9-night Southern Caribbean Cruise on the Disney Fantasy - Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

A friend warned me that longer cruises can turn out to be addictive and asked me if we felt like that was the case. I have to say, honestly, I’m not sure that’s going to be the case for us. We really were ready to get back to our home, cats, normal eating, and our own beds by the end. It was a great trip and we had a great time, but I didn’t find I liked it way way more than a 7-night. I actually feel like a 7-night is just about perfect. 

Now, we do have a 10-night booked for next year and we had a discussion about that. I think it will be fine, but I’m not sure I could do something like a transatlantic or longer Panama Canal cruise. I miss stuff like tacos and my cats. I think the other thing that played into this feeling was the fact that we had four port days in a row which was pretty intense. I think next year it will help that our schedule is a little more broken up. The max we have in a row is three port days. 

Things I did like about the longer cruise were getting to know some of the members of the crew a little better and seeing some of the same people multiple times. We had a routine and we didn’t feel rushed to see something on the ship or do an activity because the chances were that we would have another opportunity. 

In terms of the Fantasy itself, I think we’ve gotten used to the bigger ships, but I will say I do prefer the Classics still and I wish we were going to be on the Magic next summer as that’s my favorite of the DCL ships we’ve been on (which is all but the newest).

Our room was amazing, our servers were amazing, but unfortunately, our stateroom host was not amazing. I don’t know if he was new or what, but we had multiple issues with him and it was really frustrating. We had never had any issues in this realm before so it was a little baffling. I think I mentioned this was our third time with our server and it was so fun to see him again and we had a great nine nights with his service. 

We do love the Southern itineraries and wish DCL did them more, but it is a haul. It took us two days just to get to our first port. Leaving from San Juan, PR like we did the previous two times helps, but getting there is also a bit of a chore as it tends to be expensive and most flights have to change through Miami.

Next up we have the Wish and then after that, we’re going to take the 10-night France, Iceland, and Norway next summer, assuming things are a little more normal and we feel better about traveling in Europe. We just don’t want to take the chance of being stuck so far from home and having to quarantine. If worse had come to worse, we would have had to drive home (multiple families did end up having to do this on our sailing) but from Europe, that just isn’t an option. And I dread taking a flight all the way over there only to be denied boarding due to a positive test. Just so many things. So we are crossing all our fingers that cases settle down for next summer and we can make it work.

After that, we might take a cruising break. I say this, but the last time I said that was right after our first cruise and we’ve literally taken a cruise every single year since then. Even with the pandemic, we ended up sailing January 2020, just before and then we started back up again November 2021. But we’re hoping for a big Hawaii trip (goal 2024) and then who knows! Emmaline apparently has quite a list after watching all those Adventures by Disney commercials on the stateroom TV.