The Magic is better than the Dream....I'll be the judge of that!!

[Lisa Lisa]

I'm glad to hear you had such a great day at Altantis! Booking a room at CS is definitely the way to go, especially if you have 3 or more people in your party. I wish I had thought to ask whether the extra fees could be waived since we didn't use the room. Refresh my memory -- did you book over the phone or via the web site? We booked online and the extra fees were added to our total along with tax. It's interesting that employees at Atlantis were actively checking to make sure that everyone walking through was a guest or had a pass. Someone else posted about their experience recently and said the same thing. When we were there, we walked all the way through the resort without being approached or even looked at sideways!

 

[tweis]

I'm glad to hear you had such a great day at Altantis! Booking a room at CS is definitely the way to go, especially if you have more than 3 people in your party. I wish I had thought to ask whether the extra fees could be waived since we didn't use the room. Refresh my memory -- did you book over the phone or via the web site? We booked online and the extra fees were added to our total along with tax. It's interesting that employees at Atlantis were actively checking to make sure that everyone walking through was a guest or had a pass. Someone else posted about their experience recently and said the same thing. When we were there, we walked all the way through the resort without being approached or even looked at sideways!

I'm assuming the extra fees were waived. We booked directly through the Choice Hotel website. I do not have a copy of our reservation in front of me but it looked exactly like this except of course, the rate was different. At the bottom if shows you the extra fees and says they are not included in the total and must be paid directly to the hotel. We called after making the reservation and was told "no" that we would not incur additional charges since we would not be using the room but then I read conflicting information on these boards so I really wasn't sure what to expect. We were prepared to pay the additional $84 but were never asked for anything more than the $304 that was charged to our card.

We were also asked to show our wristbands before getting on most of the slides.

 

[tweis]

Immediately after placing our order, Mark said that he should have gotten the NY strip instead of the ribeye since they can be fatty cuts of meat.

Bread Service-can't remember what kind



Baked potato soup



Ahi Tuna & Avocado Tower



Ribeye with compound butter



Salmon steak



Warm fingerling potato and watercress salad with a mustard vinaigrette



Sacher cake



Some kind of sundae



I don't know why the dessert pics are so BIG! I tried resizing them but it didn't help.

Mark said his potato soup was just "ok" and I enjoyed my ahi and avocado tower. Unfortunately, Mark was right about ordering the ribeye. It proved to be very fatty and he did not eat very much of it. A server realized he hadn't eaten much and offered to bring him a NY Strip since Ribeyes can be fatty. Steak number 2 was much better than the first. My salmon was wonderful. Very flaky and moist. I ADORED the fingerling and watercress salad. It was absolutely delicious. I ordered the sundae but didn't eat it because I'm just not much of an ice cream fan but nothing else appealed to me either. Mark seemed to enjoy the chocolate cake pretty good. I snuck a bite and it was pretty tasty.

 

[Shazzie B]

Big desserts sound good to me perhaps not before breakfast though. Loving your trip report, Thanks for posting

 

[tweis]

Big desserts sound good to me perhaps not before breakfast though. Loving your trip report, Thanks for posting

Thank you and Big desserts are a good thing.

 

[maggonz9]

Hi! Enjoying your trip report. Atlantis seemed like great fun! We will have to put that on our vacation list for the future.

 

[tweis]

Hi! Enjoying your trip report. Atlantis seemed like great fun! We will have to put that on our vacation list for the future.

Thank you and We had a wonderful time at Atlantis and can't wait to visit again in the future.

 

[tweis]

The boys came to visit during our meal but they weren't interested in eating with us. They had taken part in some kind of trivia and were excited because their team won. Immediately after they left Cabanas, they called to tell us they were grabbing pizza right outside on the pool deck.

Everyone was very nice in Cabanas and even the chefs seemed pleased that we enjoyed our meal.

We decided that we would all go see Twice Charmed since we had missed Villains the night before.

We bought some fresh popped popcorn outside of theater for the boys to enjoy during the show. We got to the theater about 10 minutes before showtime and had a very difficult time finding 4 seats together.

