The Castaway Cay day that almost washed us away!

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Hey howdy hey! How are you? No, don’t answer, I don’t really care, I was just being polite. Only joking, I do care (I don’t).

It’s me! I’m back! Well, sort of. Some of you will know of the antics of Snack Packer (in charge of packing snacks), Bus Spotter (in charge of spotting buses), The Loser (loses cameras) and myself (god, basically) if you have read my previous trip reports. If you haven’t read them, what have you been doing with your life? Go and do it now. Go on, I’m watching! Sadly, I don’t have time to do a full trip report this year (in fact, I am supposed to be at school setting up my classroom right now, but ho hum!) but my day at Castaway Cay was rather eventful, so I thought I’d do a trip report write up of the day. First, you need a bit of background.

This was our first Disney Cruise. In fact this was our first cruise ever. We never really thought cruising would appeal to us as we are very active people and like to be kept busy all the time. When I pictured cruising, I pictured people lying by the pool or on the deck. Yes, great, I could do that for thirty minutes, but what about the other 10050 minutes? (Yes, I actually worked that out. You’re welcome). Just to add insult to injury, we chose the seven nighter. Some may call us crazy, some may call us ludicrous, and some may even call us murderous (that was my financial advisor ) but we decided if we were going to do it, we might as well do it properly. We did not want to feel rushed, and we really wanted to experience Disney Cruise Line properly to be able to make an informed judgement about it. We 100% chose the right length, and I don’t think we would have enjoyed a shorter cruise anywhere near a much. You wouldn’t have got to know the crew as well for starters, and that was one of the things that really made it magical. We were in stateroom 9166 which was deck 9, aft. Perfect location for us, with our own veranda, albeit with half a whitewall. Check out the highs and lows for a picture of that.

So, back to Castaway Cay. Our Castaway Cay day was Friday 14th August – our last port of call and our last full day of the cruise. Our cruise itinerary was as follows:

8th August: embarkation and sail away
9th August: at sea (formal night, Show: Aladdin)
10th August: Cozumel, Mexico (Show: Wishes, no excursion)
11th August: Georgetown, Grand Cayman (Show: ventriloquist, Excursion: extreme dolphin swim and turtle farm)
12th August: Falmouth, Jamaica (Pirate night, Show: comedian, Excursion: Dunn’s River Falls and Dolphin Cove park)
13th August: At sea (Show: Believe)
14th August: Castaway Cay (Show: Goodbye Fantasy)
15th August: Port Canaveral.
Hopefully that gives you a very brief outline of what we’d spent the rest of the week doing. You’ll have to forgive us today – we were at the end of a very magical week and we were all a bit emotional and delicate. We had now also spent 14 nights together 24/7, with another six to go, so we were on edge a little too. I may also skip over some details, as I wasn’t intending on doing any sort of trip report and so made no notes – I am going from memory and photos! Anyway, enough chit chat. I’m sure many of you are dying to get on with the jokes and innuendo, so let’s go!

6:30am and I awoke to the glorious sound of my alarm. 6:30am and everyone else awoke to the glorious sound of my alarm too, and they were not pleased. Don’t look at me like that, I told them I would be getting up early! I was one of the 160 crazy guests who had signed up to do the Castaway Cay 5k, the race around the island. According to my lovely cruise line branded ticket, I was to meet with all the other crazies in The Tube (one of the ships bars. Don’t ask me whether it was forward or aft, I don’t know. I’ll never know. I only just learnt the words forward and aft, so leave me alone) at 8am. I had given myself an hour and a half to get up, have breakfast, get ready and find my way to the Tube. Easy peasy.

I had the luxury of being in a cabin with a veranda, so there was just enough natural light for me to find my way across the stateroom and to the bathroom, in my brand spanking new Bamboo boxers. They cost me $22, so I had to mention them. They’re great. You should get some. I stopped to take a picture of myself in the mirror because I looked so good. Here it is:
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Ok, perhaps that’s not me, but I’m pretty much identical to that. I made it to the bathroom and did what all men do in the bathroom (not that, naughty!) and emerged looking as pristine as Ken in Toy Story 3.



Everybody else had started to haul themselves out of bed by this point, so I was morally obligated to wait for them before I went to get breakfast. I passed the time by standing on our veranda admiring the absolutely breathtaking view. No, I wasn’t looking in a mirror, I was in fact watching us get closer to Castaway Cay as the sun was rising. It was beautiful.




As we backed into the dock, I dove for cover as a round of gunfire started out of nowhere. See – I told you my day was eventful! We hadn’t even left the stateroom yet and I was already being shot at. You might have already guessed that it wasn’t actually gunfire, but the noise still caused an involuntary duck! As it turns out, they rope the ship to the dock. How? By (literally) shooting the ropes out of the side of the ship and someone on the dock has to catch them. Interesting. In my defence, it does actually sound like a real gun, I had just never been on the veranda as we’d docked before, so my ‘involuntary duck’ was justified.




As I went back into the cabin I told everyone how brave I’d been whilst getting shot at. Everyone just sort of shrugged it off though, so they must be used to my brilliance by now. Now that I was done with all the drama on the veranda, everyone else was more or less ready to head up to Cabanas for breakfast. To my surprise, it was already quite busy on the ship – I guess everyone wanted to get onto Castaway Cay as soon as they could. I was sporting a rather sexy outfit consisting of Nike running shorts, Nike breathable sports short and trainers and I didn’t see anybody else looking remotely sporty the whole time I was out at breakfast. I had bought these clothes specifically for this run, in the hope that ‘looking cool’ (ha..) would give me some motivation, given that I’ve never run in my life, and hadn’t done any sort of training for this whatsoever. I just simply wanted to ‘give it a go’. However, I started to panic a little that I wasn’t seeing any other people that looked like they would be walking fast in the near future, let alone running. You know when you start getting all kinds of irrational thoughts in your head that are completely ludicrous but you think them anyway? I was doing that. I started to wonder whether I’d got the right day, whether the run had been cancelled and I had missed the message, or whether I had completely slept through Castaway Cay day and we had actually just docked back at Port Canaveral. Spoiler alert: I hadn’t slept through Castaway Cay day, and I did indeed eventually find some other sporty looking people.

The walk up to Cabanas was short – it was only two short staircases away from our stateroom. Why do you think I chose that location? Buffet...duh! As had been the norm for the week, we chose a table to meet at, and went our separate ways to load up on food. Somehow, I managed to be the last one to get back to the table, and was looked at with utter dismay by the others as I had the smallest plate, consisting of a small blueberry muffin, a slice of jam toast and a mini croissant. That was nothing compared to the piled up plates of the others. I was met with comments like “the food is free, you should eat more than that!” and “You’ll regret not filling up when we’re back with small meals in Florida next week”. I tried to make them understand that running would not be particularly easy with a stomach full of toast, muffins, croissants, pastries, egg, beans, sausages, ham, cereal, milk, orange juice, coffee, hash browns, potatoes, fruit, yoghurt and French toast, but they couldn;t seem to comprehend it. (And yes, that was all eaten by Bus Spotter... how he’s only 12 stone I’ll never know. His excuse was that his new Bamboo boxers were very stretchy... )



I had been full to bursting after a few meals already this cruise, and could barely walk so there was no way I was going to be able to run 3.5 miles on a full stomach. That was the first challenge of the day: holding back from the buffet. I deserved a medal already. We finished our meals and just as our forks met the plate, the whole lot was whisked away by one of the very attentive Cabanas crew members. We sat for a few minutes with our drinks, before collecting a small selection of pastries, cereal and milk to take back to our stateroom ready for the next morning. We were doing express walk off, so would not have time to go to the sit down breakfast.

We popped back to our stateroom at about 7:30, and stood on the veranda admiring the view for a little while longer. It was at this point, the rest of the group announced they would be coming with me to the start line of the race. I was somewhat taken aback because, as much as I love them, I was looking forward to a bit of ‘alone time’ having just spent two weeks with them 24/7. There’s a tip for you: family members can accompany runners off the ship and up to the start line of the race without a ticket. That means, if you have enough people, some can be sent to get good beach chairs as soon as they are off the ship, as runners (supposedly) disembark the ship before everybody else. Through a forced smile (always thinking of sparing the feelings of others...) I said it would be lovely, but asked why they’d decided to do that. Apparently they thought that as my alarm had got them up, they might as well come with me rather than sitting on the ship waiting to get off. Not because they wanted to cheer me on, oh no! But because they were bored. Gee, thanks guys!

