Strollers not included - Day 8 - Castaway Cay

[BevS97]

We are all tired, and with having no windows, we aren’t woken up by the sun, so we sleep quite late and have a lazy start to the day. We decide to eat breakfast at Parrot Cay buffet which is very nice. They have a huge variety, traditional hot foods, cold cuts, bagels, danishs, an omelette station, cereal etc. So the kids have rice krispies. I have a bit of everything, including a rather nice hot cinnamon roll. We finally waddle off the ship around 11am, and it’s hot, really really hot.
Just on the pier they are selling cooler bags of water, which seems like a good idea, so we buy one, it’s 6 bottles of water in a Disney Cruise Line cooler bag full of ice for $15 which turns into $20 once they add tax and automatic tip, I am not sure how you earn a tip by allowing someone to take their own cooler bag of a table full of cooler bags, but there you go….

We walk up to the tram station, but just miss one, so we have to wait awhile for the next one. We take the tram along, and I then realise that if you are on the tram you miss the photo opportunities with Jack Sparrow and the pirate ship. Saying that, it;s very hot and the kids aren’t big pirate fans, so I think the tram is not a bad option. We drop the kids straight into the kids club, Molly heads straight in, and they ask me if she has any food allergies as they are going to lunch shortly. She only had breakfast about half an hour ago! Molly decides she wants to go in the club anyway, so off she goes.
Katie’s club are on a scavenger hunt, and we are told we can find them just down the path. Just down the path turns out to be the other end of the island, which would be fine if we weren’t carrying a cooler bag of water and ice! As we walk down the path, we realise they are selling these cooler bags right on the beach, the waiter will bring it right to your deck chair- now that would be worth a tip! Katie finds the kids club, and she immediately spots some friends so she’s a happy bunny and disappears off with them. Phil and I head onto the beach and find an umbrella and some loungers.
Phil decides he wants a swim, and I sit back to read my book, only I haven’t brought my book…… Which is a little disappointing. Still, it’s warm, and peaceful, and raining…… Yes, just as I lay back for a nap it starts to rain. It’s not particularly hard rain and noone is really bothered by it, in fact, it cools things down nicely for a while.
I decide to wander along to the shops to see if I can get a magazine or book to read. There is a bahamas store selling bahamas souvenirs , and a Disney store selling Castaway Cay t-shirts etc, but no books or magazines. As I walk back to the beach I see the kids are in the restaurant having lunch, so I go into see them. They both say they’d like to come out of the club and swim in the sea, so I sign them out and we go back to find Phil has finally emerged from the sea. He’d been for a really long swim.
We pass a couple of hours swimming and relaxing. Nothing much to report, just general beachy stuff. We both agreed that whilst it was lovely, it confirmed for us that we don’t want a beachy holiday. A couple of hours of it and we had had enough.
We decide to have some lunch, and we are way at the far end of the beach, so we pick up our stuff and try and find an umbrella and chairs nearer the food. As we walk it gets much more crowded, we’d been quite lucky where we were sat originally (although we were right at the furthest point of the beach) however, we do eventually spot some chairs, so we claim them with some towels and head around to the buffet. Lilo and Stitch are doing a show which we watch on the way around. The buffet looked good, but after all the food we had eaten recently I just wanted a hot dog. We see our server, Chakkapong, working at the buffet. It must be a long day, serving breakfast on board, lunch on the island and then dinner back on the ship.
After lunch the kids swim a while longer, and then ask to go back to the kids club for a beach party. Phil drops them off and returns with a couple of non-alcoholic cocktails, they are strawberry something and very gorgeous. I sit and sip my cocktail for a while, wondering what that annoying beeping noise is, when I remember we have been given a pager. It says ‘Katie Stephenson’ on it, but nothing more. Worried that something is wrong, I walk around to the kids club, but no sign of Katie. They tell me they are sending out pages to every parent to remind them the kids club is closing soon. it would have helped if I’d remembered how the pager worked! I return to the beach for a last 20 minutes, and enjoy my cocktail, then we walk back upto the kids club and collect the kids. They are a bit disappointed, the party wasn’t as good as they had hoped. I think it was more little kid party games, rather than big kids dance party.


We make our way back to the ship, and we are very hot and bothered by the time we get there. When we get into the room we realise we are very pink as well, very very pink, although fortunately noone is really burnt but we left the beach just in time I think. the kids want to go to the kids club on board, as they are rehearsing for a show, so they get changed into their formal clothes for dinner and Phil takes them down. I go to sleep. The Navigator says the kids show starts at 5, so we head down for 5 however when we get there it’s nearly over. We find out later that it started at 4.45. We did see Molly’s photo on the big screen, and we got to see Molly dancing, but we missed Katie’s bit. Katie wasn’t too bothered though and offered to show us her dance in the cabin instead.

