Get Off The Ship - we are running out of towel animals! Update 10/25 Day 31

[MEK]

Food calendar[/URL]​

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I didn't notice that when I was there. Cute little detail.

I got such a kick out of seeing Captain Jack on the beach. I totally didn't expect that.

That Konk cooler looks yummy. I feel like Denny tried one of them while I had a beer.

The water looks beautiful. The first day we were there it was actually so rough that a lot of activities were canceled.​

 

[mumto2]

Thank you for following along.
Yeah for getting to the Future Cruise desk and getting your next cruise in place. Which Western Caribbean sailing will you be on?[/QUOTE]

We will just miss you. Because of school schedules, we are on the 8/8 sailing. My kids start school the following Monday. Talk about harsh reality...

 

[englishrose47]

Oh you had to show the eggs benedict soooo yummy !!!We saw Capt Jack also and had some pix taken with him!!!

 

[dizneeat]

I didn't notice that when I was there. Cute little detail.

There are so many fun details to discover - I tell you it takes you more than one visit.

I got such a kick out of seeing Captain Jack on the beach. I totally didn't expect that.

It is so fun to see how excited even all the grown ups get seeing him walk the beach.
But I was totally surprised the first time around too.

That Konk cooler looks yummy. I feel like Denny tried one of them while I had a beer.

It's my favourite Castaway Cay drink! So yummy!

The water looks beautiful. The first day we were there it was actually so rough that a lot of activities were canceled.

It's such a shame when they have to do that. Was there a storm before you called at CC or was it just a "bad weather day"?

We will just miss you. Because of school schedules, we are on the 8/8 sailing. My kids start school the following Monday. Talk about harsh reality...

Wow! You go back to school early.
We will just arrive when you get off the ship.

Oh you had to show the eggs benedict soooo yummy !!!We saw Capt Jack also and had some pix taken with him!!!

Rosie!!!!!!!!!
You are back!!!!!!!!
Any Eggs Benedict is shown in your honour!
Captain Jack walking the adult beach is just so funny. To see people getting all excited and pointing him out to others is so fun to watch.

 

[dizneeat]

Day 17, August 23

Another day at Castaway Cay - Part 3

We had thought about walking back, but our Cabana host had seen us and drove his golf cart right over to drive us.
Okay, saves some walking. Back at the Cabana we digested for a bit, but the ocean was soon calling our name again. So we changed into our swimsuits again and headed right back into the ocean again.



Low tide had set in and the water was very shallow, so we just floated around for a bit before we headed out to our favourite bank in the ocean, sat down and enjoyed the sun on our backs and the view of the beach.





We sat, picked up a shell or two and threw it back in,















when we suddenly noticed something going on in our Cabana. There were people in there.

How could they??

But wait, one of them looks like our Cabana host and the other two.... Well, we could not make it out correctly, but they looked like Laura and Richard. We quickly stood up and headed towards the beach, waving until they had noticed us and made our way back to the Cabana. When we finally arrived back there we quickly showered, the Cabana host was waiting with fresh towels and we wrapped ourselves in those. When he asked if he should bring something to drink, we all thanked him, as our fridge was still well stocked and I could not help but mention that those Cabana hosts are so nice and helpful, one had even drove us back to the ship on a previous cruise.
Tom then gave them a “tour” of the Cabana and all that it included before we sat down to chat a bit more. We sat for quite some time having drinks and chips that had been provided by DCL before it was time for Laura and Richard to head back and have a look at what their girls were up to. But not before we had decided to meet in the evening for a farewell drink. Once they had left, we watched a little TV and nibbled our cookies



before heading back into the ocean again. We didn’t stay as long as before but enjoyed the floating around and low tide wading. When we returned to our Cabana our host was in the cabana next to ours and shutting it down.
We were not sure if we were already late, as we had forgotten to peek at the Navigator on when we would have to be back. So we asked him and he said that we had plenty of time to still enjoy the island







and that he hoped that if we stayed late we would call for him so he could take us to the tram. No problem. The Cabanas come with a price tag and we always intend to use them until the very end. Again we sat on the veranda, soaking in the sun and watching the fellow guests on the beach. Around an hour later we got antsy again. There was one more thing we needed to do before we called it a day and we still had time for one more dip in the ocean. So, we picked up one of our fish extender gifts, a blue stone coin that had come with instructions. If we would wash it in the waters of Castaway Cay, we would return there. Now that is something we did with great pleasure. Tom took the blue stone and put it in his pocket, then we headed out to the shallow bank in the ocean and thoroughly washed the blue stone.







