When the stars aligned and the chance for the perfect trip on the Disney Fantasy popped up, we had to say yes. In this post, we review our 5 night stay on the Disney Fantasy, one of Disney’s mid-size, mid-age ships. We cover booking, our time on the ship, and visits to both private Disney ports. Read on to see how we made the most of this beautiful February escape!

About this Post

This is my third attempt to review a Disney Cruise. I’ve previously reviewed:

There’s inevitably some overlap in these posts, but you might also find I have more to say on some relevant topic in one review than in the others. It’s just dependent on how the specific cruises go. For more on all topics, you can find all our Disney Cruise Line content here.

This post covers a 5-night Bahamas cruise on the Disney Fantasy. The cruise was in February 2025. I’ll cover everything from booking through stepping off the ship.

Booking and Pre-Cruise

The first part of this post is everything before we get onboard the ship. This includes booking the cruise, activity booking, online check-in, and our travel arrangements between home and Port Canaveral.

Picking Our Disney Fantasy Cruise

FYI: if you’re new to Disney cruising and want to learn more, we have a Guide to Picking the Best Disney Cruise for your family.

The Fantasy serves a variety of itineraries these days, both in the Caribbean / Bahamas and Europe. I think it’s worth taking the time to really consider your options when booking a Disney Cruise. A few times, I’ve found the perfect option for a trip, even if it wasn’t the first result I was searching for (yes, I once went in shopping for lower-priced 3 night cruises on older ships out of Fort Lauderdale and wound up with a 7 night cruise on the Disney Treasure…it happens).

In this case, I was browsing itineraries and came across a 5-night itinerary on the Fantasy that included stops at both Castaway Cay and the new Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point. The itinerary also had a day at Nassau plus a day at sea.

None of us has ever been on the Fantasy before, and my rule of thumb these days is to prefer getting on new-to-us ships when I can. The itinerary also happened to coincide with New York’s midwinter break, fitting perfectly into our schedule.

I’m adjusting to this “gotta send your kid to school” thing, and I really didn’t like the idea of spending what could be a 9-day trip anywhere in the world on a Disney Cruise in the Bahamas. But the chance to get on a new-for-us ship, and see Lookout Cay, and have it be a good length (I find 3 days too short, 7 days maybe too long)—I couldn’t resist. We also wound up being able to get Grandma and Grandpa to join us, which was a nice cherry on top of the sundae for Zoe.

We were also able to use a placeholder booking from a previous cruise, saving us 10%.

Booking and Pricing for Our Trip

We booked through our travel advisor, Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character LLC. Our costs for the cruise came out to:

One Adult - $1,611
Second Adult - $1,611
Child - $994
Taxes, Fees, and Port Expenses - $402
Prepaid Gratuities - $218
Grand Total - $4,836

It’s worth noting this was only about $600 more than the 3-Day cruise we took on the Wish last year. Also, I estimated this year that tickets, hotel, dining, and Lightning Lanes cost a family of three around $4,664 when planning a trip to Disney World. This puts our Fantasy cruise at roughly the cost of a Disney World trip.

Because it was a school holiday week, flight prices were astronomical. We also had to make some changes sometime after booking, which came at a cost. We wound up spending $2,110 on flights.

This cost doesn’t account for a hotel the night before the cruise, transport to/from the Port, onboard expenses, including some expensive things I expect to get every cruise (like the Shutters photo package). I hope to have a more comprehensive budget post for this cruise up some day. If you’d like to get a sense of these things, I already have a separate post that dives into every dollar we spent on our previous 3-Day Bahamas cruise, including expenses during our buffer day at Disney World and our coffees, drinks, excursions, etc. on the Disney Wish.

For now, I’ll also add that we spent around $1,088 on onboard expenses, $620 of which was from three items—Emily’s spa appointment, internet, and the Shutters photography package.

Riding Bikes on Castaway Cay (April 2024 visit)

Activity and Port Adventure Booking

There are several things to take care of after booking but before you get on your Disney Cruise.

First, there is activity booking, including Port Adventures (excursions), adult dining, spa services, and more. These will open for booking according to your Castaway Club level (75 days for first-time cruisers, earlier for returning cruisers, confirm your specific booking schedule in advance).

This was our sixth cruise aboard Disney Cruise Line (Zoe’s third). This means we’d completed five so far, so were Castaway Club Gold members and could book these activities 105 days prior to sailing.

We really didn’t plan on any significant excursions this trip. There were three ports on this itinerary—Lookout Cay, Castaway Cay, and Nassau. We didn’t expect to get off the ship at Nassau, and we thought we’d be fine keeping busy on our own at Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay. Despite feeling like we had nothing big to plan for, we wound up still booking a few things…

We asked Lauren to book us the Goofy Sports Simulator ($). While it was advertised as having hourlong blocks, only 30-minute blocks were available (and these were more than enough, as I’ll discuss later). We were able to snag the simulator twice, on the Nassau day and on our day at sea. This avoided any conflicts with Castaway Cay or Lookout Cay and bookended our trip nicely.

