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!
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Last week, the Bahamas suffered unimaginable tragedy when Hurricane Dorian struck their islands. This country and their people are important and special to DCL and its guests as Nassau and Castaway Cay are frequent ports of call for Disney ships. Let’s all join together and do what we can to help with the relief effort, whether it’s with prayers, donations of money or time, or whatever else you can think of that may be helpful. For those willing to donate monetarily, I have extended the deadline for my offer of a free copy of my Disney Cruise planner to anyone who donates to a Hurricane Dorian relief effort. Please see this post for all of the details. A huge thank you to those of you who have already donated!
Day 7: Martinique
You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here.
You can see the daily navigators for this sailing here.
Good morning Fort-de-France, Martinique!
We are up and ready for another day of exploring a new port. Today we were greeted by clouds, rain and high humidity – perfect Caribbean weather. Fortunately the rain showers came and went quickly.
All ashore time was 8:00 a.m., but we decided to have a nice leisurely breakfast at Cabanas before heading off the ship at 11:00 a.m. There were a lot of organized Disney excursion groups leaving the ship at 8:00 a.m., so we were perfectly fine staying out of the way of the wave of passengers disembarking the ship.
This gave us a chance to enjoy our view of Martinquie from our verandah.
We headed off the ship at 11:00 a.m. and made the short walk to a pedestrian area on the dock that was set up as a temporary shopping area featuring local made crafts, clothes, and jewelry. This area was only accessible to passengers disembarking from cruise ships. The girls each found a few items to buy.
After walking around the shopping area for a while, my youngest daughter decided she wanted to go back onboard the ship and spend time with her friends who were staying onboard for the day and my oldest daughter wanted to change into a lighter weight t-shirt, so back to the ship we went for a quick pit stop!
After changing clothes, my daughter and I disembarked the ship, quickly walked through the shopping area again (the way it is set up, disembarking passengers have to walk through the shopping area in order to make their way across the street from the port and into town) and made our way to town. We then made the short walk to Fort-de-France only to find out it was closed between 12 -2 for lunch. From what we could see, the fort was very impressive. The walk to the fort and the park area at the base of the fort allowed for some great views of the Fantasy.
After we walked around the outside of the fort, we headed back towards town to explore the local shops and restaurants We did manage to find a large souvenir store that was air conditioned and offered free wifi. We did a bit of shopping and checking emails before continuing our stroll through town.
The old town shopping area reminded me a lot of the older sections of New Orleans. Martinique is a French speaking island and the architecture of the buildings and the layout of the town have a distinctive French feel. The colors of the buildings were vibrant. As with many French towns and cities, the town square is the home of the local church. Here, St. Louis Cathedral, built in the late 19th century, sits in the heart of Fort-de-France. If you want to see the inside of the Cathedral, make sure you get there by 11:00 a.m. The doors are open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. only. We were too late.
After a couple hours of walking and exploring, we were ready to head back to the Fantasy for lunch and a very cold drink. I think the heat and humidity zapped us! Back onboard, we had a nice lunch and then headed back to the cabin to rest and enjoy the occasional rain shower. Cabanas offered a nice view of the west side of town. I loved all the colors of the buildings.
All Aboard time was 4:45 p.m. We left Martinique right on time.
Even though we had to leave Martinque, we were very much looking forward to our evening – Pirate Night! We have always loved Pirate Night and for us, it never gets old. The characters were out and about in their finest pirate garb greeting all the passengers who were likewise decked out in pirate attire.
Friends have often asked me if the passengers are really into Pirate Night. My answer is always “absolutely.” This cruise was no different. Here are some examples of what you will see:
This family from Virginia sported their true “pirate” colors.
A family from Michigan went for the true pirate theme.
One of my favorites, this family from Texas, decided to take the Peter Pan angle.
Others went very extreme! I loved these three. By the way, these guys had the most fun posing for pictures all night long.
Cruise Director Peter participated in the festivities. I get why the Captain elected to sport his official captain’s attire.
After wandering the ship and enjoying the pirate night festivities for a while, we headed to the evening show in the Walt Disney Theatre: The Comedy and Ventriloquism of Taylor Mason. The show was pretty good, but we were more interested in getting to dinner!
Dinner was in Royal Court and the evening attire was pirate or cruise casual. We, along with our servers, went with pirate attire.
For dinner, I started with falafel – good and vegetable samosas – excellent. For my main course I decided to try the vegetable stir fry – very good. However, dessert was the highlight. Our servers insisted that we try one of everything. The flan was excellent. The banana cake was very good, and the macadamia cheesecake was amazing.
After dinner, we made our way to Deck 11 for the pirate party and fireworks show. Decks 11 and 12 were filled with partygoers.
Following the fireworks, we headed to Cabanas for the Pirate Buffet. Don’t feel bad if you miss this buffet. It is way too crowded (however the turkey legs looked pretty good, but I could not get anywhere near them!).
By the end of the fireworks I was ready to call it a night, but nooooooo. My daughter insisted on watching the 11:00 p.m. showing of The Curse of the Black Pearl on Funnel Vision. Actually there were quite a few people who enjoyed watching the movie under the dark caribbean sky with us. I made it through the entire movie!
Finally we headed back to our cabin only to be greeted by Jack.
We had a great day and are looking forward to our day on St. Kitts.
Up Next: Day 8 – St. Kitts
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