We found our way down to The Tube. We had done the towel folding class there the previous day so it wasn’t too much of an issue. It’s a bar/club space, but we are nowhere near cool enough to hang out in that sort of place, so we opted to get inside by folding towels. We are WILD. We arrived to find the room packed solid. They had also already gone over the itinerary, rules, and route, despite it still only being about 7:50, with the meeting time supposedly 8am. I checked in at the desk and was given my running number thingy (You can tell I’m a pro, can’t you?!) and was told to take a seat. That was easier said than done, but I managed to find one stool propped against the bar. There was a small amount of arguing about who was going to get the seat, and I’m sure Snack Packer was close to tears (told you, very delicate today!) but I won. Surely the person that is about to run 5k in 40 degree heat should be able to savour the last few moments of relaxation before certain death by exhaustion. Besides, I had no idea what to expect, so if I had remained stood up there was a very real danger of some bodily fluids slipping out due to nerves. There’s an image.

I don’t seem to have a picture of my running number thingy, but they look like this:



only my number was 77517. When it seemed like nobody else could be squeezed into the room, Caitlyn, the crew member leading event, started talking. She started by having a show of hands – who was a frequent runner, who’s first 5k was this, and who has never run before in their lives. A small handful of people, myself included, sheepishly put our hands up for the last option, and Caitlyn congratulated us on becoming ‘one of those crazy people that runs on vacation’. I quite agreed. She continued by going over the route again, and making us repeat it several times. We were to walk approximately ten minutes from the dock to the bike rental place, run round the path and onto the runway. At the table of water, we were to enter a loop and run round, back onto the runway, up to Serenity Bay at the other end and then turn around and do the route in reverse. She seemed to enjoy making us repeat “We will pass the water station four times” and “we will run the loop two times” over and over. She also told us not to throw our water cups at her, and not to hug her at the finish line because we’d be sweaty and that’s gross. I tried to object and say that she’d be damn lucky to be given the opportunity to hug me any time, but she moved on before I had the chance. Drat. Here’s our route:



Caitlyn then went on to explain that we would have about an hour to return to the finish line. After an hour, they would come looking for us and we would apparently bring shame to the Disney empire by being classed as ‘non-finishers’. Nobody wants that now, do they?! She assured us that we would be the first off the ship, and we were just waiting for clearance from the gangway. Whilst we were waiting, she attempted to organise the throng of people into some sort of line ready for disembarkation. She asked people that needed to use the restroom to be at the front, along with people who needed to stop and drop children off at Scuttles Cove on the way. She said that she would be the last person to arrive at the start line, so if anybody saw her walking past them they were being too slow and wouldn’t be allowed to race

Caitlyn then announced that now would be a good time for anyone that hasn’t done their warm up stretches to do so. Having never run before in my life, I had no idea what sort of stretches these might be. I tried to subtly gaze around and look at what other people were doing. Nobody was doing anything. Had everyone already done their stretching? Was Caitlyn being sarcastic and I hadn’t realised? Would I die if I didn’t do stretching? All thoughts that cantered through my head at that point. I didn’t need to panic though because Caitlyn was about to run us through some stretches... sort of. She said she had no idea what to do either, so was making it up on the spot. She did some really over the top neck and ankle rolling and some other weird poses she called “this one” and “that one”. Still nobody was doing anything and I was still worrying that I would indeed die if I didn’t stretch. Picture this: a room full of lycra clad people all looking professional, everybody talking to each other and smiling, Caitlyn at the front going stretch crazy. Then there was me..looking worried, alone on my bar stool, trying to subtly roll my ankles whilst pretending I wasn’t doing anything. Apparently I thought gazing around and whistling would distract people from my ankle rolling. I must have looked like a cartoon character. I didn’t die, so you never know, those subtle ankle rolls may have saved my life.

Eventually, we got clearance from the gangway and we were allowed to make our way down to disembark. Other passengers were already leaving the ship, so we weren’t first off like they said. Not that it made much difference to us runners anyway, but still. We did have our own gangway though, that other passengers were not allowed to use until all the runners had left the ship, so that was something. There were 160 or 260 runners (I can’t remember which..) and we all had to try and squeeze down the same staircase at once to head to the gangway. It was a challenge, put it that way. There were crew members stopping all ‘normal’ (i.e. sane, non running) guests as they got out of the elevators, to allow all the runners to exit the ship first. Those poor unfortunate souls who thought it would be quicker to catch the elevator to their deck before popping down to the gangway. They were trapped. Once off the ship, the sort of orderly line we had arranged ourselves into dispersed. All the runners mingled with all the other guests getting off the ship using the other gangways. There was a small amount of panic as we suddenly HAD NO CLUE WHERE TO GO! OH MY GOD! HELP US! We had somehow failed to notice that in one direction was the path, and in the other... was the sea. It was pretty obvious which way we had to go. I clocked eyes on a particularly sporty looking family in front who also had race numbers on, so I followed them, and hope they knew what they were doing. We began the ten minute walk. I noticed on the way that the Post Office wasn’t open, so made a note to return later, as we were very keen to get the special stamp and post mark!



That “ten minute walk” turned into a good 15 -20 minutes. You had no choice but to walk at the speed of the crowd in front of you, which was... slow. As you can see, the path is rather thin too, with pedestrians using the small path on the left of the photo – the wide part being for trams. I wondered if it would be frowned upon for a 5k runner to catch a tram to the start of the race. Bus Spotter insisted it would be, so I continued to follow the crowd. As we walked, people veered off – some dropping children at Scuttles Cove kids club, and some heading straight to the beach to grab good spaces. Snack Packer and Bus Spotter went to the beach to get a good space, whilst The Loser was my designated chaperone. He was in charge of being at the finish line when I crossed in order to take some “oh my god you’re alive” photos. Whoever decided it was a good idea to let The Loser have complete control of the DSLR again needs their head testing. I had no say in the matter though, as The Loser and Snack Packer had had an argument about stopping for the toilet or something silly like that, and so needed some space or something (I wasn’t totally in tune with what was going on...I was more focused on my impending death, that I had stupidly volunteered for..). The plan was for The Loser to see me off, go back and find the others and return to the finish line in half an hour or so. He actually had the audacity to scoff at that plan..”You’ll never be done in half an hour, you’re a lump!”. Gee thanks. I’m 11.5 stone with a 31 inch waist, hardly a lump. I’m basically 50% abs, 50% muscle and 50% sexiness, that’s what I am. I’m not good at maths, though.

Anyway, back to the point. Everybody congregated at the start line, which was adjacent to the bike rental place.



This is where everybody started jogging up and down, so I thought I’d try and blend in and do the same. Apparently that was enough to make a trip to the restroom absolutely critical before the race began, so I about-turned and jogged into the restroom. A handful of people did the same, so I wondered whether they thought I knew what I was doing and had assumed the race had started. I half expected to zip up, turn around and see 259 runners behind me. Luckily, that was not the case. I know I’m impressive, but an audience of 259 people crowding round my toilet just to see is a bit far.

I made it back out to the start line to find people still arriving. Seriously people...this is a race. You shouldn’t be here if you can’t even make it to the start line in a reasonable amount of time. There was a dad and his son, who looked to be in his late teens, and the dad was jogging up and down on the spot, fast. I think he was trying to embarrass his son, much to the amusement of people around them. It sort of backfired though, as his constant jumping up and down made the elastic on his shorts break, and they dropped to his ankles. You could feel the rest of the crowd silently gasping in shock, unsure how to react. Thankfully, the dad started laughing hysterically, so everybody else did too. I thought is son was going to die (I certainly would have done!), but in a completely unexpected turn of events, the son whipped off his shorts too and said something like ‘so you don’t feel so silly!’ before both of them collapsed in a fit of giggles. I watched in awe as they both put their shorts in the big chest that runners can leave belongings in – the only went and did the flipping race in their underwear! I totally admired their confidence, that’s for sure. Thankfully, neither were the budgy-smuggler type, although I did see the son at the end of the race with his white boxer briefs almost see-through with sweat. What a great relationship they must have though to be able to do something like that together. Bravo to them.

