Trip Report A Fantasy Trip To Disney

I’m finally getting around to sharing last November’s trip to Disney. This was another mother/daughter trip but this time with a different daughter, Sophie, the oldest of the four. She’s six years older than number two so we had a few trips with her as an only child before the others came along, but she was missing from a few family trips when she was a teenager because she went through a too cool for Disney stage. Luckily she’s outgrown that now though.

I’ll try to include some throwback photos, I’ll need to go through some boxes because most of the early ones were before digital cameras.

The earliest digital one I can find. She’s a huge Stitch fan, Lilo and Stitch was her first ever trip to the cinema aged three.

And the last time she was in Disney World in 2018

The plan for this trip was:

November 3rd: Depart Southampton on the Disney Fantasy sailing across the Atlantic Ocean
November 4th: A day at sea, crossing the Bay of Biscay
November 5th: A Coruña, Spain
November 6th: Vigo, Spain
November 7th: A day at sea
November 8th: Funchal, Madeira
November 9th-15th: Seven days at sea
November 16th: Arrive at Port Canaveral

And then the parks portion of the trip was five nights at All Star Movies with the UK park tickets and Christmas party tickets on November 20th, then flying home on November 21st.

But not everything quite went to plan

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

These odd tricycles were like big strollers. They had older people wrapped up in blankets in the front, it looked very cosy

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Whenever I see lil BES zonked out in her stroller I think of how nice it would be to be strolled around like that. I would totally want to ride in one of those with a cozy blanket.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Whenever I see lil BES zonked out in her stroller I think of how nice it would be to be strolled around like that. I would totally want to ride in one of those with a cozy blanket.

I often said over the many years of pushing strollers around the parks that it was about time I had a turn. Particularly on a chilly evening, I could be wrapped up and someone could find me a nice spot to watch fireworks

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Friday 7th November (cont)

It was formal night and we had a dinner reservation at Palo. I’ve had brunch before but this was the first time doing dinner for both of us

But first was the theatre show, Aladdin. We were enjoying the show and the flying carpet scene had just finished, when everything stopped and the curtains closed. We waited a while, I’ve had this happen in a cruise show before and it restarted after a few minutes. We waited some more, some entertainment crew came out to help pass the time with an impromptu singing and dancing routine. After about 20 minutes we gave up waiting, I’m glad we did because the show never restarted and the second show that night was cancelled. It turned out that the carpet, which had worked perfectly twice that morning, was stuck in its onstage position so they couldn’t carry on with the show

I don’t normally spend time on character meet and greets on a cruise, I don’t want to spend all my time queuing, but I wanted some dressed up photos of us. First Minnie, because you can’t get that photo on any other ships as her dress is exclusive to the Fantasy. Me being awkward because I never know how to pose

We had time for one more before dinner so more awkwardness

Then off to Palo

Even the elevator doors are fancier

 

[littleroo]

Stop feeling awkward! You both look stunning!!

It is a shame about the magic carpet not working. So much for the show must go on! Lol

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Stop feeling awkward! You both look stunning!!

It is a shame about the magic carpet not working. So much for the show must go on! Lol

Thank you. I just never know quite how to stand or what to do with my arms so just feel awkward

I think the problem was that once the carpet was out they then couldn’t put it away, so the rest of the sets couldn’t be moved around. If it had been stuck in, they probably could have just missed out that part and carried on with the show

 

[MinnieM123]

I don’t normally spend time on character meet and greets on a cruise, I don’t want to spend all my time queuing, but I wanted some dressed up photos of us. First Minnie, because you can’t get that photo on any other ships as her dress is exclusive to the Fantasy. Me being awkward because I never know how to pose

Stop feeling awkward! You both look stunning!!

It is a shame about the magic carpet not working. So much for the show must go on! Lol

I agree with littleroo's comments above -- both of the dinner dresses were so pretty, that none of us even noticed any "pose"!

By the way, I've always liked the high/low hem style, and it looked great on Sophie's dress.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Friday 7th November (cont)

For those non-cruisers following along, Palo is one of the upcharge adult only dining rooms on board. Id put it a bit fancier than a signature restaurant in WDW, with a slightly stricter, and enforced, dress code. You don’t have to be dressed up as much as we were, I just thought it would be nice to go there on formal night.

