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

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Our final stop was the fishing village of Camara de Lobos. We walked to a little bar where we sampled some Poncha, a very popular locally produced drink made from sugarcane brandy, honey, sugar and fruit juice. We only sipped a bit, Sophie thought it was too strong, and it was much too sweet for me. It didn’t seem that strong to me, the sweetness masked it, but I found out afterwards that it’s about 50% alcohol so glad I didn’t drink much

We took a wander around the village

Winston Churchill used to spend quite a bit of time here, so a few places are named after him

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

There was some cool artwork around the village

Our guide had told us that Madeira grows a lot of tropical fruit, but because there’s not a lot of flat space on the island they plant trees on the slopes. These hills had bananas growing up them

Last photos of the village before heading back to the ship

I really enjoyed this tour, it was a great way to see some highlights of the island. And I think it was around $80 so not too expensive for a Disney excursion

We were back on the ship for lunch and it was warm enough to eat outside at Cabanas

 

[riverside]

Out on the viewing platform

Oh, heck no!!

 

[cgersic]

^^
My stomach did a flip with the viewing platform pictures as well. Definitely not!

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Oh, heck no!!

^^
My stomach did a flip with the viewing platform pictures as well. Definitely not!

At least it didn’t pretend to crack

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

After lunch I set out for a solo walk around Funchal, the young adult was too tired after the early morning.

Always have to get a photo of the ship in a port

Lovely views

Just as you leave the cruise terminal there is a small museum dedicated to footballer Cristiano Ronaldo who is from Funchal. Lots of people seemed very excited about this and were queuing for photos with the statue

Along the seafront promenade, I think the white jellyfish are Christmas lights

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Carrying on along the promenade. I was loving the warm weather, it was just the right temperature to be in shorts and T-shirt but not too hot

I would have liked to go back up in the cable car but wasn’t sure that I had enough time

I turned and took a wandering route back through the streets

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

I found out about some history of the city

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

The black and white look of the buildings and pavements is very similar to the Azores

I stopped to watch an arts festival for a while

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

I found a little park

This statue made me laugh

I sent the photo of it to the rest of the family to see if it reminded them of anything

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

More wandering and I found another park up a small hill

Found some friends

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Views from the park

That name sounds familiar

Apparently Columbus lived in Madeira before making his crossings across the ocean and learned about Atlantic currents and navigation from local sailors

Then back to the ship, I can’t remember why I took a photo of the anchor

Back on board I napped for a while but was woken by a very important announcement broadcast into the rooms. It was naming a few people and asking them to make themselves known if they were onboard. As it was very close to all aboard time we speculated that we were going to see some pier runners, people who leave it to the last minute to get back on board and don’t always make it. It turned out that their cards just hadn’t scanned properly

 

[Wicked Sisters]

Do you know what those hanging down plants are called. So unusual.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Do you know what those hanging down plants are called. So unusual.

I looked them up and they are called Brugmansia or Angel’s Trumpets. Very pretty and also very toxic

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Leaving Madeira, one of the reasons I love having a verandah is for views like this

I loved Madeira, it’s a beautiful island and I would definitely like to go back and see more of it. It would be great for an outdoorsy type holiday because there are lots of hiking trails across the island. The city of Funchal is a lovely mix of old and new, it has the charming old buildings with big chains like Starbucks and McDonald’s not standing out too much

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

Pre-dinner champagne cocktail at Ooh La La. I was trying to capture a smoke bubble popping

One of my favourite main dining menus, Lobster night

I had the goat cheese and beet napoleon which I enjoyed. I would normally have chosen scallops but they came with a pea risotto and im allergic to peas

I didn’t need to look at the main menu

Desserts

The Blueberry-Lemon Bavarian Cream, it was very good

As we were leaving Royal Court there were characters in random outfits in the atrium. I loved Goofy in his kilt

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 8th November (cont)

After dinner was something new for me, an adult takeover of part of the kids club. The Oceaneer Club was blocked off so the kids could still use it and we got to play in the Oceaneer Lab.

We joined Professor Make a Mess

To make

It was very silly but lots of fun

And busy

It looked like all the adults were really getting involved and enjoying it, there was lots of laughter. And we got to take our goo back to the room with us

Our room creation that night

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Sunday 9th November: Day 1 of 7 Days at Sea

While I do love the ports, the main draw of a transatlantic cruise is the amount of sea days. I love being in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do except relax and look at the ocean. And eat of course. We had a brunch at Palo booked but that wasn’t until 11.30 so I needed a little snackeral to tide me over

First Mickey churro waffles of the cruise

I had a planned activity but that wasn’t until 9, so I made the most of the early morning quiet up on the pool deck

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Sunday 9th November (cont)

I practically had the place to myself, this is why I like getting up early on a cruise. I’d rather do that and then have an afternoon nap when everywhere is crowded

Then it was time to head down to deck 4 for my morning activity, a 5k at sea. This was an unofficial event organised on the Facebook group for the cruise but it was given permission to take place by Disney and a member of the onboard security team was there to make sure everything was ok. There were quite a few unofficial events during the cruise, meet-ups for various interests (e.g. board games, lorcana), a pyjama breakfast, a bar crawl.

Deck 4 was very busy, I’d stopped back at my room to leave my phone so I didn’t have to run with it so I don’t have any photos. I did a very slow run/walk round and round the deck, my post covid lungs did not enjoy it very much and I really struggled. Sophie zoomed off and lapped me a couple of times. I was determined to earn my medal though

I tried to get an arty photo of the medal on my verandah

 

[cgersic]

Another round of fabulous photos!! Madeira looks stunning, and definitely a place to spend more time. Also love the empty ship photos, looks super peaceful.