At this point, Caitlyn was battling her way through the crowd to try and make it to the front to kick off the race. She started shouting instructions, none of which I could hear, and then made us repeat the number of times we would be running the loop and the number of times we’d pass the water station another few times. She continued to talk, and then everyone surged forward so I assume the word ‘go’ must have been in there somewhere. Now, the first part of the race goes up a path and round a corner, which is a very thin place for 260 people to be all at once. So until we met the runway, we were pretty much doing tiny fairy steps up and down and jogging shoulder to shoulder with the people next to us. I felt like an absolute idiot doing that, so chose to just walk for the first minute or two, until there was a bit more space.

It only took about five minutes until we reached the water station and grabbed our first drink. We were told to keep hold of our cups to reduce the amount of waste on the island, and we were just given refills when we passed the station again. Around the huge loop, there are also self-service water coolers for you to use too, although they are pretty well disguised as part of the ‘set’ so keep your eyes peeled. I did try to be sensible and not push myself too hard, given that I was a running virgin, so every time I passed a water station I did stop for a minute or so to catch my breath and have a drink. I think those small pauses are what allowed me to get to the end. Had I just run from start to finish, I would probably have collapsed somewhere en route. Every now and then I stopped for a few seconds to take a picture or two, and a few selfies, of course! I would obviously have to update all my social media to show everyone how sporty and athletic I was being ON VACATION.






Despite that last picture, we were not allowed to catch trams down the runway

What was really nice was the sense of community between runners. Several separate people I passed, or who passed me said things like “c’mon we can do this!” and “woohoo, look at us!” There were lots of high fives at the end of the race too! There were signs spaced out around the route telling us which way to go, and how far was left in the loop etc, so no worries about finding your way. I believe the signs are fairly new too.





I thought I was doing really well, passing people that looked like professional runners, but before I even finished the first loop, people were running past me in the other direction, already having run up the entire air strip and back again. Show offs. I made it to the air strip, and was shocked at what I saw. Be aware, this is the point where people cheat. There are no island cast members up there, and very very few non-running guests have made it up to Serenity Bay so there’s nobody to stop you cheating. People were running half way up the air strip and turning around and going in the other direction. Naughty. I was drowning in sweat by this point and I felt rather close to death, so I won’t lie to you, for a very brief moment I did consider turning around and cheating too. You can stop shaking your head – were you running in 40 degree heat in the Bahamas? No. Stop judging. You can relax though, I didn’t cheat. I decided that I wouldn’t be able to be proud of myself if I didn’t do it properly, so I did. All the way to the end of the airstrip before I turned around. That’s where I took that last ‘5K’ photo above.

Fast forward a while, and I’d done most of the route and was passing the water station for the final time. There were two cast members there cheering and whooping and congratulating me on nearly being at the finish. It was at this point I saw the boxer boys nearing the finish too. Teenaged boxer boy kept looking down at his almost see-through sweat-drenched white boxers, with regret written all over his face. Yes mate, I can quite clearly see your bottom. There’s nothing you can do about it. Just run. After what seemed like hours, I turned the corner and the finish line was in sight. As I got closer, I saw Caitlyn waving wildly and celebrating everyone finishing. I searched for The Loser so I knew which way to look for the proud ‘finishing’ photos. Well, he wasn’t there. That’s right, the Loser missed it. What. A. Loser. I was very disappointed a tad angry too, but hell, I’d just run 5k in the Bahamas, I wasn’t going to let that stop myself being proud! As I ran towards the line, I stopped to take a picture of the clock. I am very proud to say that for my first run ever, I ran 5k in:



I actually did it in about 36:30, but by the time I’d fiddled with my phone and taken the photo, this was the time. I’m still very proud though, as I’ve read several blog posts from experienced runners who’ve taken longer than that to do the 5k. Yay me! I had just earned bragging rights for the rest of eternity. I was clearly too busy taking a photo of the time because when I turned around Caitlyn was stood there waving a medal at me, but as I turned, she handed it to someone else. Sorry Caitlyn, I wasn’t ignoring you, honestly! I was handed my medal, which looks like this:



and then scoured the area just past the finish line in case I had missed The Loser. Nope, he wasn’t there. Instead, I popped into the shop next door to pick up some 5k merchandise. They had a mens t-shirt, several styles of women’s t-shirts, a baseball cap and a pin. I bought the pin, and *almost* bought the baseball cap, but $23 for a plain white hat with a tiny logo on the front seemed a bit much, so I left it. It was at that point I realised I had no means of paying – I had entrusted my KTTW card to Bus Spotter whilst I was running. Having arranged to meet The Loser at the finish line, I could do nothing but stand and wait...dripping in sweat and gasping for a drink. Thanks The Loser...that really added to my magical experience! I snapped a few photos of the finish line, although it really wasn’t that exciting.



I had to wait nearly 15 minutes for The Loser to appear. I was not impressed. Thankfully he had his KTTW card on him, so I commandeered it to buy my pin and told him I most certainly wasn’t going to pay him back for it! His excuse was “uh..I never thought you’d run that far in 30 minutes”. See, no faith in me! What was it Walt Disney once said? “If you can dream it, you can do it!”. I’d definitely dreamt about the race (perhaps not in a good way..) so of course I could do it!

We marched back to the beach to find the others, where I collapsed into a beach chair and grabbed a towel to attempt to dry myself off. I was very pleased that my newly purchased sports gear had absorbed all the sweat without it being obvious to the naked eye. No sweat patches. Go me! I demanded that the others go and find me a drink and a snack so I didn’t pass out. There is a small chance I may have been exaggerating a little bit, but I had just run 5k in 36 minutes and all they’d done was sit down, so I had the right to be demanding. A few minutes later they returned, with a lemonade and a packet of BBQ crisps to share. I stared at them in disbelief. The island was full of FREE FOOD. We could have AS MUCH AS WE WANTED. So they got ONE back of crisps between all of us! Were they CRAZY? I think I may have actually been speechless. Don’t worry though, I offered to open the packet, so took a giant handful before anyone else could get their mits on them! We had a lovely view:



Having been fed and watered (slightly), I decided I needed to make may way back towards the dock to get a photo with Mickey Mouse and my medal. He was due at Mount Rustmore at 10:15am. It was now about 9:50. For those that don’t know, this is Mount Rustmore:



When we got there, Goofy was there with no wait, so we hovered by the photographer. There was no line, so we weren’t really sure where to wait. They got the message though and Goofy beckoned us over. He gave me a big high five for completing the run, and we spent a few minutes taking photos and teaching Goofy how to run (apparently he can’t do it). At the scheduled meet and greets on the island, they have the same photographers as they do on the ship, so your photos can be included in any photo packages. About 20 feet away from Goofy was Minnie, who swooned over how strong I was for having done the race. No, really. She did.



I think Minnie was starting to prefer me to Mickey, but then again, who wouldn’t? I have always wanted to go somewhere like WDW with a large group of people, get them to line up and ask for my autograph, just to see how many other people would join the line. I am extremely good looking, so I expect I’d need crowd control on hand. Having met Minnie and Goofy in the space of ten minutes, we decided we didn’t want to just stand there for 15 minutes, so we walked back to the Post Office, where Donald was supposed to have started meet and greets at 10am. For anyone interested, here’s a photo of the post office I took from our veranda as we were docking:



The plan was to meet Donald, pop into the Post Office to get the stamp and post mark, then make our way back to Mount Rustmore to meet Mickey. I have no clue how I was even managing to stand up at this point, let alone walking around for 20 minutes. But hey, that’s me. I’m brilliant. For some obscure reason, there is a wooden gate thing under a roof that you need to show your KTTW card at before being allowed to pass. It seems odd that the only people on the island are cast members and passengers from the ship, but they still want you to show your cards before you even get to the ship. Strange. It’s even stranger that they place the Post Office actually on the dock, so you have to show your card to get to it, and the meet and greet with Donald. Having shown our cards, we were allowed through – what were they going to do if I couldn’t find my card? Keep me on Castaway Cay forever? OH NO. Donald was meeting right in front of the Post Office, so we joined his short line. There was another family of runners in front of us, and the character attendant said something like “Oh look Donald, the runners are returning!”. The man from the family in front then said “well, the slow runners...”. EXCUSE ME?! Slow?! How very dare he! I’m hoping he was referring to himself, and not me. I didn’t notice him on the run, so he clearly ATE MY DUST. Not that I’m competitive in any way. The meet with Donald was great. He bragged about how he was clearly stronger than I was, and I joked with him that I didn’t see him out on the race course. I believe we engaged in what young people call ‘banter’. We have some great photos of us trying to ‘out-flex’ each other. I had more muscle, no question, but for some unexplained reason, Donald was the one with the line of fans waiting to meet him, not me. Strange.

