Enough chairs on Castaway Cay?

[AZlady]

sounds silly- but am I going to have a hard time getting 4 chairs w/ shade on Castaway Cay?
I want to do the 5k....should I send DH to grab chairs?
Or are there enough spots and we can take our time getting off the boat?
Thanks!

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

sounds silly- but am I going to have a hard time getting 4 chairs w/ shade on Castaway Cay?
I want to do the 5k....should I send DH to grab chairs?
Or are there enough spots and we can take our time getting off the boat?
Thanks!

Enough chairs yes there are, with shade, yea if you walk up the beach, but prime locations with the best shade do go.

You can take time getting of the ship and find somewhere but it may not be the most desirable location and you will have to walk up the beach.

 

[ajmomouse]

It also varies by ship size. If you are on the Wonder or Magic there are a lot less passengers, so you will not have an issue. Castaway feels almost empty. Definitely more challenging if you are on the Dream or Fantasy

 

[Trera]

It also varies by ship size. If you are on the Wonder or Magic there are a lot less passengers, so you will not have an issue. Castaway feels almost empty. Definitely more challenging if you are on the Dream or Fantasy

we have never been on a DCL cruise where castaway felt empty. Definitely the time we were on the Magic, there were less but we find the boat almost empties out and the beaches are busy.

 

[TheDisneyNurse]

I never had a problem finding chairs or a spot on the beach when I was on the Wonder or the Dream. You should have no problem at all

 

[DISNEYFAN3260]

Enough chairs yes there are, with shade, yea if you walk up the beach, but prime locations with the best shade do go.

You can take time getting of the ship and find somewhere but it may not be the most desirable location and you will have to walk up the beach.

In my experience on Fantasy and Dream during the summer, I agree. There are certainly plenty of chairs, but we usually find it challenging to find 4 or more that are shaded unless we walk far down the beach, which is totally fine with us anyway. So if you're really interested in a certain location I would send someone to get chairs. If you're happy anywhere then I wouldn't worry.

 

[Prose]

I've sailed on both the Wonder and the Fantasy, and have never had an issue finding chairs. We had a great spot last time - here's what I did.....take the tram all the way to the last stop (I think it's called Pelican Point). Walk forward toward the float rental shack. At that point, you can wither veer off to the left - there's a little spit of land that leads to the Heads Up Bar. There are lots of chairs under palm trees down there, and there's a great view of the ship. Alternately, you can keep walking ahead toward the Pelican Plunge beach in front of Cookies Too. If shade is important, I'd take the first option.

DH always does the 5K and I go out early to nab chairs. By the time he got back to the ship, showered, changed and headed back out, we would have lost some good beach time.

 

[Dug720]

we have never been on a DCL cruise where castaway felt empty. Definitely the time we were on the Magic, there were less but we find the boat almost empties out and the beaches are busy.

Ah the beauty of Serenity Bay! I've been three times - once in the middle of summer and twice over Presidents' Week - on the Dream and Fantasy. Ships were full all three times, but SB was never crowded!

 

[lisamarie12]

That was the thing I did not like about Castaway Cay, was that there were not enough chairs. Like at all, not just prime location chairs. I do not think it was that late when we got off the ship. We were in the last section right before the cabanas. I am not sure if there are more sections that we missed or what. We did finally find two chairs near each other.
I also was not that fond of the fact that the chairs were about 1 inch apart. There was a huge drop off (to me anyway) in the sand in front of the chair and no room on either side. It made getting in and out of the chair an adventure.

 

[jrabbit]

no problem on the family beach. And these don't include the section on the other side of Pelican Plunge. Serenity Bay is not as "crowded" as these pictures show. There are a lot of chairs and umbrellas --- just not right next to each other.

 

[Trera]

no problem on the family beach. And these don't include the section on the other side of Pelican Plunge. Serenity Bay is not as "crowded" as these pictures show. There are a lot of chairs and umbrellas --- just not right next to each other.
View attachment 99553 View attachment 99554 View attachment 99555

those pictures must have been taken fairly early in the day or the water was freezing because normally there are people lined up at the waters edge.

 

[AZlady]

Thanks for the help! Any "area" we want to stay clear of? Near the dining? or bathrooms? Serenity Bay sounds perfect....oops we have our kids (ages 12 & 15).
DH loves the beach and we are foregoing our favorite beach trip to do WDW, US & DCL....so I want to make this easy on him (as I go run the 5k)

 

[ellemenohpee]

I was on the Dream with a full sailing a few weeks ago. I went out and ran the 5K, while the rest of the family had breakfast. DH and DS7 went ahead and got 4-5 lounge chairs with umbrellas over by Pelican Plunge, probably around 9:30/9:45. As I was walking back to the ship to shower, there were still lots of open seats, and even when I returned to the island and was making my way over to find them, there were still some open umbrellas with chairs.

Since DS wasn't interested in Pelican Plunge, I would have liked to be closer to the first beach - I felt like all I did that day was walk and run. However, we were close to a bar and Cookie's Too, so that was ok.

 

[AZlady]

Anyone have a "map" of the beach area....ship, bar, kids area is.....THANKS!!

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

We've been on the family beach (once on the Dream and once on Fantasy) and both times there were tons of empty chairs, all day. We went in January so maybe that's why

 

[JMHDisney]

I went in April this year on the Magic and there were TONS of open chairs. No problem getting a hammock or anything else at the first beach. We didn't have chairs in the shade of trees (nor did we look for them), but we had umbrellas. I was surprised by how not crowded Castaway Cay felt. It kind of makes me want to only go there on the smaller ships!

 

[lisamarie12]

I wish CC was like the above pictures when we were there a few weeks ago on Fantasy. There were no unclaimed chairs and there were lots of people in the water. As in it was hard to do much floating on the mat we rented, because of the volume of people. And I know we were in that same general area, because I saw the same water slide/playground. Frankly, the amount of people and difficulty I had getting in and out of the chairs, I did not enjoy CC all that much and it was one of the main reasons I wanted to sail Disney. I had issues with the chairs since I did not want to step directly down, due to the foot or so drop off and because I could not enter from the side. So I basically had to straddle the chair and climb over the front. Not fun for this out of shape (newly) 40 year old woman with bad knees.

 

[ptcbass]

We go down near the snorkel area and always get chairs. Now to get the ones on the front row you might need to get their early. We have also cruised on the Dream and Fantasy and still no problems. There are 3 of us and a few weeks ago on the Fantasy there were empty chairs all around us and we were using 3 loungers and 2 regular chairs. I would never have taken that many if they were in short supply but that cruise it wasn't a problem at all.

 

[jrabbit]

those pictures must have been taken fairly early in the day or the water was freezing because normally there are people lined up at the waters edge.

or actually late in the afternoon. That's when they "take down" the umbrellas. AND more importantly ... I think these were taken on a Panama Canal cruise in May. less than 200 kids on board and all of the adults (1700) went over to serenity bay and it was packed ... so we came back to the empty family beach.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

In my experience on Fantasy and Dream during the summer, I agree. There are certainly plenty of chairs, but we usually find it challenging to find 4 or more that are shaded unless we walk far down the beach, which is totally fine with us anyway. So if you're really interested in a certain location I would send someone to get chairs. If you're happy anywhere then I wouldn't worry.

Yes agree.