Emily booked a spa appointment ($) for her mom and her sometime later. When it was her parents’ time to book, I was able to grab them a dinner at Palo, which luckily still had limited availability. Finally, we booked snorkel and bike rental at Castaway Cay, which usually have wide availability and can almost always be done on a walkup basis on the island.

I wanted bike rental at Lookout Cay but was shocked to find it “sold out” early on. My initial assumption was that it was a popular pick because of the layout of the port (more later), but when we actually got there it became clear they just didn’t have bikes yet.

Online Check In and Royal Gathering

Next, we had to complete online check in 35 days (because we’re Castaway Gold) before embarkation. I opted to skip the midnight rush on this one, instead doing my check in around 6AM. This is a bit of an involved process requiring document and photo submission, so you may want to do some preparation ahead of time. Specifically, you’ll want to have photos of your passports and recent headshots. (I wound up not completing the process until around 7:30AM because I didn’t want to wake up Emily getting our passports at 6AM.)

Most important from my perspective is the selection of Port Arrival time. The earliest arrival time available when I checked in was 11:45AM. The earliest overall is 11AM, and we were probably going to wind up waiting with Emily’s parents in any case, so this seemed just fine to me.

The last thing we had to try to do was secure a time for the Royal Gathering princess greeting. This is a bit of an odd duck. It’s a free activity that you must book in advance, but that opens for booking 30 days in advance of your cruise (i.e. not at the same time as other activities).

If you’re a first-time cruiser with Disney, this means the booking schedule conflicts with your online check in. Best I can tell you can book Royal Gathering before completing check-in, just like the other activities. If you’re interested in Royal Gathering, I’d definitely recommend doing this. Online check-in will take you a few minutes anyways, and Royal Gathering can get fully booked quickly.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to book the Royal Gathering this time. It was booked instantly, or at least within the time our browser lag / glitches took to recover. If you’d like to know more about the activity, we reviewed the Royal Princess Gathering on our Disney Wish cruise.

Travel to Orlando and Our Buffer Day

Final boarding for our cruise was set at 3PM Sunday, which meant that if everything went right we could have just taken a Sunday morning flight and then a car to the port. This, of course, is never recommended if you can avoid it.

We’ve done the morning flight before with just Emily and me, but that’s because we were confident with two adults coming from major airport on a 6AM flight, we’d be able to find a backup option in time if absolutely necessary. You can also get more aggressive, keeping an eye on weather in advance of your trip and preparing to change your flight to a day earlier if things look dicey. And if the worst happened, we’d just shrug and be fine.

Zoe—who has mastered the skill of looking me dead in the eye and saying “that’s fine I didn’t need that” anytime I take a toy away—would still not simply shrug at missing a Disney Cruise, I’m sure. And the logistics with a kid are just more complex in any case. We opted just to fly in on Friday and spend a full day at Magic Kingdom before the Sunday cruise departure.

As a quick reminder, if you just fly in the night before, there are more convenient options for that night than the Disney hotels. The airport is closer to Port Canaveral than the Disney hotels are (by about 20 minutes), so you could just stay at the Hyatt Regency in the airport, for example (there are also plenty of shuttles between the airport and Port Canaveral for you to take the next morning).

Alternatively, you could stay at any number of hotels close to Port Canaveral. This condenses all your major transit into one day (home -> your airport -> MCO -> Port Canaveral hotel), allowing you a more straightforward embarkation day (you’d still have to get to the actual port, though).

But getting in the Disney spirit for an extra day is great, and if you have an annual pass or don’t mind the cost of a single day ticket, it’s nice to squeeze in some park time.

I’ve already written separately about how we spent that day at Magic Kingdom—we used Lightning Lane Premier Pass in an effort to have the “perfect” day. We also enjoyed the Magic Kingdom Fireworks Dessert Party.

I chose Port Orleans French Quarter for this leg of the stay because I needed to see the updated rooms, and having to rely on the bus transportation (I often prefer monorail or Skyliner resorts) would matter less for a short trip when we had Premier Pass. This wound up being exactly right because the bus waits were far from ideal.

Emily’s parents picked us up a bit after breakfast on Sunday. I didn’t love having to travel with a car seat just for this leg of the trip (we used Mears Connect to get to the hotel, albeit in a shuttle where we were happy to have a car seat), but nothing beats the convenience of getting a ride with family.

There are a variety of ways to get to Port Canaveral. We’ve used private transportation before, and that’s the most convenient (and expensive). Disney has buses that can transport you from your hotel to Port Canaveral, but they’re not cheap and you won’t be as in control of your schedule. You also might Uber, but Uber Car Seat availability is sometimes spotty (in case you didn’t bring your own).

