 Day 3 of the cruise had us docked at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. I am really not a beach person, but I love Castaway. It is so clean and beautiful and I do enjoy that there is an adult only area. I got up early and walked my 2 miles around Deck 4. Then we got ready and headed with our beach bags to the buffet for breakfast. We made our way onto the island by around 9 am. We took 2 trams to get over to Serenity Bay, the adult only area on the island. We were one of the first people there and had no trouble finding 2 lounge chairs under an umbrella. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and windy and we were cold!! Then all of a sudden it starts to rain and then pour! We were huddled under towels under the umbrella. It lasted about 15 minutes and then the sun come out and it was beautiful!
I napped and read on and off all morning. Around noon, we went over to the buffet. They have a few salads, hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs and steak. There is a dessert station with soft serve and cookies. I have been to this buffet several times. It is really not one of my favorites but it is convenient. At around 1:30, we decided to start heading back because we wanted to do some shopping. We took one tram over to the main area and then walked back so we could shop along the way and I could take some pictures. By that time, it was pretty warm. So when we got on the ship, we headed right to the pool in the adult area. We took a dip in the pool and then in the hot tub. Then it was time to get ready for the evening. The show was a magician and we enjoyed it. We hung out in the lobby and had a drink before dinner. It was Pirate night so it was fun to sit in the main area and look at everyone’s pirate costumes. It was back to Enchanted Garden for the Pirate Night dinner. Victor suggested that we not have dessert because after the Pirate party and fireworks there was a Pirate buffet. We were fine with that idea so we left dinner and headed to the top deck to stake out a place for the fireworks. The pirate party with Jack Sparrow is just ok to me. But it is worth sitting through to get to the fireworks. I also enjoy the fireworks at sea. When they had ended, we headed to the Pirate buffet. It was crazy in there! There were turkey legs, make your own taco, make your own baked potato and some other items, including desserts. I had a taco and dessert. It was really starting to get busy when we were finished. We went out on deck and “Club Pirate” dance party was still going on. We stayed until the end. It was fun, especially watching kids and families enjoy themselves. We headed back to the room around midnight. And here are the Navigators from Day 3. 
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 The second day of the cruise we were docked in Nassau, Bahamas. I went out on our balcony and was able to watch us back into port. Took some pictures as we were coming in as well.
We were choosing to stay on the ship for the day. We headed up to Cabanas and had breakfast and then headed to the spa. We had pre-purchased day passes for the Rainforest room. We had never been there before and we really enjoyed it. We were given robes and went to the locker room to change. You need to wear your bathing suit under your robe. You also need to hand in your key card and they give you a bracelet that will open the door. The day pass entitles you to in and out use of the Rainforest room all day. You just need to exchange your key card for the bracelet each time. As you enter into the Rainforest area, the first section has special showers. There were 3 or 4 different ones. Each had a few different buttons that you can press. The idea is that each one has different scents and variation of how the water comes out to simulate things like a rainforest or cool mist. I tried one and Sue tried a different one. We really didn’t like it. Maybe we didn’t choose the best ones… don’t know. There are also a few different sauna rooms in that area as well. But we moved into the next room where we found what we were there for… the heated tile loungers. Ahhhhh, the heated loungers were amazing. Each had a light, if you want to read, and a pillow. There were 10 in the room. It was very quiet in the whole Rainforest area and at most there was 2 other people in there with us at any time. We went down one end and camped out. From that area, you would open another set of doors and go out to where there were 2 small hot tubs. The area was covered and had a railing but it was open to the air, similar to the baloneys in the staterooms. We spent about 3 hours going back and forth from the hot tub to the heated loungers. Took a few naps on the loungers and really didn’t want to get up. It was a really nice morning. I would imagine on sea days it is busier so we were glad we decided to use it on a port day. We grabbed something quick for lunch and then went to an afternoon showing of “Into the Woods.” We enjoyed that and then headed back to our room to change for a walk. We did 2 miles around Deck 4 and then got ready for the evening. The show was Villains Tonight. We had both seen it and it isn’t a favorite so we decided to skip it. We relaxed for a bit and then went to a special little show in the Buena Vista theatre. It was a performance by a performer from Iceland who sings and plays the violin. She was really good. Our only complaint was that throughout the show wild graphics played on a big screen behind her. It really wasn’t needed and became a little too much after 30 minutes of it. We went right from there to dinner. We were in the Enchanted Garden that night. Victor wanted to know what our plans for the evening were and we actually had some this time. We went from dinner to Pink, the champagne bar in the adult district area. It was about 9:30 and we were the only people in there. First we each chose a specialty cocktail from their menu that, of course, included champagne. We enjoyed those and then Sue tried a different one while I had a glass of champagne that was made especially for Pink on the Disney Dream. I am not a big drinker of champagne but I really enjoyed that one. We were there for about 90 minutes and at most there were 2 other parties in there the whole time. It was quiet in the whole adult area as we were leaving and heading back to our room. Here are the Navigators from Day 2. 
 From my morning walk at the Contemporary I got up early and did a 2 mile walk around the Contemporary. It was cool to see the ferries moving around on the water, seemed to be moving into position for the day. I also saw a fishing excursion going on as well. Got back just about the same time that someone from bell services arrived to take our bags to the cruise ship. The letter said for them to be ready at 8 am and the man arrived by 8:05. Sue and I then walked over to the main building for our breakfast at Chef Mickey’s. This was another experience that we figured we would try since neither one of us had done it before and we might as well take advantage of being right there. Chef Mickey’s is a buffet and character dining experience. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Pluto, all dressed in chef outfits, come around at some point to your table for pictures. I never miss a chance for an opportunity for a Mickey picture! The breakfast buffet was pretty standard. I did realize that at one point I had a multitude of potato dishes on my plate, not that there is anything wrong with that! I also decided it would be awesome to have tater tots for breakfast every day! Overall, I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there but it was fun and we left satisfied.