I honestly wasn't expecting too much from this show after reading some of the reviews but we all really enjoyed it.

I have absolutely no idea what we did after the show, probably some exploring but around 10:00-10:15 the boys had plans and Mark and I went to Match Your Mate hosted by none other than entertainment director Andy. They were having 2 for 1 specials on the drink of the day! I have to tell you, the Bahama Mama tasted so much better in here than it did on the pool deck and I will tell you why. The DoTD are prepared in large quantities in a container and dispensed as needed but in the bar in Fathoms, they are freshly made when you order them.




Sorry for the big drink picture! I'm not sure why I'm having a hard time re-sizing some of my pics.

The game was hilarious! It's almost exactly like the Newly Wed Game except they have a couple that's been married the least amount of time, the longest and a couple that's somewhere in between. We had a couple that was married 3 days and a couple than had been married 30 years! Believe it or not, the really young couple that had just gotten married, won. I think they received a bottle of champagne and a rainforest room pass. The game lasted about an hour then we headed back to the room.

 

[tweis]

DAY 2 NAVIGATORS









I apologize for that last page but I cannot get it rotated. I rotate it in photobucket but then when I paste it, it's not rotated.

ETA: Apparently its correct now!

 

[tweis]

Update coming soon!

 

[tweis]

Day 3-Castaway Cay

I got up early and went to Cove Cafe for coffee before waking Mark and the boys up. I got myself a latte and Mark some kind of coffee drink that involved chocolate syrup and whipped cream.



No one seemed to be ready to get out of bed until I whipped the curtain to the veranda open. Who can sleep when you have a view like this?

 

[tweis]

We packed our Kyss bag and everyone put on plenty of sunscreen before we headed down to Cabanas for breakfast. If you have breakfast in Cabanas you have to have the muesli. It is soooo good. I have probably already mentioned that but it is definitely worth repeating.

While enjoying breakfast, we were given instructions on where to debark and that you needed your KTTW card and ID. We hadn't gotten our ID from the room because in the past, I hadn't remembered needing ID, only KTTW cards.

We hurried back up to our rooms and grabbed our ID so that we could get off the ship and get on with our day.

We debarked, grabbed a few towels then stopped to have our picture made.



We had next to no pictures in our shutters folder so we decided to get our pics made at every opportunity just in case we decided to buy a few. The photographer ended up taking abut 4 shots and called one of them "interesting". I saw why when we looked at the pics later. My son can make some silly faces. Needless to say, the above pic was the best of the 4.

The boys with Olaf at the post office.



Sorry guys, apparently I've reached my bandwith limit with photo bucket. I will try to get this taken care of ASAP because I have lots of Castaway pics and Palo dinner pics.

 

[tweis]

Bandwith issue resolved. More pics coming soon.

 

[st8y]

Yay!!!!!

 

[tweis]

We took the tram to the second family beach. We had reserved bikes but the first order of business was to find a chair. No, we were not going to be using the chair for a little bit and maybe that's considered chair hogging BUT we did choose a chair in the back row. There is no way I could ride a bicycle holding a bag.

 

[tweis]

We found our bike tickets and headed to get our bikes. We wanted to do this first thing since we were having gorgeous warm weather. It was only going to get warmer as the day went on and we did not want to be riding a bike when that happened. Or I didn't.

We had our choice of bikes


I haven't ridden a bike since I was on Castaway Cay in 2013 so photos are limited to when we would stop for water.

From the observation tower.










I have to give props to all the 5K runners. We encountered several of them and their shirts were soaked because we were having some seriously warm April weather. It was warmer than it was when DH and I were here in late May of 2013. It rivaled the weather we had in June 2012. The navigator had listed 78 as a high but later that evening CD Natalie had said it had gotten into the mid 80s.

The bike trail behind Serenity Bay

 

[tweis]

After our nice ride around the island, we headed to the beach. The water was a little chilly when we first got in but once you adjusted, it was fine. I am certain that it was warmer than it was last May.

It wasn't long before the boys were ready for Pelican Plunge.