Disney Cruise Terminal Load / Unload Zones

Port Canaveral and Boarding

We arrived at Port Canaveral just before 11AM. After we unloaded our stuff, Emily went and parked the car. Parking wound up costing $109 for the 5 nights. Porters were on hand to grab the luggage we’d tagged with the Disney Cruise Line luggage tags that had come in the mail some weeks before.

This luggage gets delivered to your stateroom “by about 4PM”, but basically you shouldn’t part with anything you think you’ll absolutely need before dinner. Our bags actually weren’t even delivered all together—our stateroom host had to come by a few times, having tracked down one bag at a time later in the evening.

At the port entrance, they usually have separate queues set up for upcoming check-in times. We were with Emily’s parents, who had a later check-in than us (something like 12:30PM). As has been my usual experience, the outside queues for check-in times were ignored, and we were sent inside to check in rather than taking up space outside.

Check-in at the port is sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy, just depending on who’s doing it. Just have all your documentation, particularly passports, out, and give it to them as they ask. They might also inquire about linking your MagicBand+, but we skipped that at this point (I linked mine later at Guest Services, using it solely so I could run and get back into the room without carrying my plastic keycard). We were advised to wait for Emily’s parents’ group to get called, which we did.

We were inside the terminal at 11:16AM. The terminal itself is plenty comfortable to wait in. Emily, Zoe, and Grandma took the time to change into their swimsuits. We typically head to the pool shortly after getting on the ship, so this is a good use of the waiting time.

I did some work and helped the grandparents get setup on the Disney Cruise Line app. The in-app schedules for the entire cruise are also available once you’re at the port. So if you have time to fill, this is a great chance to see what you can expect onboard. Our group was called at about 12:25PM, putting us on the ship at 12:33PM via the third floor atrium.

Getting to Know the Disney Fantasy

Embarkation day, if you’re on the boat early-ish, is a great time to get to know the Disney Cruise Line ships. I think it’s worth the time to get oriented. The kids’ clubs usually have open house hours during this time, allowing parents to come see what their kids will be experiencing.

I’ve already written a deck-by-deck walkthrough of the Disney Fantasy. That post offers you some tips for mastering the navigation of the ship, and it provides a quick look at most things the ship has to offer. I’m going to try not to rehash too much of that basic discussion in this post.

Our Disney Fantasy Cruise Experience

Note: I go through the trip chronologically here. Where it makes sense, I’ll take occasional diversions to dive into a topic in more depth. Also, specific times and scheduling vary cruise by cruise.

Day 1 - Embarkation

Our embarkation day routine is pretty locked in. After lunch, Emily and Zoe go to the pool while I go to explore and take photos of the ship. I find this to be a great use of time because you’re getting a chance to see all these spaces without the crowds, and learning early to navigate the ship will save you time later.

Activities on the ship start quickly. Funnel Vision was showing Lilo & Stich at 11:45AM, Pluto was greeting at 12PM, and open houses at the spa and kids’ clubs started at 12PM. The pool deck was pretty bumpin’ by 1:15PM:

Zoe and co. spent a lot of time at the pool and splash pads during this trip. The one thing I want to highlight is that the AquaDuck had a 42” height requirement that Zoe was just too short for. This is most notable because with shoes on Zoe was able to ride Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind—also a 42” height requirement—the day after we got off the ship.

If you have kids, the embarkation day open houses at the kids’ clubs are a great chance for you to help get your kids acquainted with the spaces.

A long line of parents were queued to register or check-in to the Oceaneer Club / Lab. Honestly, I’m not sure what amount of registration most of them had done in advance during check-in, or why this step is required at all.

That said, we wound up going to the Port Adventures desk (we think, possibly it was another desk), which had a kids’ club representative who was able to complete this process for us with a much shorter line. In Zoe’s case, they were flagged as a 3 to 4 year old, which results in special treatment.

A bit of a digression on this… While I originally thought this was a ship-by-ship thing, research revealed that the special treatment of 3- and 4-year-old kids is a new-ish policy across Disney Cruise Line, having gone into effect shortly after our Disney Wonder cruise when Zoe had just turned 3.

The irony for us is that Zoe had a great time on the Disney Wonder and absolutely loved the kids’ clubs as a barely-3-year-old. The Disney Wish—our second ship as a family—was the opposite. The newest clubs are a challenge for the youngest kids to navigate both in physical design (labyrinthine) and concept (video games and niche, IP-based interactive elements). I’d guess this issue is partly why Disney introduced “counselors” for the 3- and 4-year-olds who lead special activities for this group.

