Sailing on the Fantasy June 30 TR (w/pics!)

[jmoore72]

This is my 1st attempt at a trip report, so bear with me. To give you a brief background, we have been DVC members since 2008 and have probably visited WDW 15 times since 2005. We love to stay at BCV or BWV because of the great location and ability to walk to 2 parks. We have stayed at all of the DVC resorts with the exception of HHI, VB and OKW. My family and I were lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the fabulous DVC offer to sail on the Disney Fantasy in June. We decided to sail on the 30th because our kid’s baseball season had playoffs late into June and we didn’t want to take any chances on missing games.

Once the cruise was booked it was a bit of a scramble to find affordable airfare and a rental car on two months notice. We live close to the Jersey Shore and typically fly out of Newark, Atlantic City or Philadelphia depending on cost of airfare. We normally pay $1000 or less on airfare for the 5 of us. I hadn’t realized how much airfare has gone up over the past year, but boy has it! When I first looked, the cheapest airfare was $1800 flying on Spirit out of AC. Uh oh….there goes the $$ we saved on the cruise! I took a chance that I could get a better deal if we waited. Finally after a couple of weeks of checking airfare, I finally booked a RT flight on Southwest out of Philly for $1300. Still high by our standards, but reasonable enough for 5 of us. The only problem was that in order to get the cheaper airfare, we had to extend the trip by a couple of days. Awe shucks! Too bad! The plan was to fly in on Friday and stay at the new Art of Animation Resort the day before we cruise, then spend 2 nights at BCV after the cruise and fly home Monday AM. I will try to post pics, but haven’t done so before, so hopefully I don’t run into any issues.

Here are the cast of Characters:

Myself
DW
DS 10
DD 8
DS 4

Day 1 - Animal Kingdom and Art of Animation Resort coming up!

[Yogi3323]

looking forward to the pictures ... Not really that tough, there are some pretty detailed instructions posted.

We live in Central NJ, but the inlaws have a Wildwood Shore house (best beach in NJ!) You must love the shore traffic during the summer

[jmoore72]

Our flight leaves Philly at 6AM. This is a bit rough as DS10 has his championship game for Little League the night before at 7PM. Unfortunately his team lost 10-9 and we didn’t get home until about 10PM that night. So we were all a little down leading into the trip. Although a Disney Cruise is a nice consolation prize, DS was pretty upset that night that we didn’t win. By the time we landed at 8:20am in Orlando, the game was a distant memory! Everyone was very excited to start the vacation. We scored a full size (Hyandai Sonata) 10 day rental through Alamo for $131. This was very reasonable considering the Disney Transfers to/from the Cruise Terminal was $350 for the family. So renting a car was a no brainer.

The original plan was to drive straight to HWS and get a ½ day in at the park then check out Art of Animation. However, the kids decided at the last minute that they wanted to do AK today and then take advantage of the 8AM EMH at HWS on Saturday morning. Ok…let’s do it! So we get to AK about 9:30am. Boy it was really hot already! Probably 92-93 degrees. We go straight to Everest for FP’s and then to Kilimanjaro Safari. The posted wait time was 30 minutes already and it took every bit of a ½ hour to finally get on the safari bus. We typically avoid parks at busy times of the year and definitely weren’t used to seeing AK this busy, this early in the day. During our safari we had to stop for a good 5 minutes because of a curious giraffe that kept sticking his head into the bus!

We then hit the Kali River Rapids and used the Fast passes for Expedition Everest. I wimped out at the last minute and only DS10 and DD went on. The backwards part gets me every time! After EE we grabbed lunch at the Yak and Yeti. It was our first time eating here. Not bad, not great. I got the Sweet and Sour Chicken which was ok. DW got the Mandarin Chicken Salad which she liked, and DS10 got the Beef Lo Mein which was pretty good.

After lunch it was about 1pm and we decided to head over to check in at Disney’s newest resort, the Art of Animation! We have never stayed at a Value Resort before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I have to say this resort far exceeded my expectations. Now I realize it is brand new, but everything was very clean and the Cast Members were super friendly! We chose a Cars Suite because our kids love everything Cars. The suite was just as roomy as a 1 BR DVC Resort and can comfortably sleep 6. The layout was fantastic. There is a master BR, a pullout sofa bed, and the kitchen table converts to a Murphy bed. There are also 2 separate full bathrooms which is a huge plus. After we checked out the room, we took a short walk to the Nemo themed pool. If you haven’t heard, there is very cool feature where you can hear Nemo themed music and characters when you go under the water. The kids loved it! We spent a couple of hours enjoying the pool, then showered and headed off to Epcot for dinner at Via Napoli. We ordered the largest pizza plus a couple of appetizers and it was more than enough for the 5 of us. The pizza was excellent as usual! After dinner we were pretty wiped out as it had been a long day already and we had another long day tomorrow. So we got back to A of A and passed out.

I'm uploading pics to photobucket now, so hopefully i'll be able to add pics soon.

Day 2 - HWS and First Day of Cruise next...

[jmoore72]

Originally Posted by Yogi3323

looking forward to the pictures ... Not really that tough, there are some pretty detailed instructions posted.

We live in Central NJ, but the inlaws have a Wildwood Shore house (best beach in NJ!) You must love the shore traffic during the summer

We live in Brick and are about 2 miles to the Pt Pleasant Boardwalk. Yes summer traffic is not fun around here!

[Brian5581]

Off to an excellent start, looking forward to more. And the pictures, too, of course. From West Windsor here.

[jmoore72]

Here's the curious Giraffe that held up our bus for 3-4 minutes. His head was literally inside the bus


Up close and personal!


Kids in AK

[AnnaS]

Great start. Can't wait for more and pictures too!!!!

[jmoore72]

Here we are walking into A of A


DD with Sally


The boys with Ramone


Mr Ray by the Nemo pool


Chillin in the pool!


DW and DD at Via Napoli


DS10 and me at Via Napoli


DS4 is quite the character!


The fountain in Italy

[jedwards]

Originally Posted by jmoore72

The suite was just as roomy as a 1 BR DVC Resort and can comfortably sleep 6. The layout was fantastic. There is a master BR, a pullout sofa bed, and the kitchen table converts to a Murphy bed. There are also 2 separate full bathrooms which is a huge plus. After we checked out the room, we took a short walk to the Nemo themed pool. If you haven’t heard, there is very cool feature where you can hear Nemo themed music and characters when you go under the water. The kids loved it! We spent a couple of hours enjoying the pool, then showered and headed off to Epcot for dinner at Via Napoli. We ordered the largest pizza plus a couple of appetizers and it was more than enough for the 5 of us. The pizza was excellent as usual! After dinner we were pretty wiped out as it had been a long day already and we had another long day tomorrow. So we got back to A of A and passed out.

I wonder why it feels this way? The suites are 200 square feet smaller than the smallest one bedroom at DVC (the suites are 545 sq ft) I wonder if its because there is no full kitchen taking up space.

[jmoore72]

Originally Posted by jedwards

I wonder why it feels this way? The suites are 200 square feet smaller than the smallest one bedroom at DVC (the suites are 545 sq ft) I wonder if its because there is no full kitchen taking up space.

That is a big part of it. All available space is used at A of A. To me there is a lot of wasted space in some of the 1Br Villas. The large foyer, the bathrooms are massive. THis is nice, but it's space that doesn't get used. Just my opinion.