Disney Fantasy Spain, Italy and France recap

Sharing a full recap of our cruise on the Disney Fantasty from Barcelona to Rome, Pisa (Florence), Genoa (Milan), Bandol (Provence) and back to Barcelona. This is Disney cruise #6 for us (gold, baby!) and was my favorite one so far. For Disney cruise tips and tricks, check out this post.

Hi friends! How are you? I hope that you’re having an amazing morning. We’re here in Sevilla having a great time with our friends and enjoying some chill time after our trip to Barcelona, epic Disney cruise through the Mediterranean, and time in Barcelona following the cruise. I hope that your summer is off to a wonderful start, too!

(Had to use Canva to remove a couple of people from the front of the pic. Kind of worked lol. Link to the dress is here!)

For today’s post, I wanted to share a recap of the cruise! You guys know we loooove Disney cruises – I never thought I’d be a cruise person in general, but here we are – and this was an itinerary I’ve wanted to do for years. I was a blitz through all of my favorite places (so far): Spain, Italty, and France. It was an absolute dream.

Disney Fantasy Spain, Italy and France recap

We booked this trip with some of our closest friends and cruise buddies – I think this was Disney cruise #17 for them. We planned this trip *hoping* the Pilot would be done with airline training – he had to complete training again when he retired from the military and went back to commercial – but unfortunately the timeline didn’t quite work out. Since he’d be gone anyway, we decided to stick with our plans and enjoy a girls’ trip. I think the girls will always remember this solo cruise trip with just the three of us plus some amazing friends.

Disney Fantasy verandah room

We got a verandah room and in the past, we haven’t taken advantage of it as much as we should. This time, I spent a lot of time on the verandah drinking coffee and reading, or late afternoon wine happy hour with Kathryn since their room was right next door.

It was spacious and lovely, and Disney bedding is just an A+ all around. It’s softer and more luxe than most hotel beds. (They use Frette linens, which we ended up buying after our first Disney cruise because we loved them so much.)

(peep the Canopy humidifier in the background – I never travel without it and my eyes and skin are so much happier)

Shows and entertainment

Disney provides incredible Broadway-quality shows and entertainment from musicians, comedians, deck parties with characters and dancers, and movies. During our cruise, they had three Broadway-style shows: Aladdin, Believe, and Frozen. P and I ended up ditching two of them so we could ride the water slide over and over – the pool is EMPTY during the shows and dinner time – but Frozen was incredible. It was the best Elsa I’d ever seen. She absolutely crushed it.

We also got to see the new Lilo and Stitch movie on board the date before it was officially released! We all loved it. It was heartfelt and funny, and I almost cried a few times.

Dining and eating gluten-free on a Disney cruise

From what I hear, Disney is one of the safest cruises if you have food allergies. They take them extremely seriously, and even if you have a sensitivity or intolerance vs an allergy, they treat it like an allergy. We did a gluten-free food tour in Barcelona, and a girl in our group that has Celiac told me that Disney cruises make her feel like she can eat anything she wants, which is a rare treat.

The gf chocolate walnut torte is my favorite Disney cruise dessert:

In the past, I’ve just navigated the menus on my own as they’re clearly marked with gluten-free options. Since P is gf now too, I told them that we both have gluten sensitvities (and was clear that we’re not allergic, mine is for health reasons and P has a severe sensitvity), they went above and beyond.

They had gluten-free WARM rolls at the table each night, and you would just pre-order each night for the following day. They can make any of the *regular* menu options gluten-free with the advance notice.

Kathryn and I had Palo one night and the salmon was perfection:

Indian food at Cabanas buffet is my favorite day:

We also got to have gluten-free Mickey waffles and churro waffles in the morning. Bless it.

Port adventures and excursions

I went a liiiiittle overzealous with the port adventures because they were such gorgeous locations. You can’t be in Pisa and not get off the boat, ya know? They were long excursions the first two days (around 10 hours) but the girls were troopers.

Here’s what we did:

Rome on your own

This was everything. You hopped on a bus for about a 2-hour ride to Rome, they dropped you off to enjoy your life for 5 hours, you ride the bus back.

By “enjoy your life,” for us this meant eating an epic Italian lunch and shopping the rest of the time.

The gluten-free pizza at La Soffitta Renovatio was everything I could have wished for.

We enjoyed the sights,  stopped for a late afternoon espresso and dessert, and we were very content.

Pisa and Florence with guided walking tour

We were able to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Cathedral, Baptistery and Camposanto. It was sprinkling a little, but still beautiful. It was also the same day as the Giro D’Italia time trial, so we were able to see the cyclists getting ready to begin.

After that, we went to Florence where we skipped the guided walking tour and opted for an entirely GF meal at Mama Eat, more shopping, visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce, and watching an opera street performance in the square.

Crispy bites with Nutella:

We HAVE to go back to Florence and explore more of Tuscany.

Genoa Aquarium

For Genoa, we opted for a shorter excursion to visit the aquarium, which was one of the most impressive aquariums that we’ve visited. Fun fact: they use water from the ocean that’s filtered and optimized for pH balance, so the fish have beautiful clean water each day. We all enjoyed this one; short and sweet.

Bandol on your own

For Bandol, we enjoyed a beach day in this quaint and lovely beach town. The girls had crepes, we grabbed snacks from a market, and we sat on beach towels while the girls collected seashells and played in the water.

On the ship, we did the usual shenanigans. The girls played the detective game,

we did family karaoke each night, a couple of trivia/games, Bingo, lounged at the pool, and enjoyed the fabulous dining and entertainment. We also had chill time in the room and I got in a few workouts at the gym.

Even though the cruise was 7 nights, it went by way too quickly!! We spent a few nights in Barcelona – I’ll have a post up with some Barcelona adventures soon- and then made our way down to Sevilla.

So, tell me, friends: are you a cruise person or not so much? We LOVE Disney cruises but haven’t tried any other cruise lines.

Hope you have an amazing day and I’ll see you soon!

xo

Gina

More:

Disney Wonder Baja cruise

Disney Magic Bahamas and Castaway Cay

Disney Wonder Alaska cruise

Disney Dream Italy and Greece Mediterranean cruise

Disney Wish Castaway Cay and Bahamas cruise