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 6: Barbados
You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here.
You can see the daily navigators for this sailing here.
Our second port day has arrived: Bridgetown, Barbados.
After a great night’s sleep, we woke at about 7:30 as the ship was docking. The Fantasy was the only ship in town for the day. The “all ashore” time was 8:30, so the girls and I decided to get up and have a quick breakfast at Cabanas and then head into town for a bit of exploring. Our breakfast view was amazing.
As you can see, the weather was spectacular so we were looking forward to “seeing the town.” We did not have any shore excursions booked which allowed us to explore at our leisure. Unfortunately this was not the best plan for August 1 on Barbados. We did not know until the night before that Barbados celebrates Emancipation Day (a national holiday) on August 1 so almost everything on the island is closed. If we had known that, I would probably have booked a Disney excursion in order to guarantee that we would have an organized activity that was fully operational.
The only shops open were those in the port duty-free shopping area.
We settled on taking a taxi to an area recommended by several crew members as a nice beach area to walk around and explore. Off we headed to the taxi stand. We got a nice view of the Fantasy as we walked from the dock.
The taxi stand was directly outside of the secured port shopping area. We told the dispatcher were we wanted to go and he walked us over to a taxi van. We thought we would be heading out right away, but much to our surprise we waited inside the van for about 30 minutes as they proceeded to fill the van with 12 passengers all going to the same location. The taxi ride was about 15 minutes and cost $5.00 per person. We did get a look at the Bridgetown area on our drive. We confirmed that they were not kidding when they said everything on the island was closed for the holiday. It was like a ghost town.
We arrived at our location and everyone piled out of the taxi. To be totally honest, it was a bit sketchy. The taxi driver pulled up to a restaurant and told everyone to go through the restaurant to the beach area. We were told that all beaches on Barbados are public beaches so we would not be charged to use the beach. However, the restaurant charged for you to use their facility to access the beach. The other thing that struck me immediately was that I did not see any other taxis in the area. Our taxi driver said he would come back for everyone later in the afternoon (all aboard time was 4:45 p.m.) I have always told my girls (who have travelled extensively with me both domestically and internationally) to always trust their instincts. If something doesn’t sit right, it is okay to switch course. My concern was that there might be a lack of taxis operating because of the holiday. We did not want to get stuck, so we decided to skip the beach and have the taxi driver take us back to the port area.
On our way back, we had the taxi to ourselves so he offered to give us a driving tour of the historical areas of town and parliament square. It was a very enjoyable ride back to the port. Once we got back to the port area, our driver let us out so we could walk through a beachfront park area before heading back to the ship. We had a very nice time simply meandering through the park.
It was not hard to find the way back to Bridgeport and the ship. We just followed the signs!
After a bit of exploring on foot, we made our way back to the port entrance.
We were told we would need our identification and Key to the World card to enter the port area. We chuckled a bit after going through “immigration” at the port gate (the pedestrian entrance on the left side in the picture above). The immigration officers were also the taxi drivers! They chatted a while with us after they found our we were from Las Vegas, then they waived us through. I had a feeling that the taxi drivers were the only ones working on the holiday!
We stopped at a little cafe in the secured port area and bought cold drinks so we could take advantage of the Wifi. After checking in with family back home, we did a little duty-free shopping and then headed back aboard.
We were back on board with plenty of time to do a few loads of laundry before the ship started to fill up. While the laundry was going (2 loads on Deck 7 and 1 load on Deck 8) my oldest daughter and I had lunch at the Royal Court and my youngest daughter ordered room service. The afternoon weather was spectacular.
After finishing laundry and taking a short nap, we all got cleaned up for the evening activities. First on the agenda was the show in the Walt Disney Theater featuring: Ricky Kalmon’s Hypnosis show. We have seen his show on previous Disney cruises. His material has not changed, but it is still entertaining because the audience volunteers are always different.
After the show we watched a beautiful sunset.
Next was my oldest daughter’s favorite activity: Officer pin trading in the Lobby Atrium. This was the first time we went to this event in the Lobby Atrium. Usually the pin trading event is in Preludes (by the shops). It was really nice in the Atrium because you had plenty of room to move around which was a good thing because a large group of people attended.
Also, there were so many more officers participating. People were everywhere having a great time.
Following pin trading, we headed to dinner at Enchanted Garden. Tonight’s dinner was cruise casual. We were not really hungry, so we just had appetizers – Serrano Ham Bruschetta, Red Lentil and Coconut Soup, and Romaine Wedge – and called it an early dinner.
Following dinner, my oldest daughter wanted to get more character pictures, so we headed back to the Lobby Atrium to see who was out and about. Characters were everywhere! Some were at designated, scheduled locations and others were simply strolling around interacting with the guests. The atmosphere was great.
We had the most fun with Donald Duck and Goofy. My daughter had her Sound of Music cast t-shirt on which lead to Donald and Goofy giving their best impression of “The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Music.”
Donald and Goofy then posed for a picture which quickly became a playful shoving match to see who could get the solo shot. Donald was not too happy with the outcome!
We ended our day by checking out a fun activity. Because this was a longer cruise – 11 days – our cruise director said they were trying new activities. One such activity was Dancing Under the Stars on the 11th deck. All the officers and entertainment staff were in their formal attire and a dance band was playing for all to enjoy. For this cruise, there was a championship ballroom dancing couple on board teaching ballroom dancing throughout the entire cruise. Tonight they were leading dancing under the stars.
Day 6 was another fun-filled day on the Fantasy.
Up Next: Day 7 – Martinique
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