In theory this “solves” the problem of these kids having trouble navigating the club on their own. In practice, we could never tell Zoe what to expect from the kids’ clubs because the 3 and 4 year olds got “special” activities. Sometimes these were the same as the published schedule, but other times Zoe would have no idea what we were talking about in reference to the scheduled activity. On the Wish, Zoe had no love for the club and we eventually just had to specifically ask a Cast Member to facilitate a ride on the coaster simulator before we left.

Playing Connect Four on the Disney Wonder

This is a shame, and the root, frankly, is that Disney isn’t designing spaces for kids—especially not the youngest kids—well anymore. In several cases in the parks they’re actually destroying some of the best spaces for small kids. This paragraph could go on (old man yells at sky about ‘screenz’ and ‘gamification’), but I’ll leave it there. I’m excited that Zoe will be 5 on our next Disney cruise.

If you don’t have kids, open house times are your only chance to see the kids’ clubs. I don’t think you’re missing out on anything on the Fantasy if you ignore these spaces completely.

Embarkation day actually has a relatively packed schedule. The first thing you’re waiting for on embarkation day is for your stateroom to be ready. The corridors to the rooms will be roped off until the staff is done preparing the rooms. Some people linger near the corridors waiting. I usually just wait until I notice a huge mass of people moving from the common areas into the stairways. On this trip, the rooms were ready just after 1:30PM.

Inside Stateroom on the Disney Fantasy

At 1:30PM on embarkation day, staterooms were ready. Here’s a gallery of photos of the room:

and the bathroom:

Overall I’ve still never found much to say about the Disney Cruise Line staterooms. While the Disney Wish has a bit more of a refined theming, I’m also happy with the older style that looks like it could be ripped from 2010s Yacht Club.

Functionally, we’ve always been satisfied, and the only not-minor issues we’ve ever had were toilets being slow to flush (not this cruise at all, though). It’s also a bit annoying to only have an outlet on one side of the bed.

The Disney Fantasy and Disney Dream have the Magical Portholes on the inside staterooms. These are basically screens that mimic a porthole in the direction they face, sometimes with some added effects like Disney characters appearing onscreen.

But the bottom line with the Magical Portholes—and any other stateroom detail—is just that you probably won’t spend much time in your stateroom. This is also why we almost always stay in inside staterooms—the lowest cost option. (Even on our 7-night stay aboard the Disney Wonder, I wasn’t convinced of the value of the verandah room.)

Staterooms are attended to daily by your stateroom host.

Sailing Away!

Most activities started to close up around 3PM in advance of the Mandatory Guest Assembly Drill at 3:30PM. As you might infer, the Mandatory Guest Assembly Drill is mandatory for all cruisers. Nothing else is going on in the ship at the time—you just need to go to your designated station, check in, and listen to what they have to say about safety.

My only gripe with how the Mandatory Guest Assembly Drill is handled is that you’ll have gigantic crowds all heading up to decks 11 and 12 for the 4:15PM Sailing Away show.

This hype show is scheduled to coincide with the ship leaving port, and it consists of the onboard entertainment crew singing and dancing, along with Mickey and co. It’s a “must do” insofar as there’s no real reason you need to be anywhere else at this point. And, okay, it does get me a little hyped.

Once the Sailing Away show is done, you’ll have about an hour to fill before either dinner or the feature entertainment (it was Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular tonight), depending on your schedule.

If you’re new to Disney Cruise Line, let’s take a second to clarify how the feature entertainment and dining schedules work. Disney Cruise Line uses “rotational dining” for dinner. You’ll dine every night at the same time with the same people at your table served by the same staff. You’ll “rotate” between the three restaurants night after night (so on a five-night sailing, you’ll visit two restaurants twice and one only once). There are two dining times—5:45PM and 8:15PM.

Coinciding with this schedule is the feature entertainment schedule. There are three feature shows on the Disney Fantasy currently: Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular, Frozen, A Musical Spectacular, and Disney's Believe.

These play on three different nights, once at 6PM and once at 8:30PM. If you have the earlier dinner time, it’s expected you’ll go to the later show. If you have the later dinner time, it’s expected you’ll go to the earlier show. Other entertainment is provided on the other nights, but it won’t be the same level as the feature shows.

We skipped the shows, with the exception of a midday showing of Frozen, A Musical Spectacular. While Emily and I are regular Broadway-goers, we just don’t find the scheduling to ever make sense for Zoe, who would absolutely (and rightfully) object to a schedule of “long dinner, long show, right to bed.”

I’ll have more to say about rotational dining later (our loyal reader knows where this is going…). If you’re looking for opinions on food, you’ll have to go elsewhere. I’ll also add here that, unlike on the newer Wish, I didn’t find any restaurants on the Fantasy to be particularly memorable (Animator’s Palate, mentioned again below, maybe a semi-exception).

