Day 5: 7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral – Falmouth
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Trip log, day five. Falmouth.
7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral
March 20, 2019
Guests Ashore: 7:30 am Guests Onboard: 4:45 pm
Personal Navigator – Day 5
When we first got started cruising, we seemed to sail the Western Caribbean back when it was on the Magic and you’d get to go to Key West, or the early days of the Fantasy where Costa Maya was a regular port of call. Around the time Disney added Jamaica, our Caribbean sailings were mostly to the Eastern and Southern Caribbean. We were extremely excited to explore a new port of call.
Our port adventure today was a Disney excursion. We booked the ‘Bobsled Jamaica and Dunn’s River Falls (FA10).’ Of note, when we booked, it was $139pp. According to the Port Adventures guide, it is now $144.
The Disney Fantasy arrived in Falmouth in the 6 o’clock hour and our port adventure meeting time was 7:15am, giving us time for a quick breakfast in Cabanas. Thankfully, we were 95% packed the night before which is probably a top 5 tip if I ever start doing The Friday Five. I am still working out the terms with TouringPlans.com Saturday Six author Derek Burgan to avoid any C&D iMessages at 2AM.
Our Port Adventure group was ready to go. Our group was led ashore and we prepared to board the awaiting vans. The overall group assembled for our port adventure was very large, but once we broke off into smaller groups it was much better. I believe our group was just under 20 guests, much better than a coach bus tour group. Each van had their own tour guide as well as a dedicated driver. I’m just mentioning the later because sometimes the driver doubles as the guide. This port adventure, like many we’ve experienced, allows you to keep your belongings in the van during each stop. This is especially nice for a tour like today’s where it is split between a water activity and a land based experience.
Disney Cruise Line’s Bobsled Jamaica and Dunn’s River Falls port adventure was, in our opinion, worth the price. If you’ve followed along in the past, we are big fans of third party excursions or touring by ourself using public transportation or taxis.
Overall, we had a great time. The climb up the falls was fun. It did take a bit to get acclimated to the water temperature, but the cold water provided instant ice packs for every time you took a misstep.
It’s not bad, but if you have any mobility issues, this would not be a recommended tour.
Lunch was also included during the bobsled half of the excursion.
Lunch was jerk chicken, fried fish, rice & peas, cole slaw & water/punch. They did have hot dogs & fries available as well.
When in Jamaica, one gets a Bob Marley shot while waiting for the bobsled.
We could have spent all day going on the the bobsleds. It was a blast.
Stay tuned for a future in-depth review of the Bobsled Jamaica and Dunn’s River Falls port adventure. Potentially, the video may be worth the wait. I will warn you now, if you book this port adventure, be prepared to receive no less than 688 notifications, alerts, wave phone texts, and papers delivered to your stateroom with various reminders, warnings, and random legal disclaimers, okay! (That last part needs to be read in the Pépe voice.)
A couple of last notes about the excursion; there are free restrooms at all of the stops. However, the trip is bookended by an hour drive as you must go from the port at Falmouth over to the the Ocho Rios port area.
I highly suggest encouraging everyone to take a restroom break before going to the designated meeting location. Additionally, you may want to bring some snacks, and something to keep the kids occupied during the drive if they are not interested in seeing the scenery along the way.
The day started early and the port adventure returned to Falmouth just after 3 o’clock giving us more than enough time to look around the port’s shopping area. We just walked around Margaritaville, but I like it so much better than the location in Grand Cayman.
The pool looked awesome and I could see myself hanging out there if we had more free time during a future stop in Jamaica. The key difference in the various Western Caribbean Margaritaville locations is the Falmouth location is just for cruise passengers, whereas the locations in Cozumel and Grand Cayman are open to everyone.
There isn’t much else to do around the port if you do not have an excursion booked. The port, at it’s core, is a secured shopping and to some extent entertainment district for the enjoyment of cruise passengers. Unlike other ports of call, there isn’t anything do or see in the nearby area unless you walk over to the Bend Down market on which is open on Wednesdays.
The port area is beautiful, but I struggled to capture a truly memorable photo of the Disney Fantasy that screams ‘this is Falmouth.’ The shops back up to the ships on either side and the security guard started to stare me down as I started to walk down the port access road to get an angle outside of the fence.
By this time of the day, I was not interested in having that conversation with port security that I’ve had one too many times in the past. To date, I’ve never had an issue once the found out what I was doing, well except in Naples, Italy, where security was implying they were going to confiscate my camera if I took another photo.
After walking around the port, we decided to just return to the Fantasy. It was still early so we were able to do another load of laundry before dinner.
Tonight was Pirate Night, the night Emily and I typically book adult dining, and Isabelle gets room service before heading off to the Club/Lab and/or EDGE. For literally the first time in forever, we went to the Pirate Night dinner and found the food to be pretty darn enjoyable, but we ordered from the smaller menu AKA the suggestions from Mario who has been spot on so far on which items to avoid.
The evening entertainment in the Walt Disney Theatre was Captain Marvel followed by the Pirate deck party and buffet. We were losing an hour of sleep tonight, so we opted for the 7:30 showing of Captain Marvel in the Buena Vista Theatre. I think by now, my love for the Disney Magic & Disney Wonder is public knowledge, but the one thing I love more about the Disney Dream & Disney Fantasy is the Buena Vista Theatre; it is so much more spacious. It’s like a Dolby Theatre seat compared to a 1980s theatre seat with negative leg room. Emily brought drinks from Bon Voyage and snacks from the Vista Cafe, which included parmesan cheese, crackers, grapes and veggies.
About 2 minutes after returning to the stateroom I was fast asleep; weird memory foam pillow and all.
Complete Trip Log Index
- Day 1 – Port Canaveral
- Day 2 – At Sea
- Day 3 – Cozumel
- Day 4 – Grand Cayman
- Day 5 – Falmouth
- Day 6 – At Sea
- Day 7 – Castaway Cay
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