We go out into the atrium and have some formal photos done, and I realise that whilst I was napping the kids put their formal clothes on, and then put crocs on and went out. So they have all the photos taken wearing pretty dresses and crocs. I really must try harder…….

We had dinner in Tritons, and I cant’ really remember what we had if I am honest. I know I had the Trio of Desserts because I had that every night. After dinner, Katie goes straight back to the kids club, she’s met a couple of friends and she wants to see them once again. Molly decides not to go to the club and comes to see Dreams with us.
Before Dreams starts we go up to Shutters to choose our photographs. First we have to search all around shutters for them, and we do manage to find quite a few to choose from. The photos are quite expensive (actually they are very expensive), so we have to really think hard about which ones to buy. Also, some are 8×10 and some are 6×8 and it seems that you can’t change them, so if the photo is 8×10 then you can’t buy a 6×8 instead. The photos are all very good, but it’s frustrating as we simply can’t afford to buy them all (there are probably 30 photos). In the end, we put our pile in a corner and decide to come back and decide after the show.
We are quite late getting to the show, as we had been so long in Shutters, so we sneek in the back, in fact, we have been in the back every night. The show is excellent, I think of the 3 shows we have seen, this one is my favorite. The sets are amazing, and there are great costumes and dancing, it’s just a super show, really good fun.
We head back to Shutters after the show, and find a corner and go through our pile quite brutally. Any that are duplicates, or have eyes closed are discarded. Then another go through and we remove any character ones that we also took on our own camera. Our pile is getting smaller. We decide to get 5 8x10s, and then add 2 more 6x8s that we just can’t leave behind. It comes to $110 which is more than I had budgeted for. They did do a package of 10 6×8 photos for $85, but most of our photos had been printed at 8×10 and they won’t do them as 6×8 for you. I know it’s all about making money, but I felt this was too much if I am honest. The photopass CD at WDW costs $150 and we get 2 weeks of photos on. The same thing on the Cruise was $240 for a 3 day cruise. We left clutching our pile of photographs. I have gone on about the price but I do love all the photographs we bought and am very pleased with them.
It’s getting late, and we have to pack, so I get Katie from the kids club on the sports deck. She is having a great time and really doesn’t want to leave her friends. We do prise her away and go down to our room where we have to pack, and quite quickly as the cases are being collected at 11pm. We pack, and then repack and finally put the cases out at 11.05pm. Phil is a bit worried as all the cases in the hallway are gone, however, when he checks later our cases are gone as well. I am quite relieved, as I didn’t fancy carrying them off the ship myself. Katie tells me that her kids club friend is in the cabin next door – I must admit I don’t believe her, it just seems to unlikely a coincidence, but she is adamant, and goes and puts a note under the door with her email address on it. About 10 minutes later, we have a knock on the door, and it’s Katie’s new friend Bree, with Katie’s brand new Princess Pirate ears which she had left at the kids club. She reappears a few minutes later with a note containing her email address as well.

[hayleyandhilda]

sounds like you all had a fantastic time on the cruise

[Guest]

Sounds like you are having a fantastic holiday

[Deano]

So what did you think of the cruise as a whole ?
I know I got off the 3 dayer dazed and confused at what had just happened and it took me a few weeks to work out if I had enjoyed it or not.
I expected it to be more relaxing than it was but me being a tight git wanted my monies worth so made sure we did everything. I had no idea what to expect as it was our first ever cruise but we must have liked it as we are doing it again next year.

[summersun]

great report

[Guest]

sounds fab and the girls looks sweet in the pic with the crocs on so i wouldn't worry

was the show the one with tink lighting up the ship by any chance? we all blubbed at that bit

[BevS97]

Originally Posted by Deano

So what did you think of the cruise as a whole ?
I know I got off the 3 dayer dazed and confused at what had just happened and it took me a few weeks to work out if I had enjoyed it or not.
I expected it to be more relaxing than it was but me being a tight git wanted my monies worth so made sure we did everything. I had no idea what to expect as it was our first ever cruise but we must have liked it as we are doing it again next year.

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I think that sums it up quite well. I think the 3 day is probably not long enough to really relax, I had thought we;d have 3 days of relaxation before back to the parks, and we actually got off the ship more tired than we got on!

The kids loved it and never wanted to be out of the kids clubs, which left me at a bit of a loose end, we need to relearn how to relax without them around I think.

[BevS97]

Originally Posted by mazz

sounds fab and the girls looks sweet in the pic with the crocs on so i wouldn't worry

was the show the one with tink lighting up the ship by any chance? we all blubbed at that bit

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No, we didn't see that. It was a young girl sleeping and dreaming about various disney stories which came true in her bedroom

[scotsprincess]

hi

glad you enjoyed your cruise

it sounds lovely

[frazers mum]

sounds like your kids loved the kids clubs. The photo's of the girls in their crocs is lovely. The cruise does sound great, but it seems as if there is a lot to do in the 3 days you are there! No wonder you came off the ship tired!