Dream Trip Report Day 8: Revisiting Castaway Cay

Here is the daily navigator: June 14, 2012

The kids slept in until 7 a.m.  Yippee!  Of course they were up much later the night before, like until 11:30 or so...but I'll take it.

We all went to Cabanas for breakfast.  A crew member taught the boys a neat trick with water, pepper and dish detergent.

Today was our 2nd stop at Castaway Cay!  (also known as the "double-dip").  We asked the kids what they wanted to do today.  Joshua wanted to stay on the ship and go to the pool and Mickey slide.  Nathan wanted to go snorkeling.  I had a nursery reservation for Alyssa from 9-11 a.m. this morning so that we could do some of those other things with the boys.

Nathan and I got off the ship some time before 9:00 a.m. 

We took a tram to the first beach stop.

And found the snorkel rental spot.  Ok, I don't know if it was due to the late Pirate night the night before, or because it was the 2nd day at Castaway Cay, but it seemed like there was NOBODY on this island!

We got our snorkel equipment and surveyed the snorkel bay.  It was roped off and had lifeguards stationed way out.  There were buoys where interesting stuff was located beneath the water.

There were only 2 other people in the snorkel lagoon when we entered the water.  It took us a little while to get into our groove--this was the first time Nathan had used a snorkel outside of the bath tub and the pool.

We saw lots of these things on the bottom of the ocean:

And then we saw this sunken boat.

I didn't realize until we were far out there just how big the snorkel lagoon was.  It went out into the ocean, and then it curved around the top of the family beach.  We had only made it to 2 of the buoys.  Nathan was cold, I could see his lips were starting to turn blue, so we decided to head back to shore.

I'm glad we did it, it was a new experience for Nathan.  But I'm not sure I'd do it again unless one of my other kids wants to.  We really didn't see a lot of fish down there.

So for the next 1 1/2 hours, Nathan played on the beach and I relaxed by the water.

Seriously, where is everyone?  Still sleeping, I guess.

Brian was going to pick up Alyssa from the nursery at 11 a.m. and then we would all meet on the island for lunch at Cookie's BBQ.  So I wasn't there to witness this, but as they were walking down the gangway off the ship, Joshua fell down and scraped his knee slightly.  He started crying and all these crew members rushed over to him.  Brian said it was incredible how nice they were.  After they got him all set with a bandaid, two of the crew members asked where they were going and offered to give them a ride on a golf cart.  They hopped on, and were taken to the backstage, crew part of the island.  Brian said they went over rocks and drove on sand and it was kind of a rough, fun ride!  Eventually they made it to meet us for lunch.

While we were eating lunch, Joshua dropped his drink.  An crew member rushed over and asked what it was and got him a new one.  I love this place!

Later while we were still eating lunch, we could hear them announce in the nearby gazebo that they were about to start the crab races. We missed that, but we did make it to one of the character dance party!  Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck were there shaking it up.

Alyssa was really into this dance party.  See the crew member dressed all in white to the right of this picture?  She was one of the ones in the golf cart.  She recognized Alyssa and said, "Hey Mickey, look, it's Alyssa!"  So it turns out that Brian, Joshua and Alyssa were riding in the golf cart with Mickey Mouse and his handler.

After Daisy Duck left the dance party, Alyssa started running after her.  It was at this moment I realized just how fast my little girl could run!

After the dance party, we dropped the boys off at Scuttles Cove (the kids' club on the island).  Brian and I wanted to take another ride on those rental bikes and see more of the bike trail.

Here we are with Alyssa at the top of the observation tower:

We rode the same loop as the other day, but also added in the loop behind the adult beach.  It ended near the shore at another lookout point.  The water was so green!  While we were at this lookout point, we chatted with another couple who were on their 3rd or 4th cruise.  (I can't remember exactly).  Their kids are older but told us they had just as much fun in the Tween and Teen clubs on the ship.  They also told us about their 7-Day Eastern Caribbean cruise they had taken on Disney, which was their favorite.

After our bike ride, we decided to check on the boys in Scuttles Cove and see what they wanted to do next.  It was about 2:30 and they had been there for almost 2 hours.  I had wanted to catch the matinee show of the Broadway show called "Believe" that was playing at 4 p.m., but the kids had other plans.  Nathan said he wanted to go back to our room and watch a movie.  Joshua wanted to stay in Scuttles Cove more.  So I took Nathan and Alyssa back to the ship while Brian waited on the island for Josh to finish playing.

I took this picture as we were walking back:

And another one with Nathan:

And the sign as we neared the ship:

When we got to our room, I put Alyssa down for a nap.  Nathan and I ordered Mickey ice cream bars through room service.  Nathan decided to watch the movie Hercules.

Joshua and Brian got back a while later, and Joshua also feel asleep for a little while.

On our Fish Extender was an envelope from the nursery.  They had taken a picture of Alyssa while she was there and sent it to us!

We took showers, and around 5 p.m. I headed to Shutters to see what photos we wanted to purchase.  The navigator said that Shutters opened at 5 p.m., but I was there slightly before and it was already bustling.  I bought a 10-picture package.

We ordered room service again for the kids for dinner, dropped the kids off at the nursery and kids' club, and Brian and I headed back to Animator's Palette for our last date dinner.  I had to take a picture of this pear-looking thing--it was actually a potato!

At some point Brian said, "Oh no!  We have to book our next cruise so that we can get a discount!"  I was like, "Um, yeah, I already took care of that." :)

The last dinner had a "Til We Meet Again" special menu.  We both ordered the chocolate decadence for dessert. 

I guess Vijay thought we looked hungry or something, so he brought us each a piece of their signature dessert, Baked Alaska.  And a piece of a "celebration cake".  So just the two of us at dinner had 5 desserts sitting in front of us!  No wonder we gained weight!

After dinner, we had some time by ourselves before we had to pick up Alyssa so we walked up on deck.  Nobody at the pool during dinner.

And another beautiful sunset:

We picked up Alyssa around 8:00 and found this weiner towell dog on our bed:

We kept the boys in the kids' club while we packed.  We had to have our big suitcases out in the hallway by 10:30 p.m. and it was much easier to pack with them not there.

I went to pick up the boys around 9:30 p.m.  They had been in the club for 4 hours straight!  I think they could have stayed longer, but we knew our trip home the next day would be more miserable with less sleep.

The atrium was buzzing on the last night.  They had a couple of last-minute character greetings.

And by now, Shutters the photo store was really busy. 

After we picked up the boys, we took them back to the room and I went by myself one more time around the ship.  I picked up a few small things in the gift shop and went to the top deck again.  It seemed like everyone was trying to cram in some more activities on the last night on the ship.

But, we had to get to bed because we were assigned a breakfast time at 6:45 a.m. the next morning!