greensombrero
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
Merlin had it right in Sword in the Stone, Bermuda is a great place to visit!
Just got off the 6 night NYC to Bermuda sailing which means its trip report time. This was quite possibly our favorite cruise yet and a top contender for best vacation ever. Why write another trip report? Well I have a few goals for this one:
For this trip my sister joined us with her husband and two boys 10 & 5. She also loves to travel and they've done a fair amount as a family but aren't big Disney vacationers. They only visited Disneyland for the first time as a family about a year ago and other than a Carnival cruise right after they were married they haven't cruised. However they've seen how much we love it and they were interested in cruising with us.
At the time those discussions first started we had our spring break cruise on the Wonder planned and had also booked a 4 night on the Magic out of San Diego for fall break. I was originally super excited to try the Magic on the West coast. However as we talked she really wasn't interested in a Baja Mexico cruise because that was where they went with Carnival and they wanted to go somewhere new. I started wondering if I really wanted my next two cruises to go to the same spots. I love sailing from San Diego but have to admit Mexico isn't the most exciting destination though we did end up loving our excursions on our spring break cruise. We didn't know that though at the time.
Well I made the "mistake" of looking again at itineraries over our kid's fall break. I knew we didn't want to sail out of Florida again and wondered what else might be available. That's when I noticed a 6 night from NYC to Bermuda. I've always thought sailing into/out of New York harbor would be epic and I'd never been to New York City. Bermuda sounded like a cool destination especially the idea of an overnight in port and 3 days to explore an island. This was after our 2022 fall break cruise so we had a placeholder. I realized using it and switching to this itinerary instead of the Magic from San Diego wouldn't require much more of deposit. So I quizzed the family. They all loved the idea of visiting NYC and Bermuda so we did it. I wasn't sure if my sister would join us at that point but she did end up deciding to.
Our first time on the Dream was a 3 night and at that point we weren't sure we liked the bigger ships. We loved our 7 night on the Fantasy though and so I was excited about giving the Dream another try with more time to get to know the ship. We decided to book the same connecting rooms we had on the Fantasy, deck 8 midship verandah, 8080 and 8078 because we loved the location and the ships are so similar.
My sister though decided to try an ocean view on deck 2 both to save some money and she gets quite motion sick and thought a lower deck may help. We've sailed both with and without a verandah and are happy either way. For this one we thought we might enjoy the verandah and did though spoiler our next cruise we are back to ocean view. My opinion is either can be an enjoyable cruise and my sister was happy with her room as were we with ours.
With that background I thought I'd do a couple planning posts for those interested, one on NYC and one on Bermuda. I'll separate them so you can skip if you aren't interested and jump right into the trip. With that in mind here is an outline for this trip report.
Itinerary
Planning for New York
Planning for Bermuda
October 20th - NYC Travel Day
October 21st - NYC Embarkation
October 22nd - At Sea
October 23rd - Bermuda, Saint George & Hamilton
October 24th - Bermuda, Horsehoe Bay Beach Day
October 25th -Bermuda, Running from Tammy, Enjoying the Spa at Sea
October 26th - At Sea
October 27th - NYC Disembarkation, Intrepid Museum, Top of the Rock
October 28th - NYC Empire State Building, Wicked on Broadway
October 29th - NYC 9/11 Memorial, Natural History Museum
October 30th - Heading Home
Just got off the 6 night NYC to Bermuda sailing which means its trip report time. This was quite possibly our favorite cruise yet and a top contender for best vacation ever. Why write another trip report? Well I have a few goals for this one:
- Talk about exploring Bermuda on our own. There aren't many TRs about Bermuda and the ones I've seen don't talk a lot about exploring the island. We had a great time doing so and thought I'd share what we did and how it went.
- My sister joined us for this sailing, her first on Disney and first cruise with her kids. It was my first time sailing with extended family and sailing with a first timer. After 6 cruises it is easy to forget things that a first timer would want to know. Hopefully I can share a few I observed along with what I learned sailing with another family, it was a lot of fun.
- I haven't read a lot about sailing out of NYC. While Disney isn't in 2024 they may again and there are other cruise lines. So I'll share what I learned about sailing from and visiting NYC for the first time.
- Finally writing a trip report is good post cruise therapy for me since I have a long wait until our next one.
For this trip my sister joined us with her husband and two boys 10 & 5. She also loves to travel and they've done a fair amount as a family but aren't big Disney vacationers. They only visited Disneyland for the first time as a family about a year ago and other than a Carnival cruise right after they were married they haven't cruised. However they've seen how much we love it and they were interested in cruising with us.
At the time those discussions first started we had our spring break cruise on the Wonder planned and had also booked a 4 night on the Magic out of San Diego for fall break. I was originally super excited to try the Magic on the West coast. However as we talked she really wasn't interested in a Baja Mexico cruise because that was where they went with Carnival and they wanted to go somewhere new. I started wondering if I really wanted my next two cruises to go to the same spots. I love sailing from San Diego but have to admit Mexico isn't the most exciting destination though we did end up loving our excursions on our spring break cruise. We didn't know that though at the time.
Well I made the "mistake" of looking again at itineraries over our kid's fall break. I knew we didn't want to sail out of Florida again and wondered what else might be available. That's when I noticed a 6 night from NYC to Bermuda. I've always thought sailing into/out of New York harbor would be epic and I'd never been to New York City. Bermuda sounded like a cool destination especially the idea of an overnight in port and 3 days to explore an island. This was after our 2022 fall break cruise so we had a placeholder. I realized using it and switching to this itinerary instead of the Magic from San Diego wouldn't require much more of deposit. So I quizzed the family. They all loved the idea of visiting NYC and Bermuda so we did it. I wasn't sure if my sister would join us at that point but she did end up deciding to.
Our first time on the Dream was a 3 night and at that point we weren't sure we liked the bigger ships. We loved our 7 night on the Fantasy though and so I was excited about giving the Dream another try with more time to get to know the ship. We decided to book the same connecting rooms we had on the Fantasy, deck 8 midship verandah, 8080 and 8078 because we loved the location and the ships are so similar.
My sister though decided to try an ocean view on deck 2 both to save some money and she gets quite motion sick and thought a lower deck may help. We've sailed both with and without a verandah and are happy either way. For this one we thought we might enjoy the verandah and did though spoiler our next cruise we are back to ocean view. My opinion is either can be an enjoyable cruise and my sister was happy with her room as were we with ours.
With that background I thought I'd do a couple planning posts for those interested, one on NYC and one on Bermuda. I'll separate them so you can skip if you aren't interested and jump right into the trip. With that in mind here is an outline for this trip report.
Itinerary
Planning for New York
Planning for Bermuda
October 20th - NYC Travel Day
October 21st - NYC Embarkation
October 22nd - At Sea
October 23rd - Bermuda, Saint George & Hamilton
October 24th - Bermuda, Horsehoe Bay Beach Day
October 25th -
October 26th - At Sea
October 27th - NYC Disembarkation, Intrepid Museum, Top of the Rock
October 28th - NYC Empire State Building, Wicked on Broadway
October 29th - NYC 9/11 Memorial, Natural History Museum
October 30th - Heading Home
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