Latte Lover
<font color=green> in charge of the credit cards a
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2003
- Messages
- 1,335
Friday 28th October 2011
Castaway Cay today!
By the time we got up, the ship had already docked. Tony and I had breakfast at topsiders and managed to get a table outside by the rail so we had a great view of the island.
We got ready to disembark and waited for the announcement, which came at about 9.20. We hurried down and met the others at our usual meeting place then made our way down to deck one to disembark. We walked past the first few tram stops so that we could take plenty of photos.
Nat and Joh waited with the children as the kids club didn’t open until 10am, while Tony and Gary and I hurriedly got the next tram to Serenity Bay, the adults-only beach. We wanted to make sure we got a hammock so we could take lots of the infamous hammocky photos. There were only three hammocks on the whole beach! The first one was taken so we trekked to the next one which was almost at the end of the beach. We must have looked quite funny marching determinedly down the sand, passing everyone else, but we got one!
The weather was perfect all morning; lovely and hot, with a beautiful blue sky and fabulously warm turquoise sea.
We took heaps of photos of us all sitting in the chairs at the water’s edge. Wendy and Richard joined us too and we all ordered delicious cocktails.
Today’s Drink of the Day was The Stinger which Joh and Nat had. Tony had a Conch Cooler then a Stinger and I had a virgin Pina Colada. Our cheerful server, Augustine, had to tramp the length of the beach several times for us.
The adult beach was quite busy (though definitely not over-crowded) as apparently there was a high percentage of adults on board.
We had lunch at the adult barbeque, which was very good and consisted of pork ribs, rib-eye steak, chicken, burgers, hot dogs, salads, breads, cookies, cakes, fruit and ice-cream.
After lunch, Joh and Gary went on a bar crawl with Wendy and Richard while Nat went to the teen beach to find Ellie. After collecting the boys from the kids’ club, it was off to the Conched Out bar to meet the rest of the Parley gang.
Tony and I had a look around the couple of shops as we had earlier spotted a few things we wanted to buy.
We found the island cat:
It had started to spit with rain by now, although it was still very hot, and quite a few people were making their way back to the ship. Reluctant to leave the island before we had to, and unsure whether or not the others were still at the bar or back on the ship, Tony and I settled on some loungers under a huge parasol on the family beach and read our books for a bit, before returning to the Magic around 4 pm.
When we got back to our room, we found our disembarkation documents and information waiting for us, which certainly brought us back down to earth with a bump – our cruise was almost over.
We packed our cases, completed our customs form and tidied up and then went up to deck 4 and booked our next cruise! It’s the perfect way to get over the end-of-cruise-blues! Joh had previously advised us of the benefits of booking while onboard - you get 10% off, you can change your cruise to another at any time and if you change your mind completely you can receive your whole deposit back. We booked a Western Caribbean cruise, but have since changed it to a Mediterranean one for August/September 2013. Joh and Gary also booked a Western Caribbean, which they have now moved to October 2013 to meet up with some of the other Parleyers.
As The Magic pulled away from Castaway Cay, we went up to Cove Cafe and bought some coffees and sat on deck for a while, before going back to our cabin to get ready for dinner.
Pre-dinner drinks:
Ellie looking all grown up and lovely:
Our final dinner was at Parrot Cay.
We had a lovely last meal.
The boys were excused dinner tonight as they wanted to say goodbye to all their new friends and get their “Friendship Rocks” t-shirts signed.
All the servers took part in a display at the end of our meal – the chefs came out with flaming Baked Alaskas and the servers paraded around the dining room carrying their national flags, singing “It’s a Small World “.
I haven’t really said much about our servers. They were both very nice people and it was lovely to get to know them, but to be honest, as servers they were a bit disorganised. They were sometimes late, brought us the wrong food and generally didn’t seem to have the skills we would have expected from Disney staff. One of them was brand new to serving though and the other was moving to Palo at the end of the cruise so perhaps that had a bearing on it, and probably if we hadn’t heard so much about how fabulous the servers are on Disney ships we wouldn’t have thought they were too bad. However, it was clear we weren’t the only ones who thought they weren’t up to standard as our corner of the dining room was noticeably quiet when it was time to cheer the servers for doing a great job.
After dinner, we quickly changed and put out dinner clothes in our cases, finished our last-minute packing and then left our cases outside the stateroom door to be collected, which has to be done by 10.30 pm (otherwise you have to carry them off of the ship yourself).
Tomorrow: Saying “goodbye” to The Disney Magic and our friends, and “hello” to The Beach Club for our final night in Orlando.