We had about an hour until the Disney Cruise Line bus would arrive so we walked around the shops a little and then went back to our room to get our carry on bags. Our letter said the bus would be picking us up at 11:15 and to arrive in the lobby by 11. We left our room about 10:45, took the short walk to the lobby and found we were the last group to arrive. I was surprised by that since it is rare that everyone is on time, much less early. So we checked in with the DCL representative and she started to tell us that the bus would arrive shortly and this hotel was the last hotel it was picking up from… so it was unlikely that we would have seats together on the bus. The other option she informed us of was that they were willing to get another bus to come and we would be the first ones on that bus but then it would stop at a minimum of 3 resorts before heading to the port. I really didn’t think it was a big deal that Sue and I wouldn’t be sitting together on the ride over to the port, but Sue wasn’t happy about that idea so we opted for the other bus. We did end up stopping at 3 resorts and then started the ride over to that port. It did add some time to our trip over there but no big deal. We arrived at the port and were quickly checked in and on board. We headed up to Cabanas for lunch. I enjoy the lunch buffet at Cabanas but we were on the full side from Chef Mickey’s. Tried a few things and made sure I had room for ice cream. They usually have 3 flavors that they will scoop out for you and I think it is really good ice cream. I had a scoop of Rocky Road and it was yummy!! By the time we finished lunch, the staterooms were open so we went to check out our room. We were in a room with a verandah on Deck 8, forward. The room was great, as usual. I had pre-ordered some bottled water and a day pass to the rainforest area of the spa for both of us. Those items were there waiting for us as well as our gift for being a gold Castaway Club member. The Castaway Club is a loyalty program on the Disney Cruise Line. After your first cruise you are automatically a Silver member. Once you complete 5 cruises, you are a Gold member. And after 10 cruises, you are a Platinum member. This was my 6th Disney cruise, so I was happy to get my Gold lanyard and gold beach bag. We headed up to the adult area and had a drink. It was pretty quiet in the adult area and that was pretty much how it was most of the cruise, except for on the sea day. The demographics on this cruise seemed to be heavier on the family side. We went back downstairs in time for the mandatory boat drill. Once that was over, we found that all of our bags had arrived so we were able to get everything unpacked and put away the suitcases pretty quickly. We had plenty of time before the show / dinner so we changed and went for a walk around Deck 4. You can walk / jog completely around deck 4, though you may have to dodge other guests playing shuffleboard or walking around at times. 2.5 laps equals 1 mile so we set out to do 5 laps for a total of 2 miles. I really love walking deck 4. There is plenty to watch and keep you entertained and love the open air over the gym any day. We changed for dinner because we weren’t planning to return to the room between the show and dinner. The show that night was the “Golden Mickeys.” Having been on this same itinerary last year, Sue and I had seen all of the Disney production shows before. We decided to go to this one again since it was the first night and we wanted to see the cruise director. Last year, our cruise director was Leslie and honestly, we didn’t care for her. There was nothing necessarily wrong with her but we noticed that whenever she would speak at the end of the shows people would just get up and leave or talk like no one else was speaking. On other cruises, there were always a few people that dashed out at the end of the show but we noticed it a lot more with Leslie and that it got worse each night of the cruise. I had seen that Christian was the cruise director the week before and at the boat drill a cast member even referenced Christian, the cruise director. So Sue and I were disappointed and surprised to find out that the cruise director was Leslie once again. Does that ruin our cruise? Of course not, but we were looking forward to someone different this time. Oh well. After the show, we stopped at the bar in the lobby for a few drinks before dinner. There was live music and it was fun to people watch for a bit. We then headed to Animator’s Palate for dinner. We had requested a private table (yes, we are anti-social) and though it is not guaranteed, the request was granted. We then met our servers. Our main server was Victor who was from Chile and our assistant server was Andrea from Peru. I will say more about Victor later because we LOVED him. Andrea was fine and pleasant but Victor was just great and we looked forward to seeing him each night and wished it was a 7 night cruise so we could have had more time with him. One part that was great about Victor was that he asked how many cruises we had been on and when. When he found out we had done this same cruise last year, he said he wouldn’t then bore us with too much information since we had already experienced the menus before. We appreciated that. He would make some recommendations each night but he didn’t go overboard with a lot of details. We had the late seating for dinner which was at 8:15 so by the time we finished, we were pretty much done for the night. That is one thing I don’t like about the late seating. While I think I would feel too rushed to get to the early dinner seating, I don’t like eating a full meal and then basically going to bed. Now according to Victor, we should have been going out dancing and partying every night after dinner, but for this night at least, that didn’t happen. I don't have whole lot of pictures from the cruise. I don't like to carry my phone or camera all the time. But I do have some to share as I go along. What I do have is a copy of the Navigators from each day. The Navigator is basically the daily schedule of everything that is going on each day. I will post the files here at the end of each blog entry. 
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AuthorI have been a huge Disney and travel fan since childhood. I love going to new places and, of course, heading to Disney as often as I can. Archives
December 2023
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