Having out-flexed Donald spectacularly, we attempted to go into the Post Office. Closed. Nooo. We assured ourselves that it was because Donald was meeting right in front of it and his line was blocking the door, so we made a mental note to come back later. On the other side of the path, there was a photographer taking photos of people with the ship in the background, so we got in line for that too. There was a couple hovering about a certain distance away from the photographer that made it unclear as to whether they were in line or not. I politely asked if they were, and the woman practically cried tears of joy. She was apparently overwhelmed that someone had bothered to ask rather than just pushing in. I’m used to making the ladies cry tears of joy, so it was no biggie. You’re welcome lady! The photographer took a few shots (the photo kind, not the alcohol kind, although that would have been a far more exciting experience!) and made me do various poses, including one holding my medal up. I felt a right wally, but I did it anyway, just to spare his feelings.

On the walk back to Mount Rushmore, we took a few photos of the ship, and a few of us doing various poses under the “Welcome to Castaway Cay!” banner you saw a photo of earlier.



I must have been a bit over-excited, and too into the paparazzi taking all kinds of photos of me, because I nearly got run over by a tram in the process. I’d somehow forgotten that pedestrians had to stay to the right, and I almost made a puddle on the floor when I was mid-pose and a trams horn suddenly rang out right behind me. The rest of the family found that absolutely hilarious for some reason. I’m not sure why. On the way back up to Mount Rushmore, my legs started to feel a bit better, and I was beginning to walk a bit more normally again. According to the others, until that point I had been ‘walking like I had bowling balls between my legs’. That’s not actually far from the truth, you know.

Mickey hadn’t quite arrived yet, but Pluto was ready and waiting to give me a big sweaty congratulatory hug and high five.



He then beat me up. Literally. He completely misjudged the high five and smacked me square in the face. How very rude! It’s ok though, I am very strong, so it his paw rebounded with no harm done. It’s a good job he didn’t dent my perfect face, because I don’t know whether I could be faffed with the paperwork involved with suing a dog. To be fair to him, he was very apologetic. Mickey had arrived now, so I fled from the bully dog and sought the comfort of a mouse. There’s an unusual sentence if there ever was one. Unfortunately, Mickey Mouse did not seem to be in the mood for a meet and greet. It was a simple wave and pose for a photo and that was that! What a let down!



Having had our fill of characters for the day, we made our way back to our lounge chairs on the beach. We has left our towels there in the hope that nobody would pinch our spaces whilst we were character hunting, and luckily, they hadn’t. I plonked myself down on a lounger, and the others offered to go and collect the snorkels and rubber ring we had reserved. Whilst they were gone, I was very grateful to be able to just sit and take in the surroundings without anybody arguing or complaining in my ear. It’s great being able to go on holiday with family, but all the same, those little moments of peace away from them are very much valued! I wondered whether I would be able to get away with changing into my swimming gear on the beach rather than having to go and find a restroom to change in (there are no changing facilities on Castaway Cay). I considered all the facts – there were no immediate family members to laugh at me, I was sort of concealed by a huge palm tree with low hanging leaves, and there were no other families for at least 25ft either side of me. However, changing under a towel requires a certain level of co-ordination, multi-tasking skills and speed, none of which I had at that present moment in time. It would also have required the removal of shorts and boxers at the same time, causing several panic-stricken moments of under-towel nakedness. Knowing my luck with naked mishaps, I daren’t do that. Besides, the wind was starting to pick up, and I had visions of me running down the beach after my towel, with everything flying everywhere. In short, there was too much risk of disaster, so I chose to remain in my sweaty sports gear until the others returned.

When they did, laden with giant rubber ring and huge net of snorkelling gear (which included snorkel, eye mask, life jacket and flippers) I jumped up and went off to find a restroom to get changed in. As it turns out, there was one just behind us with only a 2 minute walk, so that was handy. Being barefoot in a public toilet always grosses me out a bit so I changed super quickly and emerged within the space of about 2 minutes. Here’s a photo:



(The things I am having to google to entertain you guys is getting ridiculous. THIS is why men delete their internet history )

When I returned, the others took it in turns to go and get changed too. Why they didn’t just all go at once I’ll never know, but they didn’t. I was still really hot and sticky after the race, so whilst The Loser guarded the chairs, I went for a quick dip in the sea with Bus Spotter. It was glorious. Despite then number of people on the island, it didn’t feel crowded at all. Bus Spotter made some sort of inappropriate joke about skinny dipping, but he was a little too close to another woman, who turned and looked at us in absolute horror, before slowly moving her head south, as if checking our lower halves. I assured her that it was, in fact, a joke and that we weren’t skinny dipping in a pool full of children. Honestly, we weren’t! We only spent about ten minutes in the sea, as we were being beckoned by the others. After hauling ourselves all the back up to the beach, we found we had been summoned because it was ‘snack time’ and The Loser wanted to know what we wanted. I, somewhat stupidly said I didn’t mind, as long as it was unhealthy and delicious. I was on holiday after all. The Loser and Bus Spotter went off in search of snacks.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard someone shout my name. The voice didn’t belong to The Loser or Bus Spotter, and Snack Packer was right next to me, so it puzzled me for a few moments. But then I saw my new character attendant friend George, who is also friends with Peter Pan (read my highs and lows to catch up on that!) pointing in front of him, then at me, then in front of him again. I was totally clueless, until I saw Olaf, strolling along a few feet away. I finally got the message, grabbed the camera and trotted off in hot pursuit. As it turns out, Olaf was doing a surprise meet and greet on the beach not far from where we were. As it was a surprise meet and greet, there was no official photographer so it was a good job I grabbed my camera. I Can’t seem to find a photo of Olaf on the beach anywhere (other than the ones with me in them, of course, and I don’t want to make oyu all jealous of my good looks, so I won’t post those..) so you’ll have to make do with this one. Just imagine him stood on sand, not on the deck of a ship.


I was quite excited by the whole thing because even though I am not a big Olaf fan, it was exciting to be able to participate in a rare meet and greet, and he was only out for about ten minutes so most people missed him. I took great pleasure in posting the photo in our cruise Facebook group afterwards I walked up to George and we exchanged pleasantries, and he offered to take the photos for me. He said he was very excited to finally be able to get his hands ‘on the camera with the cool camera strap!’. I think I was more excited about meeting George again than Olaf to be honest! Plus, he’s British, like me... we already have something in common, so we’d obviously be great mates! After posing with Olaf, I thanked George and said I hoped to see him around the ship. Sadly, that would turn out to be the last time I saw him. Sad times.

I returned to the others on the beach and Bus Spotter practically had a tantrum about the fact he had missed Olaf. I laughed at him for being so pathetic, before taking back up to where I’d seen him. Unfortunately by that time, Olaf had gone.

