pooh_mania
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2003
- Messages
- 183
Day 7 Friday, April 11, 2008- Castaway Cay
We started our day with breakfast in Lumieres. I was a little happier with the breakfast this time. I dont know if it had anything to do with filling up on 3 Danishes before my actual healthy breakfast arrived. DD7 ordered the peanut butter and jelly crepe. Honestly, to me that sounds less than appealing, but she really enjoyed it. She says it was like a PB&J pancake. She is a PB&J addict, so I am glad she was happy. Too bad we didnt order it earlier in the week. DS6 opted for the Beasts Secret Tower (French toast and grilled pineapple). It looked quite good, but he wasnt overly excited about it. He can be hit or miss at times with food, and he tends to be a more meat and potatoes kind of eater. One day hell eat anything in sight and claim it is the yummiest food hes ever eaten, and the next day hell be finicky. Theres no rhyme or reason, but I guess thats just life with young kids. When we werent limited on time, I preferred to eat in the dining rooms for breakfast and lunch. As we were enjoying our breakfast, we could see our approach into Castaway Cay.
The weather looked beautiful and we were excited for a relaxing day at the beach. We had our beach bags packed, sunscreen applied and it was time to disembark. As we were walking towards the family beach we had photo ops with Pluto and Minnie. It was nice to get these photos taken before we were all soggy and wet from the beach! It is worth mentioning again that I have a very understanding family when it comes to getting my pictures taken!! After we found a spot on the family beach, I made everyone pose for a variety of photos near the float rental area. The Disney Magic makes a picture perfect background! We even met a family who had packed their Santa hats and asked us to take a family photo of them for their Christmas cards! What a great idea and I was bummed that I hadnt thought of the idea myself.
After taking the photos, we were ready for some snorkeling. We had all of our own gear (except fins), so we headed straight in to snorkel. The water was warm and calm, but there really wasnt much to see on this particular day. We snorkeled all the way to the various buried treasures but we only saw a few fish. This is a great place for a new beginner to learn snorkeling. After an hour we decided to head back to shore which took a long time to swim back in without fins! DH had DS6 to tug back in and I had DD7 to tug back to shore. Our legs sure did get a good workout! I think next time we will pack our fins.
After all that swimming we decided we should check out She Sells Sea Shells gift shop for the Castaway Cay souvenirs. I had read on DIS that occasionally things will sell out, so go early for best selection. I didnt want to be disappointed, so we shopped early. We each picked out a t-shirt, swiped our KTTW card and asked for package delivery. They took our purchase and delivered it to the Up Beat duty-free shop on-board for us to pick up later. I was very glad we did that because we did get caught in a brief (but heavy) rain shower later in the afternoon.
While we were up at the shop we noticed that Mickey Mouse was just hanging out all by himself!
So of course we hopped over for a quick encounter and photo. Goofy and Max were also in the area and we were able to get their photo too. I was really surprised that the lines for the characters on Castaway Cay were incredibly short!!
At this point the troops were hungry, so we headed up to Cookies BBQ. This was some of the best food we ate all week. It tasted fresh and good! (Or maybe it was that we were starving after our long swim back from snorkeling.) The fresh fruit cart was serving strawberries, apples, watermelon, cantaloupe, bananas, grapes and mango. The kids loved all the fresh fruit. I personally preferred the chocolate chip cookies!! There was a frozen yogurt machine but we did not try that. There is a beverage station on Castaway Cay just like on deck 9. This was great. I had brought 2 of our refillable bottles and that was great to fill up and take down to the beach.
During lunch there were live crab races. The kids really enjoyed watching that and cheering for their favorite crab. Its funny how I wouldnt have given that any attention if I was alone, but kids put a whole new perspective on things. Even later that night the kids were talking about the live crab races. It taught me to enjoy the small things in life!
