Date of Visit:
September 27-October 4, 2014
This was our fourth Disney Cruise and our first on one of
the newer ships. We enjoyed the back of the ship on our first cruise and have
stuck with it ever since. To some extent the older ships are nicer because they
are smaller; but accessibility wise the Fantasy is much better than when we
have been on the Magic and Wonder (Magic is probably nicer now than when we
were last on it, though).
The common area accessibility is not much different overall
other than the bathrooms tend to have accessible stalls rather than companion
ones. However, the stateroom has many nice accessibility touches that make a
huge difference.
First off, when you use your key to open the door the door
automatically opens. Inside there is also a button to open it or you can just
start pulling it open and it activates the power opening. It’s a little slow to
wait and make sure it closes before you leave; but definitely a helpful feature
that I now want on our condo door.
The room is very spacious, but Mik was disappointed the
space is in the stateroom rather than having a giant walk-in closet like he was
used to on the other ships. He liked using the walk-in closest as a room.
The closet itself is cool, though, as it is designed so you
can pull the top row of hangers out and down.
The verandah was nice and huge. We also liked that it was a
regular style door rather than a sliding door. That makes it more accessible
for getting in and out. The only issue is that the door seemed to tend to open
on its own if you did not get it pulled closed just right and the lock is up
high. I get that for child safety reasons; but it would be nice if they put an
upper and lower lock so you could use just the lower one if you don’t need it
for child safety reasons.
The bathroom is nothing special. In fact, it kind of seems
smaller than the ones we have had on the Wonder and Magic. However, the layout
does work out to be easier to navigate when we did want to take the wheelchair
in there. Also, the shower is nice with a flip down grab bar as well as a flip
down seat.
We still wish they had the flip down bar right by the toilet
like we once had on the Wonder. While there is a grab bar on the wall to the
right of toilet, it is not all that close to toilet and for Mik it’s nice to
have something on both sides or at least on the left.
Two other things we noticed different is that there were
constellations painted above the bed that comes out from the ceiling and there
is space under the bed for storing stuff (or in Mik’s case it’s for hiding
Dad’s shoes).