Back on the beach, I was dismayed to learn that the chosen snacks were a packet of plain crisps and another packet of BBQ crisps, and that was it. What is wrong with these people?! There is unlimited ice cream, carts full of fresh fruit, a buffet, and they keep bringing packets of crisps? I scoffed my back in seconds, that’s not a snack. That was like a snack appetizer. Pathetic. I was very grateful for the large lemonade though, even if Snack Packer did fill it with sand before I was done. Apparently “she thought it was empty”. Likely story. It was time for a proper session in the sea now. We weren’t totally sure where the snorkelling lagoon was, so The Loser and I went out in search of it. The Loser commandeered the rubber ring, and I chose to just swim. Of course, once in the rubber ring, The Loser couldn’t get out, nor could he steer, so off I swam into the distance whilst he floated on the beach. I swam out to a lifeguard in the middle of the bay, and asked about the snorkelling lagoon. Ordinarily, I would have been just about to cross the boundary into the lagoon, but sadly, it was shut this morning due to incoming inclement weather. Ruddy inclement weather ruining my fun! We were only forecast one light shower late afternoon, so I thought it was a bit over the top shutting the entire lagoon. That said, when I turned around, the inclement weather certainly was incoming:



I thanked her and returned to The Loser in his rubber ring to break the news that the snorkelling lagoon was closed until further notice. I was extremely disappointed because I LOVE snorkelling, and the only time I get to do it is on holiday, and even then it’s not every year. There were a few fish swimming around in the non-snorkelling-lagoon piece of sea (what a description, eh?) so I decided that seeing as I had paid for the snorkel, I might as well use it. On the way out of the sea, I heard someone yell “HEY, I KNOW YOU!”. It was Jeannie and her son Ethan. I realise that because I haven’t done a full trip report, you have no idea who Jeannie and Ethan are. (If you do, that means you are either telepathic, or you are in fact Jeannie or Ethan, in which case, hi again!). In Jamaica when you climb Dunn’s River Falls, you have to go up in a chain of people for parts of it. You hold hands with someone in front, and someone behind. The person I held hands with for the first half was Jeannie, so we were well acquainted. Half way up the falls, Ethan and his sister (who I never actually spoke to) decided they would fall out, and so he and his mum swapped places so he didn’t have to hold his hand. He would much rather hold the hand of a stranger than his sister... I bet his mum has fun with them at home! He looked to be about 10 – 12, and I don’t think I will ever forget the look on his face when I told him he was now holding hands with a teacher. I bet he’ll be keeping that a secret from his schoolmates! Anyway, back to Castaway Cay – Jeannie and Ethan were hanging out in the sea too, so I spent a few minutes chatting with them about the 5k (they were impressed that I’d done it too!) and the dodgy-looking incoming weather, before heading out to collect my snorkel and flippers.

When I arrived back to our chairs, Snack Packer was busy reading her second book of the trip (she seemed to be determined to get through as many of the SEVEN books she bought with her, just to prove to us that she DID need them when we insisted she wouldn’t... she never finished the second book, let alone SEVEN of them..) and Bus Spotter was busy lying down. I emptied my snorkel equipment out of the net, and put on the life jacket. If you are snorkelling, you HAVE to wear the life jacket. I’m not sure why, given that everybody else swimming in the sea doesn’t have to, but there you go. You also had to inflate the life jacket yourself by blowing into a tube attached to the jacket. My particular life jacket looked like it had been picked up from the side of the road to put it politely, and the look of shock on my face when I discovered I had to put my mouth on the thing must have been a picture, because dear old Bus Spotter offered to blow it for me. That’s right, he offered to interrupt his busy schedule of lying down to inflate me. What a gent (or, what a lack of standards...). I have never been inflated in the middle of a beach before, nor have I had someone blow on my pipe in the middle of a beach before so to have both things happening at once was an experience.

I chose to wait until I was in the sea to put the flippers on, which turned out to be a good decision. I could barely move in them in the sea, so goodness knows what I would have looked like walking down to the sea in them! It was about midday now, so I we had planned to have an hour in the sea before heading off to find lunch. I gave the loser my phone (which is waterproof by the way, don’t panic!) to try and take some pictures of me snorkelling and with my flippers sticking out of the sea, just to prove I had worn them. As would be expected of The Loser by now, his skills were utterly appalling, and none of the photos are any good. In fact, one of the photos is of someone else entirely. Great job. I spent about twenty minutes swimming around near him before deciding he was holding me back. I’m so polite. I told him that I was going to swim further out, but asked him to come and tell me before getting out so I didn’t resurface and find he had vanished. He agreed, so off I went, face down.

Despite not actually being in the snorkelling lagoon, I did manage to see a handful of fish, including a rather large blue one that didn’t want to leave me alone. The best part, though, was looking up to see a huge school of fish swimming past. It only lasted a couple of seconds, but it was fantastic. I’d never snorkelled and seen that many fish at once before, so it was great to see. After about 15 minutes I realised that I hadn’t seen anyone else under the water in a while, so resurfaced just to check I hadn’t drifted off into some sort of restricted area by mistake. I almost choked when I stuck my head out of the water. It was raining. Not just normal rain though, oh no. Monsoon rain. And nobody else in sight. Anywhere. Cue panic.

[Imagineer2802]

There was a few frantic moments of splashing about, until I finally clocked eyes on a life guard, who was shouting at me to get out of the sea onto the beach. I couldn’t even see the beach, the rain was that hard. See:


She was frantically pointing in the direction of the beach, so I frantically swam towards it, although not before stopping to take a photo! Having been under the water, I hadn’t heard any calls to evacuate the sea – I didn’t even know it was raining! The swim back to the beach seemed to take forever with the rain pelting my face, and there was the fact I couldn’t actually see the beach anyway. I did eventually get there though to find The Loser, bless his heart, stood there looking for me. He does care after all!

We ran back up to Bus Spotter and Snack Packer, who had piled all our things together and were sheltering under two tiny hand-bag sized umbrellas pulled down close over everything. I don’t know why they were bothering as everything was absolutely soaked through. THANK GOD I wrapped the DSLR in a carrier bag, is all I can say! Remember our lovely view from earlier? Here’s a picture to remind you, and a photo of what it looked like now:




Before we had a chance to do anything, a group of lifeguards appeared running down the beach, just as a MASSIVE rumble of thunder cracked and a huge flash of lightning filled the sky. Imagine the darkest, loudest thunder you’ve heard in Florida. Now times that by ten. It sounded like the sky was falling. Literally. The life guards were screaming at us “GET OFF THE BEACH, TAKE COVER! GET OFF THE BEACH, TAKE COVER!”. Everyone was absolutely terrified. It really truly felt like we were about to be hit by a hurricane or something. The beach umbrellas were rocking violently, and towels were blowing off chairs. People were literally abandoning all their stuff and running from the beach. I chose that moment to say “this must be that light shower we were forecast”. The joke was not well received. We grabbed all our stuff and ran. We had no clue where we were going, but we were being screamed at to get off the beach, so that’s what we were doing. There were island staff directing everybody to a huge wooden shack thing that I think is normally used for food seating. It was packed solid with people, and we only just about managed to squeeze inside. We managed to find a small space on the floor to put our things down and reorganise ourselves a little bit so we didn’t just have a random pile of things in our arms. Even things at the very bottom of our zipped up rucksack were soaked through. We sorted our things out to make them a little easier to carry, and decided we’d run over to the next nearest ‘cover’ which also happened to be next to the buffet. If there was a time for lunch, now would be as good a time as any.

Unfortunately, the next wooden shack we found our way to was also wall to wall people. Literally. There was not even room for me to remove my life jacket, it was that bad. A cast member on a microphone was trying to keep the mood light by saying things like “Welcome to the most sought after destination in the cruise industry: Castaway Refugee Camp!”. Nobody was laughing. We nominated two people to dash over to the buffet and get some food. They returned with a tray each of food covered with a napkin to protect it from the rain. A napkin. Just take a moment to have another quick look at those rain pictures I posted above. Was a napkin going to save our food from that? Of course not. Now we had food accompanied with a sprinkling of napkin mush. We couldn’t do anything about it though, as we were told the buffet would be closing for the day, several hours early, because water was pouring in! I think I had a burger and half a hot dog, but I can’t be sure. I was a bit distracted at the time.

The rain didn’t let up, and more and more people were being ushered into this wooden shack that was already fit to bursting. Some people tried to dash off somewhere else, but were stopped by the lifeguards. One of the lifeguards announced to everyone that we must remain under cover until further notice, and that we would no longer be permitted to move around the island. Great, we were stuck shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other sweaty, panicking tourists for the foreseeable. The storm went on for ages. The lightning was crazy, and I have never heard thunder like it, nor have I ever seen rain that heavy. We could see people across the path being held in the shop and under a small wooden awning thing, but as the storm continued to get worse it was clear that was doing nothing. The shop was being completely flooded, so everyone had to move. Island crew came around to our shack and started taking trays of food away from people so we could squash closer together to fit more people into the shack, as they couldn’t stay in the shop across the path any more. Thankfully, we had eaten our food when our tray was taken, but I think if I had got any closer to the woman behind me I would have practically been inside her, and not in a fun way.