Castaway Cay today!
By the time we got up, the ship had already docked. Tony and I had breakfast at topsiders and managed to get a table outside by the rail so we had a great view of the island.
We got ready to disembark and waited for the announcement, which came at about 9.20. We hurried down and met the others at our usual meeting place then made our way down to deck one to disembark. We walked past the first few tram stops so that we could take plenty of photos.
Nat and Joh waited with the children as the kids club didn’t open until 10am, while Tony and Gary and I hurriedly got the next tram to Serenity Bay, the adults-only beach. We wanted to make sure we got a hammock so we could take lots of the infamous hammocky photos. There were only three hammocks on the whole beach! The first one was taken so we trekked to the next one which was almost at the end of the beach. We must have looked quite funny marching determinedly down the sand, passing everyone else, but we got one!
The weather was perfect all morning; lovely and hot, with a beautiful blue sky and fabulously warm turquoise sea.
We took heaps of photos of us all sitting in the chairs at the water’s edge. Wendy and Richard joined us too and we all ordered delicious cocktails.
Today’s Drink of the Day was The Stinger which Joh and Nat had. Tony had a Conch Cooler then a Stinger and I had a virgin Pina Colada. Our cheerful server, Augustine, had to tramp the length of the beach several times for us.
The adult beach was quite busy (though definitely not over-crowded) as apparently there was a high percentage of adults on board.
We had lunch at the adult barbeque, which was very good and consisted of pork ribs, rib-eye steak, chicken, burgers, hot dogs, salads, breads, cookies, cakes, fruit and ice-cream.
After lunch, Joh and Gary went on a bar crawl with Wendy and Richard while Nat went to the teen beach to find Ellie. After collecting the boys from the kids’ club, it was off to the Conched Out bar to meet the rest of the Parley gang.
Tony and I had a look around the couple of shops as we had earlier spotted a few things we wanted to buy.
We found the island cat:
It had started to spit with rain by now, although it was still very hot, and quite a few people were making their way back to the ship. Reluctant to leave the island before we had to, and unsure whether or not the others were still at the bar or back on the ship, Tony and I settled on some loungers under a huge parasol on the family beach and read our books for a bit, before returning to the Magic around 4 pm.
When we got back to our room, we found our disembarkation documents and information waiting for us, which certainly brought us back down to earth with a bump – our cruise was almost over.
We packed our cases, completed our customs form and tidied up and then went up to deck 4 and booked our next cruise! It’s the perfect way to get over the end-of-cruise-blues! Joh had previously advised us of the benefits of booking while onboard - you get 10% off, you can change your cruise to another at any time and if you change your mind completely you can receive your whole deposit back. We booked a Western Caribbean cruise, but have since changed it to a Mediterranean one for August/September 2013. Joh and Gary also booked a Western Caribbean, which they have now moved to October 2013 to meet up with some of the other Parleyers.
As The Magic pulled away from Castaway Cay, we went up to Cove Cafe and bought some coffees and sat on deck for a while, before going back to our cabin to get ready for dinner.
Pre-dinner drinks:
Ellie looking all grown up and lovely:
Our final dinner was at Parrot Cay.
We had a lovely last meal.
The boys were excused dinner tonight as they wanted to say goodbye to all their new friends and get their “Friendship Rocks” t-shirts signed.
All the servers took part in a display at the end of our meal – the chefs came out with flaming Baked Alaskas and the servers paraded around the dining room carrying their national flags, singing “It’s a Small World “.
I haven’t really said much about our servers. They were both very nice people and it was lovely to get to know them, but to be honest, as servers they were a bit disorganised. They were sometimes late, brought us the wrong food and generally didn’t seem to have the skills we would have expected from Disney staff. One of them was brand new to serving though and the other was moving to Palo at the end of the cruise so perhaps that had a bearing on it, and probably if we hadn’t heard so much about how fabulous the servers are on Disney ships we wouldn’t have thought they were too bad. However, it was clear we weren’t the only ones who thought they weren’t up to standard as our corner of the dining room was noticeably quiet when it was time to cheer the servers for doing a great job.
After dinner, we quickly changed and put out dinner clothes in our cases, finished our last-minute packing and then left our cases outside the stateroom door to be collected, which has to be done by 10.30 pm (otherwise you have to carry them off of the ship yourself).
Tomorrow: Saying “goodbye” to The Disney Magic and our friends, and “hello” to The Beach Club for our final night in Orlando.
and even better that you have booked another cruise! 