After lunch we headed back down to the family beach which was in full swing! It was very crowded in the water and on the waters edge, but there were plenty of beach chairs and umbrellas to be found. We brought our own dollar store floats for the kids, which was just fine for them. I had also brought 2 cheap sand bucket toys sets. I knew that I wouldnt mind leaving the stuff behind if the luggage got too heavy. The kids really enjoyed playing in the sand, and I was glad to not overpay for sand toys. It was a very relaxing, enjoyable afternoon. We didnt go snorkeling again because there wasnt much to see and my legs were still tired from the morning outing!
Around 2:30 the kids were getting pretty tired so we packed up. By good luck we had just finished packing up and started walking when the rain shower started. It rained quite hard, but only for 5-10 minutes. We waited for the rain to lighten up before we walked back to the ship. It was such a nice, slow pace, relaxed day. We never made it over to the adult only beach area, but thats okay. We were having too much fun as a family to split up. Maybe on another trip Ill have the pleasure of checking out more of Castaway Cay.
Once we were back on-board we showered and put the kids to nap. We pulled out the suitcases and started to pack up. I really couldnt believe that our 7-night cruise was almost over! Where had the time gone? But that is when I look back at all the hundreds of photos that I took throughout the week and realize that we did a lot of fun things and have created many special memories for our family. I think the kids loved getting to spend time with Mommy and Daddy when we werent trying to do 10 other things all at the same time.
It was just quality family time. We were able to enjoy the special moments instead of racing off to this practice or that game or another obligation.
The final dinner was Til We Meet Again menu. Again, I apologize for not recalling the details of dinner. I do know that it was a little bit slow since theres a brief show with the servers participating. After the kids finished their dinner, they decided to skip dessert so that they could run up to the club for the Hats Off to Peter Pan activity. They really enjoyed that activity and talk about how they got to play with Peter Pan. DH and I enjoyed one last adult only dinner and conversation. After dinner we collected the kids and headed to the Remember the Magic A Final Farewell show. The show with the Disney Magic performers was really well done! It really captured the essence and feeling we all had of celebrating our wonderful week and taking that feeling with us forever. There were also performances by juggler Jeff Civilico and stand-up comedian Rik Roberts. The juggler was really impressive and had some funny physical comedy too. The stand-up comedian was (IMHO) not funny at all. I could see that he was probably a very funny comedian for an adult only audience, but his jokes were not at all funny to most of the kids in the audience. (Really, I am not sure that there are many stand-up comedians who could have a funny show that appeals to both kids and adults.) At one point, he even accidently used profanity in his punch line.
I was really shocked, especially when my DD7 turns to me and asks, What does that mean? Although I wasnt thrilled with the comedian on the final night, the rest of the evening shows were absolutely fantastic!!!! It reminded me of one reason why we paid the extra money to cruise with Disney, instead of another cruise line. I have been on another cruise line where the evening show is completely inappropriate for children, and therefore we missed the show every night.
After the show is was bedtime for the kiddos. DH and I did the final packing and putting our bags out in the hall. DH was surprised that I had brought pre-printed address labels for the luggage tags. He shouldnt have been surprised by that point, after seeing how much research I had done and how many great tips I had learned from the DIS boards already. Tip: One thing I forgot to bring, some crazy ribbon to tie on the handles of all my luggage. When we arrived back at Port Canaveral, one of the porters was helping us collect our luggage. It would have been easier for a stranger to pick out our 5 bags if I would have put some unique ribbon on each of my bags. Even without the ribbon, the porter was glad that I had the pre-printed luggage tag labels because he just looked for those instead.
The kids were asleep; DH was finishing his book, so I decided to head down to the lobby for the Til We Meet Again informal character greeting. Somehow seeing those characters turns a quiet, serious, mature adult into a little kid at heart who believes in the magic!!
I decided to get my photo taken with Chip and Dale, Mickey and Minnie. My kids were so surprised when I showed them the photos the next day. They couldnt understand why Mom would want a picture with the characters! DH knows me well enough to know that I would have taken more character photos if there was more time! I am the same woman who insisted on a character lunch at Crystal Palace with Pooh and Friends on my very first trip to WDW at age 24!