One man took it upon himself to start an argument with one of the cast members, saying how ridiculous it was that he’d paid so much for this trip and he didn’t want to be held in a refugee camp. He also said how bad it was that the buffet had closed several hours early so most people wouldn’t have anything to eat. The poor cast member, who was still trying to get people safely between the shop and our shack with lightning still flashing overhead, tried to explain to the man that it was for his own safety, and the lightning rods on the roof of the shack would be much safer for him than being under an umbrella on the beach. The man eventually gave up and returned to the shack, but he was not happy. I could kind of see his point, however, Disney cannot control the weather, and I would much rather them make sure we were safe, than let us stay out on the island and get electrocuted by lightning. Somehow, people were still managing to run along the path adjacent to the beach, so the lifeguards had to continue to shout “TAKE COVER! TAKE COVER NOW!” at stupid guests who thought they were above the rules.

An hour went by, and we were still squeezed shoulder to shoulder with strangers in our wooden shack, not being able to move or do anything at all. Life guards were still stationed at the exits stopping people from moving. All of a sudden, there was a surge from behind me, and several people screamed and were moving further into the shack. One of the corrugated sheets that was on the roof had shifted somehow, and water was now cascading down through the ceiling. The screams had been because a rather large tree branch, and a lot of sand, had come through the roof too. Well, that’s what the woman behind me said anyway. I’m not convinced, but I took a photo on my phone anyway:



That photo was actually taken a bit later on, when everyone started to leave the shack. The wind was properly howling against the shack and even the cast member on the microphone had given up trying to keep everybody calm. A couple of people were even crying. I realise this sounds very over-dramatic, but I promise you, it did look and sound as though we were about to be destroyed by a hurricane. Nobody was really talking to each other either, it was just a sort of eery silence whilst everybody gazed around at the storm outside. It was horrible! Another hour went by. The wind and rain had died down a little now, but the life guards and island cast members were still saying we were not allowed to move around the island yet. When 2 hours 15 minutes rolled around, it was utter carnage in our shack. Children were crying, adults had started to complain and my legs felt like they were about to give up at any moment.

At long last, at about 2:15, having been in the shack since just before 12, we heard the glorious words that were ‘you have clearance to leave!’. There was an almighty cheer and a few applauses, but mostly all people were concerned with was getting out and getting some breathing space! It was still raining at this point, so 99% of people went straight back to the ship. To be honest, I think they would have been much better to send everyone back to the ship straight away, although I guess the lightning would have stated hitting way before everyone was on board, so actually...that probably wouldn’t have been a good idea so forget I said that.

We actually decided to stay in the shack a bit longer. Yes, perhaps we were crazy, but we did this for several reasons. 1) nearly everybody was heading back to the ship, so there would be huge bottlenecks at the gangways whilst everyone scanned back in. 2) Now that everyone was leaving, there were seats available and that’s all my legs could have dreamed of at that moment in time...a rest and 3) we wanted to decide on a plan of action for the rest of the afternoon. As soon as we were sat down, I finally had enough room to remove my life jacket. We were all shivering from the cold by now, so we knew we would have to go back to the ship pretty soon. It was decided that we would sit for a few minutes and wait for the gangway crowds to die down, and then head back to the ship to get warm and see what the weather was doing when we were done.

Whilst sat down, using a wet towel to keep warm (yes, we were THAT cold) I took the opportunity to snap the photo above, and a photo of what the rain was doing now. It was only light rain by this point. Well, I say light rain:



It was light compared to what it had been like for the last few hours! We took it in turns to dash off to the restroom before we headed back to the ship. I wondered what to do with the sopping wet towels – we had been given the towels as we disembarked the ship, so they did not belong to us – but a cast member came round and said she would collect them all in a moment, so we were able to leave it on the table. That was kind! I then had the issue of what to do with my life jacket. I had no idea whether we were supposed to return them somewhere or not, but upon returning to our beach chair, where I had abandoned the snorkel and flippers, i saw that most people had just left everything there, so I did too.

I was very miffed to see on the way back to the ship that the post office was STILL closed, although we put it down to the weather this time. We hoped we’d be able to get back off the ship if the weather improved, and hope the post office would be open then. By the time we got back to the ship, the gangways were empty so we were able to whizz back on without delay. We double checked with a member of security that we would be allowed to get back off still if we should choose to, and he confirmed that we would be able to and the time of departure had not changed. With that in mind, we headed towards deck 9. We just missed an elevator, but I, now being an absolute pro at running, managed to summon enough energy to pop up the staircase and catch the lift on the next deck, saving everybody from the torture of having to walk all the way up to deck 9 from deck 2... or whatever deck we got on at (I can’ actually remember).

There was a small amount of arguing with regards to who was going to get the luxury of the warm shower first. Snack Packer won. I suppose that was fair...she was the only girl, and she was the only one in proper soaked through clothes – the rest of us were in swimwear. I suppose I can let her off. The Loser lay down on the bed and dozed off (he would later get yelled at by Snack Packer for making the bed wet), Bus Spotter disappeared off to the other end of the room, whilst I located a dry towel to put around myself. Like some cruel joke, during the five minutes it had taken us to get from the dock up to our stateroom, the sun had come out, and it now looked as though we had dreamt the entire storm. I crossed the room and drew back the partition curtain that Bus Spotter had shut, to find him stood there buck naked. I should have known better than to just burst through a curtain without checking first. Not only was he completely naked, but he was about to go out onto the veranda. I shrieked at him an in ‘oh my god what are you doing’ sort of way, and apparently he was about to sit on the balcony to dry off. When I mentioned the fact that he was naked, he said ‘don’t worry, I was going to drape a towel over me when I sat down!’. WHAT?! How is that OK? I guess it was good that he had the confidence to just stroll out onto a veranda with nothing on, but SERIOUSLY?! I did moan at him a little bit. I then also broke the news to him that our balcony could be seen from one of the windows in Cabanas if you were sat on one particular table in the corner. They would certainly have got a shock if they’d looked out the window mid-chew. When I mentioned that, he did seem a little relieved that I told him. I also reminded him how earlier in the week we had seen a man walk out onto a balcony below us, remove his boxers, turn them the right way round, and put them back on again. Did he want to be like that person? DID HE? No, he didn’t. I gave him my towel, he dried off and got dressed without showering. I think he may have been a bit embarrassed. I have no idea what it is with my family and nakedness, but I don’t think we have ever had a trip where we haven’t had some sort of nudity-related incident.

After a few minutes of heated discussion, we sat on the veranda in silence, before bursting into random laughter. I think the argument had done wonders in relieving all the tension that had built up whilst we were stuck in that darn wooden shack. By the time Snack Packer was done primping herself up, both Bus Spotter and I had dried off in the sun sat on the veranda. The sun was now out in full force, so we decided we would head back out onto the island, and I wouldn’t bother getting changed out of my now dry swimwear. It was about 3:15 now, so we had an hour and a half before our ship departed and we determined to explore more of the island. We hadn’t claimed our pre-paid bike rentals yet either, so that was the first thing on the agenda.

We made our way back down to the gangway and left the ship again with a handful of other guests. The good thing about the weather was the fact that most people just went back to the ship and stayed there. For those last few hours there can’t have been more than 200 people out on the island – we barely saw anybody! We had left all our bags in the stateroom, hoping they’d dry quickly (ha!) so we had nothing but Snack Packers handbag containing essentials, and my phone for photos. Apologies for lack of photos today by the way, but I’m sure you can imagine taking photos wasn’t really my priority in the shack! Not that there would have been room to take photos anyway! On the way off the ship, we asked a crew member if she knew if the post office would be opening today, but she didn’t. It was still closed when we got off the ship.

