Disney Fantasy Cruise – Day 3 – Adventures By Anne

(click on pics to enlarge)

Welcome to Day 3, a relaxing sea day! My daughter and I started with breakfast at Cabanas, the buffet, out along the back deck.

It was another gorgeous, sunny day, so we just spent a leisurely morning lounging out on deck watching the waves go by!

My husband and son had brunch at Palo, the adult specialty Italian restaurant. I went last cruise with my son, so this time, it was my husband’s chance. My daughter wasn’t old enough yet. It’s 18+. Everything was delicious! As good as the regular restaurants are, this is next level good!!! They had tons more food than this, but didn’t get pics of all of it. Here are some of their pics.

If you’re familiar with the Palo brunch format before the closure, things are slightly different now. They are no longer doing the appetizer buffet, but you can order pre-plated appetizers, and the menu of entrees is just a slightly reduced list, but you can still order as much as you want of anything. There was a $45 cost per person for brunch, more for dinner (format also different from brunch), but well worth it!

Reservations fill up fast, so be sure to book as soon as your excursion/activity booking window opens, which varies based on your Castaway Club level. Check your reservation listing for the exact date. I highly recommend doing this for brunch!

Since we couldn’t go to Palo, my daughter and I had our own fancy lunch at the Royal Court restaurant. It is a gorgeous restaurant, themed to all of the princesses.

We tried a few small plates, so that was fun, and everything was delicious too! They even brought her a Mickey ice cream bar with sprinkles!

Secret: Mickey bars aren’t on any menus, but actually are available in all restaurants and room service, if you ask nicely. No $ needed even!

In fact, all of the food in the restaurants, buffet, room service (except certain pre-packaged items), and top deck fountain drink, ice cream, and fast food windows are included with the cruise. So, yeah, go for 2nd breakfast, 3rd lunch, etc. LoL. The only things you have to pay $ for are alcoholic drinks, specialty coffees and foods in the adult cafe and lounges, and the adult specialty restaurants – Palo and Remy.

Everyday, they will open one of the sit down restaurants for breakfast and lunch, in addition to Cabanas, rotating through each one, so you have to check the app to see which one is open that day and for what times. I recommend you eat at these restaurants too, since they have a different menu each time with different foods than what Cabana serves.

After eating, we lounged around the ship decks a bit more before heading in to do some trivia and craft activities. We love Disney trivia!

One of our favorite areas to lounge is on deck 4. This deck wraps all around the entire ship, so you can literally walk around the entire perimeter of the ship and see the ocean all around. It also has a walking/jogging track, shuffle board games, and plenty of lounge chairs. Best of all, it is covered, so you get the breeze of the open ocean without being in the blazing sun like on the top deck.

We love sitting and reading out here, and watching the open ocean. It’s just so peaceful and mesmerizing.

Every so often, you’ll catch the characters roaming here too! I ran into Donald!

This night was technically the “Formal Night” for our sailing, which just means the crew and characters will dress more formally at night, and guests are invited to dress-up too for dinner. Usually, each sailing will designate one night as their “Formal Night” or Captain’s Reception. The ship captain will be out in the atrium before dinner greeting guests, and there will be some more photo ops. Some of the longer sailings will also have a “Semi-formal Night” and most Caribbean cruises will have a “Pirate Night”.

The ship app will list what the “dress style” is for dinner each night, but you don’t have to abide by it. Each day is usually casual, except for these formal/theme nights. Some people like to dress up every night anyway, some don’t even bother with the theme nights. It’s up to you.

There is no dress code on the Disney ships for the regular restaurants, as long as you’re dressed appropriately for a family friendly environment. Usually, we just wore shorts and tshirts all day everyday, including for dinner. However, for Formal Night, it’s fun to play dress-up a bit. You can define “dress-up” however you want. We saw folks in formal ball gowns, suits, casual dresses, polo shirts and slacks, and shorts and tshirts. No one will judge or kick you out of the restaurants, as long as you’re not walking in there in something really inappropriate.

So, that night, we decided to go formal and dressed up too. We changed before our theater showtime, to make a fancy night of it. We saw Frozen, which was awesome! They had such cool lighting effects for Elsa’s freezing moves. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pics or video of the show, but again, as I gushed about yesterday, these theater shows are amazing – such a talented cast with great staging! Be sure to see them!

After the show, we did a bunch of the atrium photos before dinner. It’s always nice to get a family photo on the grand staircase to commemorate your cruise, especially when you’re dressed up. There were also some formal backdrops that were not there on other nights.

Tip: If you think that you might be buying some photos, consider buying a photo package at least 3 days before your sail date. They’re listed in the app as one of the cruise items that you can buy. It’s cheaper if you buy it beforehand. Then, once you’re on the ship, you can see the photos that are taken in the photo kiosks anytime. If it turns out that you decide not to keep the package that you bought, you can cancel for a full refund before the last full day, as long as you haven’t already downloaded any pictures yet.

Dinner that night was at Royal Court for us. The restaurant is gorgeous! If you can do it without disturbing other guests, walk around and look at the murals all around the walls. There are some incredible mosaic scenes of the various Disney princesses.

Of course, the food was delicious, as always!

After dinner, we saw more characters out in the atrium, like they are most nights, and checked out the activities going on around the ship again. We peeked into karaoke. That was fun! I didn’t want to take pics of random kids singing, but you can imagine.

Overall, we had an awesome, relaxing day at sea. We just love the vibe of being on the ship, exploring the various nooks & crannies, and doing the various activities.

That night, this little fella greeted us back in the cabin. This was the coolest one yet!