We again sat there, watching the people at the beach, but once the Cast Members started to close the umbrellas we knew it was time to say goodbye. We slowly waded back,



saw some big fish on the way







and headed back to the Cabana and after having taken showers and dried off, we got changed and started putting our things together. Our stateroom host was in the cabana on the other side and waved at us and told us to wait as he would be done shortly.

To be continued ............ ​

Advent calendar ALERT!!!!!!!!!

Tom has been busy and has created two new advent calendars - hope you are going to take a look every day!

Funny hats calendar

Food calendar​

 

[jenseib]

It does look like heaven. It's grey here today and a little CC lifted my spirits!

 

[dizneeat]

It does look like heaven. It's grey here today and a little CC lifted my spirits!

CC is always so beautiful.
And I am happy that my pics brightened your day a bit.

 

[dizneeat]

Day 17, August 23

Another day at Castaway Cay - Part 4

Our cabana host was in the cabana on the other side and waved at us and told us to wait as he would be done shortly.
We packed up everything, checked for forgotten items and put all the towels in a pile and our stateroom host arrived right on cue to take them away. He closed the Cabana and we waited in the golf cart. Tom and I laughed and talked about the fact that it was not really worth waiting as we could have easily walked but it seemed that our Cabana host really wanted to drive us. He arrived soon after and got in, we started our way down to the tram and he stopped,









turned around and asked if we wanted to go back to the next stop with him. Yeah, sounds better than climbing in and out of the tram, so we gladly thanked him for his offer. When we arrived at the next stop he did not even stop the cart,



but said that he would take us right back to the ship. We felt like royalty being driven past the people waiting for trams or walking along the sidewalks.





Once we had finally made it to the ship, we were dropped off right at the gangway,



Tom handed him a nice tip and we waved goodbye to our host. And a few minutes later we were back in our stateroom. We took showers and then sat out on the veranda for a while. Just a little more time and we would sail away from Castaway Cay again, there is just one snack that can ease that heartache a little bit and so we ordered two





Mickey bars, which were delivered within 15 minutes and we sat outside enjoying them, while the ship pulled out of Castaway Cay.













Once we had made it out onto the open sea, we went and opened the fish extender gifts we had gotten that day





before we went on to do some more packing.

To be continued ............ ​

Advent calendar ALERT!!!!!!!!!

Tom has been busy and has created two new advent calendars - hope you are going to take a look every day!

Funny hats calendar

Food calendar​

 

[dizneeat]

Day 17, August 23

Another day at Castaway Cay - Part 5

Once we had made it out onto the open sea, we went and opened the fish extender gifts we had gotten that day before we went on to do some more packing.
We needed to put our suitcases out tonight



and there was a lot of stuff after two weeks. We had nearly finished our packing when it was time for us to head to the Enchanted Garden for dinner. Tip envelopes in hand we arrived and quickly found our table and handed off the envelopes. Ryan, our assistant server quickly brought our Diet Cokes and the bread basket, which was filled with



Six Grain Country Bread, served with a



Caramelized Onion and Sun-Dried Tomato Dip. And while we sampled the bread and dip our server came to give us his recommendations and to take our orders for dinner. Tom ordered the



Sesame-crusted Tuna Sashimi, served with Wakame salad, Wasabi and Soy sauce as his starter, while I went for the



salmon three ways, cured salmon, herb cured salmon and a salmon roll, served with sweet honey mustard sauce. It did not take long and he returned with our food and it was absolutely delicious. A day at the beach had made us really hungry so we both ordered the



Potato and Leek Soup, garnished with Sour Cream and Chives, wonderful. Once we had finished our soup, our server was right there with our main courses. For this we had opted on the same, the





Roasted Filet of Beef Wellington, covered with mushroom stuffing wrapped in puff pastry served with Fingerling potatoes, baby vegetables and a cabernet black truffle jus. Since this was our last dinner on board we took our sweet time to finish our wonderful food. We did not really know if we should order dessert, but then we found something on the “No Sugar Added” menu. Tom ordered the



Seasonal Fruit with Sugar Free Cookies, while I tried the



Cappuccino mousse and both did not disappoint.
Once we had said our goodbyes to our servers we slowly strolled through the stores, ran into our friends Richard and Laura and decided to meet with them at Ooh La La in about half an hour. We were then on our way back to our stateroom, where we were greeted by a giant butterfly.





