Monthly Archives: January 2012

Disney imagineer Bob Zalk with a cartoon character drawn by his wife, Diane One of the unique features of a Disney cruise is that there are three main dining rooms which families eat in each night - taking table companions and waiters with them. Like Disney Dream, the new ship Disney Fantasy has an Enchanted Garden restaurant, inspired by the palace of Versailles. The elegant Royal Court restaurant, with detailed design touches that incorporate Cinderella's glass slipper and Snow White's magic mirror, is the equivalent of the sister ship's Royal Palace. On both ships, the third selection is Animator's Palate, [...]

Disney Fantasy is a sister for cruise ship Disney Dream, and there's little more than a year between them, so it would be reasonable to assume they are almost identical, right? Wrong. Seen from quayside, they might be almost indistinguishable - apart from the gold-embossed name on the side and the figure of Dumbo at the stern instead of Sorcerer Mickey Mouse. But inside there's a host of differences. Some were born out of the experience of what worked best on Dream and what wasn't quite perfect; others have been made to adapt the ship for longer cruises. It may [...]

Say hello to Disney Fantasy, inching out from a construction shed into a grey and chilly day at the Meyer-Werft yard in Germany. The new 130,000-ton cruise ship - a sister for Disney Dream - will be launched to an adoring public in a warmer and sunnier Florida at the end of March, but before then there are still thousands of man-hours of work needed to complete construction and fitting out. I'll be taking a look round the ship later this week. Fingers crossed, Disney will allow me to take some pictures for you as well. Top picture courtesy pazzoperilmare.com [...]

The distinct aroma of new carpets still hangs in the air on P&O cruise ship Oriana, back home briefly after its first cruise since the recent multi-million pound re-fit to adapt it to an adult-only vessel. The kids' club is gone, replaced by 27 new cabins, two of them dinky little singles at the stern. It was interesting to discover that not all the fittings from the club ended up in a skip at the Hamburg shipyard where Oriana's dry-dock refit took place; a few "heritage" items have been placed in storage, and some pieces of equipment have gone to [...]