We were shown to our table by the windows

I liked the view behind us as well

Menu

We were given an amuse-bouche to start our meal. This was a gnocchi with a mushroom sauce, wow the flavour was amazing

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Friday 7th November (cont)

The bread service, I could have eaten a whole plateful of the herby garlic bread

To start I had the Heirloom Tomato, Burrata Mozzarella Caprese. I am very picky about tomato quality, so many nowadays are just tasteless and smushy, and these tomatoes were fantastic. So much flavour and paired with the gooey burrata they were delicious

Sophie went with the calamari and jumbo shrimp which she loved. She also had some kind of spritz to drink

For our main course we both had the lobster pappardelle. So, so good, the sauce was very rich, a bit like a lobster bisque. I could have licked the plate clean (I didn’t )

Sophie had the chocolate soufflé for dessert which we didn’t get a photo of, but she loved it. I had the pannacotta which had excellent flavours but there was maybe a bit too much going on with the different textures for me.

Service throughout was impeccable. Our server, Junior, was just the right amount of chatty and friendly and the meal was perfectly paced. We both loved our Palo dinner, definitely worth paying extra for

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Friday 7th November (cont)

Luckily we didn’t have far to waddle back to our rooms, we both had very full tummies

 

[littleroo]

There you go, making me hungry again!! The food from Palo looks amazing and I am so glad it was worthwhile.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November: Funchal, Madeira

This was the last scheduled port on our cruise, after this we had seven days at sea. We woke up to blue skies and warm temperatures, it was finally shorts weather.

This was the first time in Madeira for both of us, so to explore the island I’d booked an excursion called ‘Picturesque Views and Cable Car’. Our meeting time was pretty early, 7.45, so we(mostly Sophie) were glad that we’d had an overnight time change giving us an extra hour in bed

Funchal is on the main island of Madeira, part of a volcanically formed archipelago. So it is hilly. Very, very hilly. Our first stop on the tour was the cable car and our bus took us from the port up very narrow, winding hilly streets. I wouldn’t have wanted to drive a car up there, let alone a bus.

A lot of the houses are built into the side of the hill and are very pretty

I think I took these photos to show that even the trees grow from the sides of the hills

We weren’t quite as high as we needed to be so went the rest of the way on foot.

We had a lovely view of the ship

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

We were too early for the cable car to have started running so stopped to look around a beautiful church

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

More from inside the church

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Walking from the church to the cable car we passed the start of the Madeira toboggans. You sit in what looks like a giant wicker picnic basket then hurtle down a hill with no seatbelts with the drivers using their shoes as brakes. That is a big nope from me

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Views from the cable car station

Looks a bit familiar

Views from our skyliner cable car. It was a lovely relaxing trip down

 

[Minnie1986]

Wednesday 5th November (cont)

Dinner was in Royal Court and we had our own four seater table. This definitely feels like the fanciest of the three main dining rooms

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I had the shrimp followed by the steak . I’d also asked if I could have the Brussel sprouts that came with the lamb

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Then my favourite dessert on a Disney ship, the Grand Marnier soufflé. I persuaded Sophie to order it as well and she loved it

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Dinner was much more relaxed with just the two of us

As well as the three main Broadway shows that are shown on all the cruises, the longer cruises also have lots of other acts nightly in the Walt Disney Theatre. On this cruise we had two magicians, a juggler, a violinist, some Broadway artists and a crew talent show. The acts often put on an extra show after dinner that was adult only, not because there was anything inappropriate in them but sometimes it’s just nice to have something that’s just for adults. That night we got ourselves some after dinner drinks and went to the adult only magic show which was excellent

Those menus look amazing

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

On the bus journey to our next stop our guide was keeping us entertained with lots of information about the island. My favourite fact was that the island has no scary animals, so no large predators or . As someone who is very scared of slithery creatures, and combined with the year round warm weather, Madeira is one of my new favourite places

Our next stop was the Eira do Serrado viewpoint. This overlooks Curral das Freiras, the Nuns Valley, a place where nuns hid from pirates in the sixteenth century. The views are amazing

It was a long way down

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

More gorgeous views, I was looking for waterfalls but couldn’t see any. Apparently Madeira does have some beautiful waterfalls so I will have to go back there

We’d timed our visit really well because as we were walking back down we could see the clouds rolling in

There is a small tourist shop, cafe and toilets at the bottom of the trail. I think there were about four busloads of people queuing for the toilets, unlike US and UK tour buses the ones in Madeira (and in the Azores last year) do not have onboard toilets

 

[Baron Von Capybara]

If you want waterfalls you could always go back to Norway.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Our next stop was Cabo Girao, the second highest sea cliff in the world

More incredible views

A very long drop

Out on the viewing platform