There was just enough time to get changed and to finish packing and put our luggage out before we headed down to Ooh La La again, after picking up Laura and Richard who “lived” just down the hall. We all ordered drinks, the men ordered some beer, while Laura and I had some champagne



and we were having a ball with the server, who had become a good friend too. And while we were sitting there and joking and laughing and reminiscing about the cruise a woman, who was sitting on the table next to us, came over to ask if we were Karin and Tom from the DISboards. They had been in our Fish Extender group and she was reading my trip reports. So we all sat together for a short while, before it was time to finish off our drinks and head back to our staterooms for one more good night’s sleep.

To be continued ............ ​

Advent calendar ALERT!!!!!!!!!

Tom has been busy and has created two new advent calendars - hope you are going to take a look every day!

Funny hats calendar

Food calendar​

 

[jedijill]

I needed pics of Castaway Cay today as its gray and snowing here!

Jill in CO

 

[jenseib]

I love the butterfly. That is the best towel animal I have ever seen!

 

[franandaj]

I'm trying to figure out what we're going to do for our day on Castaway Cay this April. I don't know if the idea of a Cabana would go over very well.

 

[dizneeat]

I needed pics of Castaway Cay today as its gray and snowing here!

Jill in CO

It's grey here too, thank god no snow and I am off on sickleave, so CC is just up my street as well.

I love the butterfly. That is the best towel animal I have ever seen!

It was one of the best ones we had ever seen either. Raj was so good with his towel animals - shame he was running out of them and we were running out of days on the Fantasy.

I'm trying to figure out what we're going to do for our day on Castaway Cay this April. I don't know if the idea of a Cabana would go over very well.

We just love having one. It helps so much with my eyes not hurting by getting out of the broad sunlight. And to have somewhere to just get away from it all. But you will need to decide for yourself.

 

[JKSWonder]

What a gorgeous Castaway Cay day you had!

I love that blue stone FE idea...I haven't seen that one before.

 

[dizneeat]

What a gorgeous Castaway Cay day you had!

I love that blue stone FE idea...I haven't seen that one before.

It was a beautiful day, indeed! Everything worked out perfectly well and a day on CC is a day on heaven on earth.

That FE stone idea was a first for us too. We loved the idea and had to follow instructions, we wanna go back there, really bad.

 

[Leshaface]

Those Konk Koolers are delicious. I so miss Castaway Cay and your pictures are making me miss it more.

I'm not sure if that plate is small or what, but that cookie looks MASSIVE in your picture!

I love that you can change in and out of clothes comfortably from the cabana. Definitely one of the perks of renting one!

I thought you were going to say something like random guests going into your cabana to steal things! Phew, thank goodness that wasn't the case.

Love the blue stone idea! That's very different and unique.

Great picture of you two in the cart. And so nice of him to drive you all the way to the front!

I remember the last night in the enchanted garden on our first cruise in 2011 when we went with my brother and his wife, we demolished that sun-dried tomoto dip and asked for extra!

What a perfect ending to a night at Ooh La la!

 

[dizneeat]

Day 18, August 24

Back onto dry land we go! - Part 1

And even though we hand gone to bed late, we were up early. Venturing out onto the veranda we were greeted by the sight of the Port Canaveral parking garage. So we took showers, packed up the rest of our stuff and when we saw Raj outside we asked if it was okay to leave our stuff in the room while we quickly headed up to Cabanas for some breakfast. He was more than okay with it and told us that there was no rush, we still had more than an hour. Now, that was more than enough time, as we just had to walk up to a few steps. And after wiping our hands we grabbed a plate and piled some breakfast items onto it, scrambled eggs, bacon, a grilled tomato and some toast.



Tom also got a bagel and some cream cheese.



We did sit down along the long bar like table and Tom grabbed some drinks. As always the food was only luke warm once we got to eat it, but at least breakfast went pretty fast. Once we had had our breakfast, we returned to our stateroom, picked up our luggage and said goodbye to our stateroom host, Raj, who we had really like. And with a huge smile he said, that, even though he was sad we are leaving, on the other hand he was relieved, as he was running out of towel animals.
We all shared a good laugh together and after hugging each other we made our way down to the Atrium. And boy were we in luck as the line was actually very short and we soon found ourselves going down the escalator to customs. We asked a porter to help us with our luggage and soon it was retrieved and we were in line for customs. Once we were through, the porter showed us the way out to the Hertz shuttle. There it hit us, boy, the line was pretty long. The porter started to drop off our luggage, when the driver came over and asked how many were in our party. And when he heard there was only the two of us, he told us to get on board right away as he still had room for two. And with our luggage quickly piled in, we squeezed into the shuttle and were soon arriving at the Hertz station.