After dinner, we swung by the stores. The stores are always closed when the ship is at port, including Port Canaveral, Castaway Cay, and Lookout Cay. On a five-night cruise you’re not likely to miss them entirely, but if you’re on a shorter Disney Cruise Line itinerary, you may want to be vigilant about getting to them ASAP.

Returning to our stateroom at 7:30PM, Zoe’s bed was made up and our first Stateroom-Host-prepared animal, a swan, along with some chocolates, was on display.

Our luggage hadn’t all arrived by this point, but our Stateroom Host was dutifully walking the halls taking care of these issues and quickly retrieved the missing pieces from…whatever Disney’s equivalent of Narnia is, I guess.

We’ll let Zoe stay up later as the cruise goes on, but on the first day of a longer cruise we like to make sure we’re well-rested (we were up late the night before, too). Occasionally one of us will go out and experience the ship while the other stays in the room with Zoe. Grandma and Grandpa also had an adjoining room this trip, allowing us to open the door and have them supervise Zoe while we went out one night.

When it comes to the bars, the thing to know is that a bar with an activity (a show, trivia, etc.) is going to be slightly busier than a bar without an activity. There are different ambiances—the O’Gills Pub is basically always louder than Skyliner—but when it comes to menu and service, it’s a “more alike than different” situation.

The bars are adults-only after 9PM. Unlike the newer ships, the bars don’t really offer anything for kids that would necessitate them coming at all, though. I suppose if O’Gills is showing a major sporting event it’s a bit of a bummer that a kid might not be able to watch that.

One final thing that might pop onto your radar as the ship heads into open waters is internet access. For starters, there’s a range of ways your cell phone might be setup for your trip, and I’m not going to cover that here. Connecting to the DCL wifi, I was presented with options for “Internet” or “Internet + Streaming.”

I went with “Internet”, which cost me $110 for the duration of the voyage. I bought it for one device, and I’d occasionally have to switch it between my laptop and my phone, which was easy enough. Internet was not perfect, but it usually wasn’t bad enough for me to regret the purchase. It was pretty bad when I was ashore at Castaway Cay, but that’s the only lengthy period I recall having trouble.

Day 2 - Nassau (As Seen From Our Ship)

Day 2 was the Nassau Day. On some of our earlier trips without Zoe, Emily and I got off the ship in Nassau. We’ve generally not been impressed by the experiences, and so we usually opt to spend the Nassau day on the boat these days.

We mostly make these decisions on an itinerary-by-itinerary basis. When we were on the smaller Disney Wonder in Alaska for 7 nights, we got off the ship at every port. When we’re on the larger Disney Treasure in a few months for 7 nights, we expect to visit at least 2 of the 3 non-Disney ports. On the mid-size Fantasy for 5 nights, with one proper day at sea and two days at Disney ports, we opted to treat Nassau as a second “ship day.”

After breakfast at Cabanas, we went down to meet Mickey. Then we had a 9:30AM booking in the Goofy Sports Simulator.

Arriving 15 minutes early, we took some time before to play a quick round of miniature golf in the area.

The Goofy Sports Simulator was a lot of fun, but I’m glad there were only 30-minute blocks, not hourlong blocks. The cost was $13 per person, but we only wound up charged for Zoe (I’m not sure why). Given how much you’ll spend on (*waves arms wildly*) everything on this cruise, $13 (or even $39) for this kooky activity is probably worth it.

There’s basically a big projection screen and a tablet that allows you to select from a handful of sports—dodgeball, baseball, basketball, football, and some others. Then there’s a selection of balls to use for the sports.

The technology was…not too impressive. Zoe was only strong enough to make an impact about 50% of the time (just over 4.5 years old, FWIW). But it was fun enough, and Zombie Dodgeball in particular had more than enough novelty to keep us engaged. We wound up doing this twice—this day and the final day at sea—and we’d do it again.

There’s also a golf simulator that’s separately booked but in the same room.

After the sports simulator, we had some pool time before lunch. Our typical approach to onboard lunch is to try and mix it up between Cabanas and the quick service options on Deck 11.

This was the one day that had an extra showing of the stage show midday, so we went to the Walt Disney Theater to watch Frozen, A Musical Spectacular. The show was good, but it confirmed our feelings that we didn’t really want to spend our evenings in the theater.

That said, I think the more “original” stories, like Disney Believe, are more worth the time. Our feelings exiting Frozen were pretty simply that we’d somehow been tricked into giving yet another hour of our lives to Frozen (joking, but y’know, not really).

After the show we went and started an activity we were very excited for—Midship Detective Agency. Midship Detective Agency is a set of three onboard mystery-solving games aboard the Disney Fantasy and Disney Dream (same on both ships).

Each of the three games tasks you (and/or your child) with solving some character-related mystery (like which villain kidnapped the puppies). You’ll go from deck to deck visiting interactive paintings to collect clues.