Our final morning breakfast was scheduled at 6:30AM. I am not a morning person, but we were all up and ready in time for breakfast anyway. So we headed to Parrot Cay for our last breakfast. We finished around 7:30 and headed for the lobby on deck 3. There was already a line formed of people ready to disembark. I am not sure what the delay was, but the doors did not open until 7:45. We walked off the ship, found a porter to help collect our luggage and zipped through customs in a grand total of 5 minutes. The Radisson had a specific curbside line marked for anyone waiting for their shuttle back to the hotel for their car. The shuttle arrived within a few minutes and we were taken back to the Radisson. After a quick restroom break for the family, we were on the highway headed for home by 8 AM. This was only my 3rd cruise, but the disembarkation was by far the fastest and easiest of all. I am not sure what the difference was, but it was nice! We could have made it to WDW by 9 AM easily, but sadly we were headed straight home instead.
Some of my favorite moments:
Driving to the pier and seeing the HUGE Disney Magic in port and hearing the kids squeal with excitement when they asked, Is THAT where we get to live for the week? We get to stay on Mickeys boat?
Walking into an empty port because we were the very first family to check-in!
First stepping aboard the Disney Magic and taking it all in
DD7 losing her 8th tooth on April 8th. She received a Special Moment certificate from Mickey to commemorate the event.
Disney Dreams show
Stingray City in Grand Cayman
Goofy helping adjust DS6s tuxedo bow tie
Sunset every night at sea
The expressions on my kids faces during all the magical shows!
Relaxing on the loungers in Quiet Cove with DH
Rebooking a future cruise, date to be determined (the anticipation is half the fun!)
I have finally finished this trip report/book! Hopefully it will be of some interest or help to future cruisers. If nothing else, it will be a nice journal for me to remember all the great things on our cruise. Thanks to anyone who stayed around to read the whole thing (all 12,571 words
!!)
Happy Cruising to All!
We started our day with breakfast in Lumieres. I was a little happier with the breakfast this time. I dont know if it had anything to do with filling up on 3 Danishes before my actual healthy breakfast arrived. DD7 ordered the peanut butter and jelly crepe. Honestly, to me that sounds less than appealing, but she really enjoyed it. She says it was like a PB&J pancake. She is a PB&J addict, so I am glad she was happy. Too bad we didnt order it earlier in the week. DS6 opted for the Beasts Secret Tower (French toast and grilled pineapple). It looked quite good, but he wasnt overly excited about it. He can be hit or miss at times with food, and he tends to be a more meat and potatoes kind of eater. One day hell eat anything in sight and claim it is the yummiest food hes ever eaten, and the next day hell be finicky. Theres no rhyme or reason, but I guess thats just life with young kids. When we werent limited on time, I preferred to eat in the dining rooms for breakfast and lunch. As we were enjoying our breakfast, we could see our approach into Castaway Cay.
The weather looked beautiful and we were excited for a relaxing day at the beach. We had our beach bags packed, sunscreen applied and it was time to disembark. As we were walking towards the family beach we had photo ops with Pluto and Minnie. It was nice to get these photos taken before we were all soggy and wet from the beach! It is worth mentioning again that I have a very understanding family when it comes to getting my pictures taken!! After we found a spot on the family beach, I made everyone pose for a variety of photos near the float rental area. The Disney Magic makes a picture perfect background! We even met a family who had packed their Santa hats and asked us to take a family photo of them for their Christmas cards! What a great idea and I was bummed that I hadnt thought of the idea myself.
After taking the photos, we were ready for some snorkeling. We had all of our own gear (except fins), so we headed straight in to snorkel. The water was warm and calm, but there really wasnt much to see on this particular day. We snorkeled all the way to the various buried treasures but we only saw a few fish. This is a great place for a new beginner to learn snorkeling. After an hour we decided to head back to shore which took a long time to swim back in without fins! DH had DS6 to tug back in and I had DD7 to tug back to shore. Our legs sure did get a good workout! I think next time we will pack our fins.