Completely different to our experience with Dollar there were several employees working and it was soon our turn to hand in our vouchers. Paperwork took about 5 minutes, then the Hertz rep told us that we would just have to wait for 5 more minutes as our car was just driven through the car wash and then it needed to be filled up. It really did not take long and a silver Mustang convertible stopped right in front of us. Now, we were playing “fill every little piece of space” in the trunk again, but we did end up with loading some of our luggage onto the back seat. When we looked at our watches we realized that, would we have gone to the regular breakfast, we would still be there, but instead we were already sitting in a car and on our way to Walt Disney World. When we got into the port area we turned towards the ship and drove by it one more time to say goodbye to this wonderful ship.











After having waved to the Fantasy we got on our way to Walt Disney World. About half past 9 we passed under the well known and well loved Walt Disney World arch



and headed towards the Beach Club Villas. As we had been guessing, our villa was not ready, but we were able to check in and drop off our luggage. We didn’t feel like going to the parks right then, so we just started to head out again. And we went to the Orlando Premium Outlets. It was fun walking through the stores and ending it all off with the Disney outlet store. Once we were done with the stores we were not sure where to go, but then decided that since we had had such an early breakfast, it would be okay to have an early lunch as well. And there was a place we were dying to get back to just down the road. Yes, after all that fancy food on the Disney Fantasy we wanted some real down to earth food and soon were parked in front of Steak’n’Shake. The restaurant was pretty empty and we were quickly led to a table and handed a menu. Tom decided on trying one of their milk shakes, the





Salted Caramel Pretzel milk shake. And as we were pretty thirsty, we both ordered Diet Cokes as well. We both had our hearts set on the same burger, the





Jalapeno Crunch Steakburger and seasoned fries. A Double Steakburger seasoned on their fiery hot grill with pepperjack cheese, chipotle mayo, fresh salsa and jalapenos, all topped with French's® French Fried Onions and served with seasoned fries. It was hot but yet so good. We both were so happy with our selection and gobbled everything up.
Once we were finished with lunch we settled our bill and were out the door again. But we still had a little less than three hours to kill until we could return to the Beach Club.
So, since we were close anyway, we went to Downtown Disney and after a bit of searching we found a spot further over close to the West Side. But since we were in no hurry it was fine with us and we slowly strolled through the shops and making a few mental notes of what we wanted to buy once we would get back from Key West, which was still ahead of us. We actually took quite some time and when we returned to our car it was nearly time to go back to the Beach Club, so we chanced it and went grocery shopping before heading back.



And with a trunk full of drinks, snacks and other goodies we returned



to the Beach Club Villas, headed to the front desk and were greeted with a smile and told that since we had asked for a higher floor we were on the top floor and she hoped we would like the location and balcony. Yeah! So we grabbed our carry on suitcases and headed to the elevator to check out our villa.

To be continued ............ ​

Advent calendar ALERT!!!!!!!!!

Tom has been busy and has created two new advent calendars - hope you are going to take a look every day!

Funny hats calendar

Food calendar​

 

[dizneeat]

Those Konk Koolers are delicious. I so miss Castaway Cay and your pictures are making me miss it more.

It would not be a perfect CC day without a Konk Kooler.

I'm not sure if that plate is small or what, but that cookie looks MASSIVE in your picture!

I love that you can change in and out of clothes comfortably from the cabana. Definitely one of the perks of renting one!

Yes, they have a tiny changing room - actually just a corner with a curtain, but it's more than sufficiant if you just want to change out of a wet swimsuit and into a dry one.

I thought you were going to say something like random guests going into your cabana to steal things! Phew, thank goodness that wasn't the case.

You have no idea how happy we were that it were not random guests checking out our cabana. Even though we had that happen and we were IN the cabana at that time.

Love the blue stone idea! That's very different and unique.

That was just such an awesome idea. And a small token that you can easily take home.

Great picture of you two in the cart. And so nice of him to drive you all the way to the front!

It was great and we felt extra special driving by the rest of the cruisers who were waiting for the tram.

I remember the last night in the enchanted garden on our first cruise in 2011 when we went with my brother and his wife, we demolished that sun-dried tomoto dip and asked for extra!

What a perfect ending to a night at Ooh La la!

It was great spending the rest of the evening with friends and then to be called out by other guests was just amazing.

 

[jedijill]

So sad to get off the ship but its nice to spend some time at WDW! Yay for the Mustang convertible!

Jill in CO

 

[MEK]

Back to Disney by 9:30! I was still getting off the ship then. But then again, I wasn't going back to Disney, just right down the street!

I have never visited a Steak and Shake, although I've heard a lot about them and the food looks delicious!

Look at those beautiful clouds!

Fun afternoon at DTD!

Can't wait to see you room view!