It was as hot has it had been first thing in the morning now, with no rain clouds in sight. Typical! A tram was just arriving, so we hopped on, grateful to not have to walk all the way back up to the bike rental place! The ride was uneventful (for once!) and don’t think you’re going to get a scenic view. Most of the tram ride is on tram-only roads with nothing but trees on either side. Exciting. We got off at the first stop, and the bike rental place was less than a minutes walk away. We strolled up to booth and announced that we had paid for bike rental. The lady asked to see our tickets. Oh how we laughed. Snack Packer opened her handbag and pulled out the small pile of mush that used to be our tickets. We handed it to the lady who looked a little bemused. We thought for a moment that she wasn’t going to let us ride. She peered at the mush for a while, just about managed to discern the DCL logo on the top and then said “you look like honest people, go ahead, choose a bike and off you go!”. We thanked her, and did engage in a little chat. We asked if she lived on the island – she doesn’t, she lives on an island 9 miles away and travels in by boat every time there’s a ship in dock. What a life, eh?! She asked if we knew where the cycle route was – I nodded emphatically, and she gave me a knowing glance, and said “were you one of those crazies that ran it this morning?”. Again, I nodded emphatically.

There are different sizes and colours of bikes. I went for a big blue one:


as did everybody else except Snack Packer who went for a slightly smaller yellow one. They are really nice bikes to ride – much nicer than my off road bike at home. Off we went, with me in the lead. Then a scream came from behind me. I screeched to a halt (well, slowed cautiously to a stop – the pathetic breaks on these bikes don’t exactly let you stop suddenly). I turned around to see Snack Packer and her bike sat neatly in a bush. It turns out that her did not just have bad breaks, it had no breaks at all. It didn’t even have the break handle on the handle bars. Everybody except Snack Packer thought this was absolutely hilarious, and we stood and howled with laughter for a while before helping her up. She insisted she swapped bikes with The Loser, who begrudgingly agreed. I pointed out that the rental place was about 60 seconds behind us, so we could just go back and switch bikes, but The Loser has far too much of a ‘stubborn man’ complex to do that. No, he was adamant he would just ride the bike with no breaks. There’s a tip for you: make sure you check your bike has breaks when renting at Castaway Cay!

We cycled out to the observation tower, which is at the far end of the loop that I ran around earlier in the morning. It’s surprising how much quicker it is on a bike...
Unfortunately, to actually observe anything from the observation tower, you have to climb..like... seven billion stairs. Ok, maybe it was just three staircases, but it felt like seven billion stairs. The view from the top was lovely...mostly just trees...but lovely! We could see the ship in the distance, so lots of photos were taken.




Not having long left on the island, we didn’t stay up there long, and were soon zooming off on our bikes again. We made it out onto the airstrip, cycled up to Serenity Bay (the adults only beach) and then down the reallllly long path that runs behind Serenity Bay. It was great fun zooming along through all the deep puddles that had formed during the storm, and it turned into a bit of a competition to see who could create the biggest splash! Bonus points if the splash soaked another member of the family. Despite having run a 5k that morning, I still managed to cycle the fastest, and was of course the king of splashes. I am just fantastic at making people wet. One of my many many talents. At the end of the road, there is a look out point where we spent a few minutes gazing at the beautiful view. It was so peaceful, and I could have looked at it for hours.




Hard to imagine you could barely see your hand in front of your for rain a few hours ago, eh? Sadly, there were signs asking you not to go down onto the beach because of the rocks, so no paddling for us. For some unknown reason, Snack Packer was still sat on her bike, and refused to get off and come and look at the view. We think she was sulking about not winning the splash contest, but we’re not totally sure. Women, eh? Harder to understand than degree level maths.

After being nagged by Snack Packer to ‘hurry up in case the ship leaves’ (we still had over an hour...) we said goodbye to the view, and hopped back on the bikes to begin the journey back to the main family beach area. On the way back down the path I had to stop (much to Snack Packers annoyance!) to take a photo of this tiny little door I saw in one of the trees to the side of the path:



It was very cute indeed, and a lovely little hidden treasure!
We dropped our bikes back off at the rental place and headed back down to the family beach, where everyone except me had a little paddle in the sea. I wasn’t going to waste my time paddling – I dove straight in for some man swimming. What’s man swimming? It’s swimming when the rest of your group are too wimpy to do it. So yes, I was man swimming. I noticed that there was a handful of people quite far out into the bay in snorkel gear, so I was momentarily filled with joy at the prospect of the snorkel lagoon finally being open. Problem: I no longer had my snorkel gear. I legged it all the way down the beach to our original lounge chairs and the gods where smiling down on me: there, on there chair, were my flippers, snorkel, goggles and life vest. All filled with rain, but there nonetheless. I chucked it all back on and announced I was heading back out into the sea. I didn’t think it wise to swim full pelt out to the far side of the bay (it’s a lot further than it looks from the beach) because my poor body was starting to feel the effects of the day, so I decided instead to swim out slowly, snorkelling as I went. I took me nearly fifteen minutes to swim out there, only to find the snorkel lagoon still closed. Those other people weren’t in it, they were just near it. What. A. Let down. I did manage to see a couple of fish on my swim out there though, so not a total waste of time. I also took the opportunity to snap a photo of the ship:



Just as I snapped the photo, the lifeguards started shouting again. Surely they weren’t evacuating the sea AGAIN?! There wasn’t a rain cloud in sight for goodness sakes! When I actually stopped mentally complaining and started listening though, they were just telling everybody the sea would close in 30 minutes. That’s something I never thought I would hear: ‘the sea is closing’. Given the amount of time it had taken me to swim out, I thought I better make my way back, especially as the other were now just dots on the beach in the distance. I waved wildly at them and gave them a thumbs up to let them know I was on my way back. I went down again (not in that way, naughty) and took a slow snorkel back to the shore. I attempted to shot an underwater video on my phone, but it turned out a bit naff, because it was on a string around my neck so I couldn’t manoeuvre it very well. At least I tried!

I arrived back to the beach to an all out row between Snack Packer and The Loser. Apparently Snack Packer had told The Loser to keep an eye on me but he’d lost sight of me (to be fair, I was very far away...and underwater), so she’d told him to look through the camera lens to find me. That used up the camera battery so he was unable to take any photos, which apparently was making Snack Packer angrier. Snack Packer turned on me then, telling me off saying the ship had been called, and I could have made them miss it. I gestured to all the other people still on the beach, but when Snack Packer gets cross, you’ll always end up worse off for challenging her. I looked at Bus Spotter, who just shrugged, and we sauntered off towards the ship, leaving the others to catch up. I had had a marvellous few hours, so I wasn’t going to let them spoil it! We came the designated place to drop off all the snorkel gear (yes, there is a designated place after all!) and then made our way back to the ship, taking a few last photos on the way.





Sadly, the post office was STILL closed, so we never got our special stamp or post mark. I was very miffed indeed, as it was one of the things I was most looking forward to (I know, I’m sad..). Nobody seemed to be able to say why it had been closed all day either, and there was no explanation as to why the snorkelling lagoon had remained closed all day, even after the storm had passed. Ah well, we’d still managed to do everything else we had wanted to do on the island. Not to worry though, we’ll be back for sure I was a little alarmed to get up the following day and discover that a large proportion of people that had been in the sea had been affected by sea lice, so it may have been a good job I didn’t spend hours out there! Lots of people had been up with a fever and vomiting during the night, and I know one person in our Fish Extender Facebook group had head to toe rashes and blisters. I’m glad I didn’t know about sea lice before I went, or I don’t think I would have gone in the sea at all! Just be aware, when you’re there!



We made it back to our staterooms at about 4:35pm, just before we were due to depart. We still had over an hour until dinner and we had had a very eventful day so we chose to just sit on the veranda for a few minutes and enjoy the sun on our last evening on the ship. I managed to persuade Bus Spotter to keep his pants on this time too At 4:45 the ship started to move, and it sounded it’s array of horns for the last time. They sound like this by the way (I took this video earlier in the cruise)



It was certainly emotional having the ship pull away from the dock with the horns playing in the background. If that wasn’t enough, island cast members had lined up along the dock and were waving us off with huge Mickey hands!