After all that swimming we decided we should check out She Sells Sea Shells gift shop for the Castaway Cay souvenirs. I had read on DIS that occasionally things will sell out, so go early for best selection. I didnt want to be disappointed, so we shopped early. We each picked out a t-shirt, swiped our KTTW card and asked for package delivery. They took our purchase and delivered it to the Up Beat duty-free shop on-board for us to pick up later. I was very glad we did that because we did get caught in a brief (but heavy) rain shower later in the afternoon.
While we were up at the shop we noticed that Mickey Mouse was just hanging out all by himself!
So of course we hopped over for a quick encounter and photo. Goofy and Max were also in the area and we were able to get their photo too. I was really surprised that the lines for the characters on Castaway Cay were incredibly short!! At this point the troops were hungry, so we headed up to Cookies BBQ. This was some of the best food we ate all week. It tasted fresh and good! (Or maybe it was that we were starving after our long swim back from snorkeling.) The fresh fruit cart was serving strawberries, apples, watermelon, cantaloupe, bananas, grapes and mango. The kids loved all the fresh fruit. I personally preferred the chocolate chip cookies!! There was a frozen yogurt machine but we did not try that. There is a beverage station on Castaway Cay just like on deck 9. This was great. I had brought 2 of our refillable bottles and that was great to fill up and take down to the beach.
During lunch there were live crab races. The kids really enjoyed watching that and cheering for their favorite crab. Its funny how I wouldnt have given that any attention if I was alone, but kids put a whole new perspective on things. Even later that night the kids were talking about the live crab races. It taught me to enjoy the small things in life!
After lunch we headed back down to the family beach which was in full swing! It was very crowded in the water and on the waters edge, but there were plenty of beach chairs and umbrellas to be found. We brought our own dollar store floats for the kids, which was just fine for them. I had also brought 2 cheap sand bucket toys sets. I knew that I wouldnt mind leaving the stuff behind if the luggage got too heavy. The kids really enjoyed playing in the sand, and I was glad to not overpay for sand toys. It was a very relaxing, enjoyable afternoon. We didnt go snorkeling again because there wasnt much to see and my legs were still tired from the morning outing!
Around 2:30 the kids were getting pretty tired so we packed up. By good luck we had just finished packing up and started walking when the rain shower started. It rained quite hard, but only for 5-10 minutes. We waited for the rain to lighten up before we walked back to the ship. It was such a nice, slow pace, relaxed day. We never made it over to the adult only beach area, but thats okay. We were having too much fun as a family to split up. Maybe on another trip Ill have the pleasure of checking out more of Castaway Cay.
Once we were back on-board we showered and put the kids to nap. We pulled out the suitcases and started to pack up. I really couldnt believe that our 7-night cruise was almost over! Where had the time gone? But that is when I look back at all the hundreds of photos that I took throughout the week and realize that we did a lot of fun things and have created many special memories for our family. I think the kids loved getting to spend time with Mommy and Daddy when we werent trying to do 10 other things all at the same time.
It was just quality family time. We were able to enjoy the special moments instead of racing off to this practice or that game or another obligation.The final dinner was Til We Meet Again menu. Again, I apologize for not recalling the details of dinner. I do know that it was a little bit slow since theres a brief show with the servers participating. After the kids finished their dinner, they decided to skip dessert so that they could run up to the club for the Hats Off to Peter Pan activity. They really enjoyed that activity and talk about how they got to play with Peter Pan. DH and I enjoyed one last adult only dinner and conversation. After dinner we collected the kids and headed to the Remember the Magic A Final Farewell show. The show with the Disney Magic performers was really well done! It really captured the essence and feeling we all had of celebrating our wonderful week and taking that feeling with us forever. There were also performances by juggler Jeff Civilico and stand-up comedian Rik Roberts. The juggler was really impressive and had some funny physical comedy too. The stand-up comedian was (IMHO) not funny at all. I could see that he was probably a very funny comedian for an adult only audience, but his jokes were not at all funny to most of the kids in the audience. (Really, I am not sure that there are many stand-up comedians who could have a funny show that appeals to both kids and adults.) At one point, he even accidently used profanity in his punch line.