We absolutely loved Midship Detective Agency, and Zoe was able to complete all three, including the one for older kids with no problem. The only “downside” is that this activity will get you a ton of exercise, and you’re basically directed up and down the flights of stairs (elevator is an option, to be clear)—and occasionally to the other end of the ship—collecting clues.

I was bummed to find out that Midship Detective Agency is only on the Dream and Fantasy and that it’s the same on both ships.

After another visit to the kids’ club open house, dinner was at Animator’s Palate. Animator’s Palate is an “interactive” restaurant where Crush (the turtle from the movie) goes around the screens on the outside of the room interacting with guests.

Of course, if you neither are in those seats nor have a particularly good view, you’re sort of just left with the theming. Overall I find the theming here to be the best of the three restaurants onboard. Maybe that’s kitschy of me—guy on cartoon mouse cruise ship likes tacky cartoon mouse pant chairs—but it’s the only of the three restaurants that really has any energy, in my mind.

Day 3 - Castaway Cay

I highly recommend you take some time early on Castaway Cay morning to take in a view of the island. You can do this from the upper decks, including the Cabanas balcony.

Castaway Cay is Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. The other private Disney port—Lookout Cay—is not an entire island (you can actually exit Disney property on that one). Most (all?) Caribbean itineraries visit at least one. Some itineraries, like this one, visit both.

Castaway Cay offers a wide range of beach activities and excursions, and it’s easy to fill your day on the island. The island is worthy of its own post that I hope to write one day, and Google will point you to plenty of people who have covered it in depth. I’ll focus on how we spent our day here.

Ashore time for Castaway Cay was 8:30AM, with aboard time at 4:45PM. Even without a booked excursion, you can fill that time on the island with little difficulty. That said, if you happened to book something on the ship that cut into your day a little bit it wouldn’t be the worst.

Setting foot on Castaway Cay at 8:24AM, we made the long-ish walk to the farther of two family beaches, having our pick of chairs at 8:46AM. There’s also a tram running if you don’t want to walk (Emily’s parents took the tram, we beat them there).

After settling in, Emily and I ran the Castaway Cay 5K. I sometimes miss the good ol’ days of the organized race, but the newer approach, where you can just do it whenever you want and collect your medal on the honor system, is nice.

One thing we’ve consistently messed up at Castaway Cay is meeting characters. The bulk of the greetings are on the path from the ship to the main part of the island. So if you head out early, you won’t see any characters on the way and you’ll have to double back if you want to meet them. Exploring the island, I took this creeper photo of Mickey in this unique outfit:

After over an hour of swimming, Zoe took some time to play at In Da Shade, a covered space offering basketball, billiards, chess, checkers, and more. We like to beat the crowds to lunch and give ourselves flexibility in the afternoon, so we went there right at about 11:30AM.

Castaway Cay lunch is a BBQ buffet. Food is available at three spots on the island, two by the family beaches and one by Serenity Bay, the adult-only beach. They had fake meat burgers available on request. There’s also soft serve available on the island, but it has limited hours.

(That photo’s from a different trip, but I like it.)

After lunch we took Zoe to Scuttle’s Cove, the younger kids’ club on the island. Emily and her mom went snorkeling. Emily—who at least is a better mile swimmer than I am—says the main highlights of the snorkeling are quite challenging to get all the way to.

We picked Zoe up from Scuttle’s Cove around 1:30PM. The plan was to ride bikes, but it didn’t go well. Zoe was too big to ride on the back of the grown-up bike, so we got a bike with training wheels for them. That was apparently too heavy, and after some struggling Zoe somehow managed to tip over the bike—which, again, had training wheels—and get trapped underneath it.

I like the ride around Castaway Cay just fine, but it’s nothing spectacular. It’s a good way to spend an hour, but I’m not going to impose this particular unnecessary struggle on my otherwise-very-active kid. Our Disney Wish 3-Day Bahamas Cruise Review has a nice look at the ride, along with some other Castaway Cay stuff that didn’t make this post.

It was now about 2PM and we were pretty satisfied with how our day had gone. Before leaving, we took the above photo from my favorite photo spot. Unfortunately, the clouds weren’t cooperating (also, I prefer the photo without us in it and with the ship and beach, but anyways…).

After a short time just hanging out, we headed back to the ship, getting back onboard at about 2:53PM.

Castaway Cay always sort of feel like this—it was a lot of seemingly small things that somehow filled the whole day. Beach, a 5K, lunch, In Da Shade, snorkeling, attempt at riding bikes, and there goes 6.5 hours.

Back on the ship we had time to meet Pluto and Daisy, and we even swung by the Castaway Cay Trivia just before dinner. And we won!