The water is pretty deep getting to Pelican Plunge and possibly deeper, when you exit the slide so if your children are not good/strong swimmers there are life vests available.





While the boys were on the Pelican Plunge, Mark and I were sitting at the Edge of the water with this. Notice a pattern here?



This was a tropical depression made with 5 liquors and it is STRONG! So strong that I could only drink one before switching to the drink of the day which happened to be a Sunken Treasure. These were delicious! I could have drank them like water, they were so good. I thought I had taken a picture of every drink we tried but I can't seem to find the Sunken Treasure but take my word for it, they are awesome.

Shortly before lunch, everyone got a new coat of sunscreen. My skin was feeling very hot, especially my legs. We headed to Cookies Too for lunch and sat just outside the pavilion at an umbrella covered table. The 3 guys all had burgers and hot dogs while I had the mahi mahi and a bbq rib. The rib was very fatty but the fish was very good. As was the couscous and potato salad. We all had an ice cream for dessert. Sorry, no pics.

During lunch, DH noted how red I was becoming. I told him it was fine that I had gotten a little sun. He insisted that it was not fine, that I was VERY red. Hmmmm......well, after making a quick stop at the ladies room, I realized that DH was right. We decided to stop at She Sells Seashells and pick up some new sunblock. We got the spray on kind and DH sprayed me from head to toe. We got everyone else reapplied and wandered around a little before deciding to head out into the snorkel lagoon. This was our 4th stop at Castaway Cay and we had never snorkeled and I really wanted to look for Mickey and Minnie. We did not have snorkel gear with us nor did we want to rent any but thought we would be fine with our goggles and the vest they give you to wear.

We got out a little ways and Trystan was having a very hard time keeping up with us. We realized after a few minutes, that his vest was not holding air. Everyone else was kind of floating and kicking their feet and he was having to swim to keep up. We made it out to the first lifeguard station and luckily, the lifeguard had another child sized vest that we were able to get.

I had no idea how far out all the hidden items were. We were VERY far out from shore and still never found Mickey and Minnie. We did find some really awesome fish and some other "hidden" treasures but M & M were a lot further out than we wanted to go without fins and a mask. Maybe next time.

 

[Lisa Lisa]

While enjoying breakfast, we were given instructions on where to debark and that you needed your KTTW card and ID. We hadn't gotten our ID from the room because in the past, I hadn't remembered needing ID, only KTTW cards.

We hurried back up to our rooms and grabbed our ID so that we could get off the ship and get on with our day.

We had next to no pictures in our shutters folder so we decided to get our pics made at every opportunity just in case we decided to buy a few.

I love your family photo with the ship in the background! They are very inconsistent re: requiring adults to have photo ID when they leave the ship at CC. Last spring break, a bunch of people had to fight their way back up through the crowds trying to disembark when we were told at the gangway that we needed to have them. DH went back to our room to get ours and the whole process took more than 30 minutes! And, of course, no one checked them either getting off or back on the ship. For our last two cruises, we've taken them with us whether they announced that we had to or not!

I'm loving all your CC photos -- brings back some great memories! We'll have to rent bikes next time. That looks like fun!

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Castaway Cay looks so awesome!

 

[tweis]

I love your family photo with the ship in the background! They are very inconsistent re: requiring adults to have photo ID when they leave the ship at CC. Last spring break, a bunch of people had to fight their way back up through the crowds trying to disembark when we were told at the gangway that we needed to have them. DH went back to our room to get ours and the whole process took more than 30 minutes! And, of course, no one checked them either getting off or back on the ship. For our last two cruises, we've taken them with us whether they announced that we had to or not!

I'm loving all your CC photos -- brings back some great memories! We'll have to rent bikes next time. That looks like fun!

Looking forward to reading more!

Lisa, we went back for our ID and of course no one checked them. I guess we will just have it with us next time so that we do not waste valuable CC time.

Thanks! My boys made some rather silly faces in the other 3 that he took in front of the ship. This was definitely the best one.

We love riding bikes on Castaway and just taking in all the beautiful scenery.

Castaway Cay looks so awesome!

Castaway Cay IS awesome!