I was really shocked, especially when my DD7 turns to me and asks, What does that mean? Although I wasnt thrilled with the comedian on the final night, the rest of the evening shows were absolutely fantastic!!!! It reminded me of one reason why we paid the extra money to cruise with Disney, instead of another cruise line. I have been on another cruise line where the evening show is completely inappropriate for children, and therefore we missed the show every night.After the show is was bedtime for the kiddos. DH and I did the final packing and putting our bags out in the hall. DH was surprised that I had brought pre-printed address labels for the luggage tags. He shouldnt have been surprised by that point, after seeing how much research I had done and how many great tips I had learned from the DIS boards already. Tip: One thing I forgot to bring, some crazy ribbon to tie on the handles of all my luggage. When we arrived back at Port Canaveral, one of the porters was helping us collect our luggage. It would have been easier for a stranger to pick out our 5 bags if I would have put some unique ribbon on each of my bags. Even without the ribbon, the porter was glad that I had the pre-printed luggage tag labels because he just looked for those instead.
The kids were asleep; DH was finishing his book, so I decided to head down to the lobby for the Til We Meet Again informal character greeting. Somehow seeing those characters turns a quiet, serious, mature adult into a little kid at heart who believes in the magic!!
I decided to get my photo taken with Chip and Dale, Mickey and Minnie. My kids were so surprised when I showed them the photos the next day. They couldnt understand why Mom would want a picture with the characters! DH knows me well enough to know that I would have taken more character photos if there was more time! I am the same woman who insisted on a character lunch at Crystal Palace with Pooh and Friends on my very first trip to WDW at age 24!Our final morning breakfast was scheduled at 6:30AM. I am not a morning person, but we were all up and ready in time for breakfast anyway. So we headed to Parrot Cay for our last breakfast. We finished around 7:30 and headed for the lobby on deck 3. There was already a line formed of people ready to disembark. I am not sure what the delay was, but the doors did not open until 7:45. We walked off the ship, found a porter to help collect our luggage and zipped through customs in a grand total of 5 minutes. The Radisson had a specific curbside line marked for anyone waiting for their shuttle back to the hotel for their car. The shuttle arrived within a few minutes and we were taken back to the Radisson. After a quick restroom break for the family, we were on the highway headed for home by 8 AM. This was only my 3rd cruise, but the disembarkation was by far the fastest and easiest of all. I am not sure what the difference was, but it was nice! We could have made it to WDW by 9 AM easily, but sadly we were headed straight home instead.
Some of my favorite moments:
Driving to the pier and seeing the HUGE Disney Magic in port and hearing the kids squeal with excitement when they asked, Is THAT where we get to live for the week? We get to stay on Mickeys boat?
Walking into an empty port because we were the very first family to check-in!
First stepping aboard the Disney Magic and taking it all in
DD7 losing her 8th tooth on April 8th. She received a Special Moment certificate from Mickey to commemorate the event.
Disney Dreams show
Stingray City in Grand Cayman
Goofy helping adjust DS6s tuxedo bow tie
Sunset every night at sea
The expressions on my kids faces during all the magical shows!
Relaxing on the loungers in Quiet Cove with DH
Rebooking a future cruise, date to be determined (the anticipation is half the fun!)
I have finally finished this trip report/book! Hopefully it will be of some interest or help to future cruisers. If nothing else, it will be a nice journal for me to remember all the great things on our cruise. Thanks to anyone who stayed around to read the whole thing (all 12,571 words
!!)Happy Cruising to All!