After dinner, we visited the Character Dance Party in the Lobby Atrium. Goofy, Pluto, Mickey, Minnie, Chip & Dale, and Daisy & Donald rotated around the lobby dancing with guests and then taking to the stairs to show off their moves for everyone.

Day 4 - Lookout Cay Day

I haven’t mentioned yet my morning routine. I’d wake up at 5:30AM and go for a run around the Deck 4 promenade. Disney advertises it as being 0.4 miles long (2.5 laps to a mile), and my typical run is 5 to 6 miles. I went with 6 most mornings because it was “easier” to run exactly 15 laps than 12.5.

If you’ve never run on a cruise ship…well, your GPS won’t be much help unless you want it to say you’re breaking world records. The one day the ship was stationary during my run—the final morning—I should have used GPS to measure it but didn’t. It seems like 0.4 miles is a close approximation, though.

FWIW, the Senses Fitness Center didn’t open until 6AM or 6:30AM every day. Emily and Zoe are usually at least moving by about 7AM, so that just wasn’t a real option for me.

After running I’d usually head to deck 11 to grab a fountain drink and then stroll around decks 11 and 12 taking in the sights. It was always a great way to start the day.

On this particular morning, I had another project to consider—laundry. With two mornings left on the ship plus two at Disney World, I’d need several sets of running clothes washed.

There are several laundry rooms onboard, but they’re small (the Wish class has a giant laundry room…so good), so if one is full you’ll have to trudge to the next. I popped my head in one after running and encountered a familiar face from my mornings on the Deck 4 promenade. She said the wash and dry time has varied and she’s been doing laundry each morning during her walks.

Throwing my hands up at the slightest possibility of inconvenient walking and ambiguous wash/dry times, I opted to just pay for laundry service. T-shirts were only $2.50, and while I won’t tell you exactly how much I’ve paid to get running clothes washed before…it was a lot more than that. Light packing comes at a cost.

Paying a surcharge for same-day service, the laundry was returned to my room that evening with an extra running shirt that must have been a special gift from the laundry staff! (Just kidding, I returned the bonus shirt.)

The bulk of this day was spent at Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, Disney’s other private port. I’ve written a separate review of Lookout Cay here, including comparisons to Castaway Cay.

This day also happened to be Pirate Night. Typically, each Caribbean itinerary on a Disney Cruise Line ship has a Pirate Night. Pirate Night actually includes activities throughout the day, like character greetings in pirate outfits and pirate themed crafts and games. If the itinerary is 4 nights or more, there will be a special dinner menu for Pirate Night. Guests are typically given bandanas in their staterooms (see above) and we usually buy Zoe a plastic sword or hook earlier in the trip (see above). We also bring Zoe a pirate outfit from home.

The highlights of Pirate Night are the two shows. Mickey’s Pirates in the Caribbean is the earlier show, taking place at 7:35PM on this itinerary. Buccaneer Blast is the later show, starring Jack Sparrow and including the famous fireworks at sea, starting at 10:15PM on this itinerary.

So. We have to briefly (this section was originally 500 words) talk about dinner on Pirate Night. With dinner at 5:45PM and Mickey’s Pirates in the Caribbean starting at 7:35PM, there should have been no time crunch. As it happens with these things, there was, and at 7:20PM I just abandoned my yet-unserved dessert in favor of Zoe and I heading up to find a spot on Deck 11.

Emily got out a few minutes later, but only as the service team gave their gracious, lengthy reminder about the importance of the customer service survey. These surveys are important, but I continue to believe rotational dining is understaffed, and Disney is doing a disservice to their staff by putting them in a position to think it makes sense to delay a guest’s exit in pursuit of customer service feedback.

Again, Mickey’s Pirates in the Caribbean started at 7:35PM, and we were able to get a decent spot at 7:25PM. This is a great little show where Mickey and co. teach the kiddos to be pirates, culminating in a pirate-off with Captain Hook. The show has some absolutely memorable aspects (we were still doing the “pirate training” routines weeks after we got home), and it’s a fun way to cap off pirate night if you aren’t staying up for the later show.

The later show is the 10:15 Buccaneer Blast show, followed immediately by the “Club Pirate” dance party. That show is most notable for featuring Disney’s famous fireworks at sea.

The Buccaneer Blast show features Jack Sparrow and other pirates leading the crowd on a variety of sea shanties. It’s a fun premise and gets the kids involved, too, but it might be a bit much when it’s nearing 11PM and you really just want to see fireworks. The fireworks are notably a bit short—only a few minutes—but you’re getting fireworks. at. sea!

It would typically be a problem for us to keep Zoe up that late, but things worked out well this trip. After exhausting days on Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay, Zoe had no problem taking a 2-hour nap between Lookout Cay and dinner, and the rest of the night went smoothly.

