Guest Trip Report: July 27, 2019 Southern Caribbean on the Disney Fantasy – Day 12

This guest trip report was written by Cynthia, who sailed the Disney Fantasy on July 27, 2019, on the 11 night Southern Caribbean itinerary. You may remember her as the guest blogger who shared her previous experience with the medical center on the Disney Fantasy, which you can read about here. She has now graciously offered to share her adventures with us!  This is a unique itinerary not often offered on the Fantasy so I am very excited to get to share this with you!

Day 12:  Homeward Bound

You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here.

You can see the daily navigators for this sailing here.

The end of our adventure has arrived.  We can hardly believe that 11 days aboard the Fantasy has come and gone.  Time to face reality.

We had an early flight from Orlando, so we were up and moving very early and headed to Cabanas for breakfast before the 8:00 a.m. arrival of our ride to the Orlando airport.    Because we had a tight schedule, I did not have an opportunity to take any pictures. I was concentrating on keeping the girls moving!

The early morning weather was pretty good, but we could see storm clouds in the distance.  After the weather at Castaway Cay yesterday, I was hoping for better traveling weather. The last thing I wanted to experience was a long delay.

We made our way off the ship at about 7:45 with a pretty large group of fellow cruisers.  Despite the large number of people disembarking early, we had no trouble finding our luggage and making our way through customs.  As a bonus, our driver was right on time and waiting for us as we exited the terminal.

We jumped into the car and headed up to the airport.  On our way there the driver mentioned that the weather was not looking good for the early afternoon, but because we had an early flight, we would probably be okay.  The first leg of our flight took us from Orlando to Houston with a very short period of time to make our way to our second flight for the last leg of our journey.

The weather gods were on our side!  Our flight departed right on time. Unfortunately for many cruisers leaving later in the day, the severe weather moved into the Orlando area resulting in numerous flight delays and cancellations. Many people simply left the airport and headed to Walt Disney World for the day with the hopes of getting a flight the next day.  I also know that others slept in the airport so they could get on an early morning flight the next day.  

Our travel luck ran out when we arrived in Houston.  We arrived on time and had just enough time to get to the departure gate for the second leg of our journey.  However, as we were about to step onto the plane, my youngest daughter realized that she left her school iPad in the seat pocket on our first flight.  We quickly ran back into the terminal and told the gate agent what was going on. He told us if we went back to the gate of our first flight to look for the iPad, we would miss our flight home.  We decided that the iPad was more important than making it home on time. After a quick sprint to the arrival gate, pleading with the gate agent, major tears from my daughter, the flight crew agreed to look for the iPad (I could not believe how disinterested they were even though we told them exactly what seat she was sitting in!)  After a few minutes, the gate agent returned with the iPad! Now we just needed to figure out how we were getting home.

We found a very nice customer service representative that took pity on us (we looked a mess) and worked to get us rebooked on a later flight.  After all we went through, we were able to get home only about 3 hours after our original scheduled arrival. My husband was a trooper and arrived at the airport early and gathered all our luggage that was on the original flight and had the car loaded when we arrived.  We were able to get right in the car and head home!

It was nice to be home!  Our dog was thrilled that all the girls were home.  Dad was pretty excited too. 

So, what our my final thoughts on this 11 day adventure aboard the Fantasy?  We loved being on an 11 day cruise. We were thrilled with all the extras that were offered.  We met some wonderful people and experienced marvellous service. We saw new places, and tried new things.  We had great weather, and not so great weather. For us, 11 days was not too long to be aboard a ship. We would not hesitate to experience another 11 day (or longer) cruise!

With the end of this cruise, we are left with the anticipation of our upcoming cruises:  Alaska May, 2020 (my daughter’s high school graduation celebration cruise) and Mexico September, 2020 (Legglife Viewer Cruise – can’t wait for this!)  Who knows, we might even make the very short trip to San Diego for a long weekend cruise.

I have enjoyed writing this blog, and I hope you have enjoyed reading it.  Hopefully I have provided you with some useful information that you can use when planning your very own Disney Cruise adventure.  If you have any questions, or want more information on anything I discussed in this series, please do not hesitate to leave a comment/question below and I will respond.

Finally, thank you Diana for giving me this opportunity to share our family adventure with your readers.  I have thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Happy Sailing,  Cynthia