room and then an interior room right across the hall. I would have had DD and DS1 (12 years old) sleep in the interior room and DS2 and DS3 stay with us. But, by the time I booked, I couldn't find any set-ups like that so it didn't happen. In the end though, I'm glad it didn't work out b/c having the double verandah was amazing.

[kittycatlove]

thanks for your review. I'm dying to go on another Disney cruise.

[krystee]

We leave for our first Disney cruise as a family in four weeks and six days, and I can’t wait!! We will be on the Fantasy too, but going to St. Thomas and Tortola. We also have two verandah rooms (my mom is coming, so we split us 2 and 3), and I am glad to hear you got some verandah time! I am super excited about just sitting out there and enjoying the breeze and the view!

How are lines typically for the Aqua Duck? My son has this vision of riding it nonstop for days, and I feel like the lines will be so nuts that he’ll maybe ride it a couple times.

[dcrunnergirl52]

Dec 31, 2022 9:24:28 GMT -5 krystee said:

We leave for our first Disney cruise as a family in four weeks and six days, and I can’t wait!! We will be on the Fantasy too, but going to St. Thomas and Tortola. We also have two verandah rooms (my mom is coming, so we split us 2 and 3), and I am glad to hear you got some verandah time! I am super excited about just sitting out there and enjoying the breeze and the view!

How are lines typically for the Aqua Duck? My son has this vision of riding it nonstop for days, and I feel like the lines will be so nuts that he’ll maybe ride it a couple times.

During the times when the pool was crowded or when the aquaduck didn't open until noon, the lines could be long. DS3 and I waited about 40 minutes during one of the days at sea during one of the days at sea when it didn't open until 12pm (and we waited for the ilne to die down). Really, the best time to ride without lines is during the early dinner time if its open and you have the late dinner (or skip early dinner).

[estrellita]

Dec 30, 2022 23:50:50 GMT -5 kittycatlove said:

thanks for your review. I'm dying to go on another Disney cruise.

This! We've only been on one but reading this makes me want to do another ASAP! At least we're doing WDW in a couple weeks 😄

[VillainV]

We sailed almost identical dates on Royal Caribbean (Wonder of the Seas, the huge one) out of Canaveral. We had a similar experience regarding casual dress in the dining room, which I honestly kind of liked. We only brought C (8.5) to the dining room once, and the rest of the time we fed him pizza or something first, then dropped him in the kids club (which was AMAZING).

I did get sick on the cruise (minor cold, not COVID), but otherwise I felt like it was very clean and wasn’t worried about illness.

[quesyrah]

Thanks for the review!

We are debating a merry time Vs Halloween on the High seas for 2024.

[wesleycrusher]

quesyrah We did the Merrytime on the Fantasy in the beginning of November. It was the first one of the season. We were locked into our dates as it was combined with a trip to FL for my grandma's birthday (plus the kids had off 2 days of school), but if I could pick I definitely would have done it later in the season just because they were not fully set up for Christmas yet, so we missed out on some Christmas activities.

[quesyrah]

Jan 3, 2023 12:06:27 GMT -5 wesleycrusher said:

quesyrah We did the Merrytime on the Fantasy in the beginning of November. It was the first one of the season. We were locked into our dates as it was combined with a trip to FL for my grandma's birthday (plus the kids had off 2 days of school), but if I could pick I definitely would have done it later in the season just because they were not fully set up for Christmas yet, so we missed out on some Christmas activities.

That’s good to know, thank you! We had considered doing it mid Nov as an anniversary trip (with the kids).

[ksun]

We just booked a cruise on the Dream for spring break '24 - reading these reviews are super helpful!