Day 5 - Back At Sea

And so, we came to our final day, another day at sea. One of the nice things about ending with a day at sea is that you probably won’t leave feeling like you needed more. On 3-night cruises, I’m always struck boarding after Castaway Cay and realizing I’m going home tomorrow, with still so much left undone! A final day at sea allows you to fill in those gaps. Or, in our case, repeat a lot of stuff we already loved.

Our final day at sea was spent mostly in the pools, greeting characters, and finishing Midship Detective Agency. We also had our second visit to the Goofy Sports Simulator, where we played a lot of Zombie Dodgeball.

We took time for three character greetings around the atrium—Pluto, Goofy, and Mulan. If you time your list well it’s easy to get multiple greetings with short waits in a short amount of time. Additionally, my personal policy is that as long as one person from a stateroom is waiting in line, it’s acceptable for others to join later (no one seems to dispute this, but some will save a spot for several staterooms with just one person). We have a complete guide to meeting characters on Disney Cruise Line here.

There was also a silent dance party—an activity we’d enjoyed on previous cruises but hadn’t fit into this itinerary yet.

You’ll be shocked to hear we skipped rotational dining on this final night. Zoe really wanted more time in the pool, and neither Emily nor I was about to object.

It was a pretty cool night (60s that feel like 50s in the Caribbean), but with heated pools and Ralph Breaks The Internet on Funnel Vision we were able to have a pretty great time. Crew Members were handing out blankets, too.

After the movie, we swung by the very full D Lounge where the magician who had performed on board was hosting a demonstration in D Lounge.

At 10:15PM, the atrium hosts “See Ya Real Soon”. This is a last chance for some character greetings, along with a short “goodbye” from some of the characters. We didn’t keep Zoe up for this one. Part of the reason is simply that we still had a fun few days at Walt Disney World coming up. If this were truly the end of our trip, then I’d be much more inclined to let Zoe stay up late.

Disney Fantasy - Debarkation

Debarkation begins the night before. You’ll find luggage tags and a gratuity packet in your room the night before debarkation. The gratuity slips state the amount you’ve committed to gratuity. Envelopes are provided in case you’d like to hand the slip (or the slip and something extra) to your Stateroom Host or any of your dining team.

The luggage tags go on the things you want taken off the ship. These items have to be outside your room by 10:30PM the night before debarkation. Crew Members will take them overnight, and the items will meet you at the port the next day, after you get off the ship. Debarking occurs based on groups according to the character on your luggage tags. Or you can keep all your luggage with you and you’ll be allowed off as soon as the ship is cleared.

Maybe the most important thing to know about debarkation morning is that they do not want you hanging out doing things on the ship, and basically nothing is open. You can eat breakfast or visit Shutters (the photography shop). Cove Cafe is also open for specialty coffee. But bars, stores, pools, and everything else—CLOSED.

Breakfast on debarkation day is wherever you had dinner the last night. You’ll have your regular service team. Or you can go to Cabanas. We went to Cabanas. After a quick breakfast—Cabanas is very barebones on debarkation morning—we waited in a short line and were off the ship at 8:14AM.

Disney Fantasy 5-Night Bahamas Cruise - Final Thoughts

This was overall an excellent cruise experience.

I knew exactly what I wanted out of this cruise. It was meant to be a relaxing vacation with Grandma and Grandpa where we’d get to particularly enjoy Lookout Cay and the Disney Fantasy—both new for us. At 5 nights, I expected to feel satisfied without itching to get off the ship by the end. That all worked out.

The mainstays were all there—ample character greetings, plenty of time in the pool, satisfying buffet breakfasts, and enough activities to keep us entertained.

Lookout Cay, which didn’t get much treatment in this post because it got its own review, wound up being an unexpected highlight. Midship Detective Agency was also a huge hit for us.

Unfortunately, the things we expected to be problems for us continued to be problems. Zoe was willing to go to the kids’ clubs but didn’t fall in love with them. We’re interested to see how things go later this year once they’ve aged out of the 3-and-4-year-old group. And our (mostly my) struggles with rotational dining continue to be a sour point of our cruises.

But there were no bad surprises. The surprises—like Lookout Cay and Midship Detective Agency—were all good. Even Goofy’s Sports Simulator, which maybe fell short of what’s possible was entertaining enough for us to enjoy two visits.

You might be able to tell from my writing that there was some ship fatigue by the final day. The Disney Fantasy is a mid-size ship in the Disney Cruise Line lineup. We’d previously had sort of unbalanced experiences as a family—7 nights on the smaller Wonder, but only 3 on the larger Wish. I would have been happy with 4 nights on the Fantasy, but I don’t think 5 was too much.

Overall, I’d endorse this ship and itinerary wholeheartedly. It was reasonably priced—by Disney Cruise Line standards—and delivered just what we needed.