In the hour before dinner, we all showered and got changed ready for dinner. I also had the job of sorting out the tip enveloped ready to give out to our servers, and The Loser was given the job of drying the bags from earlier with the hair dryer. I think he was being punished by Snack Packer, but I’m not quite sure what for! I really enjoyed sorting out the tip envelopes actually, and I didn’t wince once as I put receipts totalling more than $200 into envelopes. After a very brief discussion, we all agreed that our assistant server, Humberto, deserved more than the recommended tip for him, so we dug around and found some extra cash to put in his envelope. I also wrote a note thanking him for his wonderful service, and for the daily chats. We sure do miss him! Even now, I sit here wondering if he’s ok, and if he really does have any good friends on the ship. I hope he does!

We were due in Royal Court for our last dinner. We entered through a side door and showed ourselves to our table, as there was nobody there to escort us in like there is if you enter via the main door. We sat down, and poor Humberto got in a bit of a fluster – “oh, they come already, they come already!” we heard him say to our server Agung. I’m not going to pretend I remember what we had to eat, because I don’t! I do remember that it was a delicious meal though, whatever it was. When it came to dessert, Snack Packer wanted to try a chocolate mousse cake thingy, but decided against it in case she didn’t like it, and ordered fruit instead. When the desserts were delivered, out came her fruit, along with the chocolate mousse cake. Agung brought it over and said she could taste it, and it didn’t matter if she didn’t eat it. How lovely. He’d spend the entire week trying to persuade her to be more adventurous with her food (she nearly always ordered a ‘light option’ of plain veg and chicken or fish...she’s very fussy!) and this was his last chance. He was successful though, as she did like it! He even cheered for her! Something worth noting about desserts is that they usually have three our four options, plus a “taster” option, which is usually called something like ‘sweet temptation’. This taster option has a small sample of each of the desserts on the menu, so you get to try them all. I thought it was a really nice way to try everything, and had it a few times across the cruise.

At the end of the meal, Agung came to tell us about the sit down breakfast the following morning, but we told him we were doing express walk off, so sadly wouldn’t be attending. He kindly asked that we fill out the comment card in our room honestly (we were very very complimentary about the dining experiences, don’t worry!) and he said what a pleasure it had been to serve us every night. He even told us to look him up on Facebook! (I can’t find him! ). He’s been with the cruise line for 14 years though, so if you see him, tell him we said hi! We gave him his tip envelope and then parted ways. As was customary for our table now, Humberto came over for a chat before we left, and he said he was very sad we wouldn’t be seeing him in the morning. We thanked him profusely for such fantastic service, and for having such a wonderful smile every night of the cruise, and he looked like he was about to burst with happiness, bless him. If you see Humberto around, give him a hug from us, and tell him to make sure he has some time off! We all hugged him goodbye, and we left our table feeling rather sad. Humberto, along with George, was going to be greatly missed by us all. Never in a million years did we think we’d get so friendly the cast members, but that was one of the really nice things about a 7 day cruise. You really got chance to bond with them.

Leaving our table, we found our head server, Ali, and gave him his tip envelope. He assured us that our breakfast would be served without issue if we changed our minds in the morning.

We left Royal Court just after seven, and made our way up to Shutters to purchase our photos. It was the last night of the cruise, so it was packed. They had set up lots of extra tables around the area so people could spread their photos out and have a good long look at them. We all knew we were going to buy all the photos, even though we hadn’t verbally agreed it yet, so when we picked up our folder that practically had photos spilling out of it, we just looked at each other and joined the line. It was pricey at $350 for the lot, but we had more than anybody else in our surrounding area, and knew we would regret it if we didn’t get them. Plus we would have felt terrible about having them just be thrown away. I’m sure that’s why they print them out – to guilt trip you!
Because we ordered so many, they were all put in one large plain beige envelope – we didn’t get a nice decorated cruise line envelope like other people were getting, which was a shame. I assured everyone that having an envelope filled with photos of my wonderful face was far more valuable than a pretty envelope not filled with my face, and that seemed to cheer everybody up nicely We asked what would happen if we had any photos taken later that evening, and were told that there would be no photographers out that evening anyway, so no more photos would be taken. That solved that problem then!

It was about 7:30 when we made it out of the crowds swarming Shutters, so we headed down towards the Walt Disney Theatre ready for ‘Goodbye Fantasy’, the final show of the cruise. Chip and Dale had just arrived at the nearby Preludes, without a photographer, so we hopped in line. The attendant wasn’t George unfortunately, but he was the attendant that was with me when I got stuck to Minnie, so he had great pleasure in telling Chip and Dale to ‘watch out for him, he has a thing for Minnie’. Awkward. When it was our turn, Chip and Dale ran up to us and threw their arms around me, making cute little chipmunk noises. The hug lasted the longest time, with me sandwiched between them, and it was a really nice way to end our meet and greets. The character experiences on the cruise are far better than those at WDW for sure. Cruising is definitely an excellent way to meet the characters without waiting forever.

Waving goodbye to the chipmunks, we popped round the corner to join the throngs of people outside the theatre. Every night, the poor cast member charged with removing the ropes and opening the doors comes out, tries to shout over everyone to make sure we stay put until she, the doors and the ropes are all completely out of the way before we stampede inside. People rarely listen though, and always surge forward as soon as the first door is opened.
We found our seats, without being one of those bulls that charges in and forces their way into the front row, and sat down. We looked through all our photos, passing them along the line until the show started at 8:30pm. We noticed that we were missing the photos of us with Mickey on Castaway Cay from earlier in the morning, so we made a mental note to go back to Shutters after the show and ask them to sort it for us.



Unfortunately, Goodbye Fantasy was a huge waste of time. The characters appeared briefly, but most of it was the cruise director talking about everything we’d done on the cruise (we already knew all that because... we’d done it... ) so I’m not really sure what the point of that was for. There was a very brief video montage that included a small handful of photos that were ‘apparently’ taken throughout the week (I’m not convinced) and the rest of it was some appalling comedian who was the only one that thought he was funny. It was such a let down after the other fantastic shows. With the standard set by the previous shows, I am sure Disney could do MUCH better than that on the final night. Very disappointing.

After the “show”, we made a quick exit and popped back up to Shutters. The lady looked at all our photos on the computer and we pointed out which were missing. She said we couldn’t have them there and then, but we could pick them up the following morning. We were a bit put out that we’d have to go all the way there on disembarking day when we were already short of time, but we were grateful that they sorted it for us. With 45 minutes to go before the Goodbye Kiss in the atrium, we decided we would pop back to our stateroom to dump the rather heavy envelope of photos, and to eat the chocolates that were no doubt waiting on our pillows (a highlight of our trip! ).

We still had a bit of last minute packing to do, but opted instead to stand on the veranda for our last night-time view of the sea, reminiscing about all the good times we had had that week. It was then that we all agreed that this was just the beginning for us in the realm of the Disney Cruise Line, we would be back for sure. Just after 9, we made our way to the atrium for the show set to begin at 9:15. We arrived, and at 9:15 the classic Disney characters were all introduced and made a grand entrance down the main staircase, before zooming straight off to their meet and greet spots. We didn’t know they were going to do meet and greets, so were a bit puzzled at this point. Characters in attendance were Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Pluto, Goofy and Chip and Dale. We were a bit miffed that this had been advertised as a show, but it was really only meet and greets, and we almost left in a disgruntled state. The officer on the microphone said something like “enjoy 20 minutes of meeting and greeting with your favourite characters for the last time, before they’re invited back to the stairs for a final send off”. I only just caught that, and managed to persuade the others to stay. Rather than just wait, The Loser, Bus Spotter and I got in line for a few characters whilst Snack Packer popped up to the next deck to nab some good front row spaces with a great view of the stairs, ready for the ‘show’, if that is indeed what it was going to be. First we met Daisy, who made a huge fuss of my shirt that had Mickey Mouse all over it (Primark’s finest...) and then Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse had clearly had a shot of caffeine since his meets on the island earlier in the day, as he was much more lively. He made a huge fuss of my shirt with has face all over it, and then mimed that he remembered us from meeting him in the port on our first day. It took a while for us to work out that he was saying that, but thankfully his character handler helped us out! We remarked that it was nice to have Mickey Mouse as the first and last character greeting of the cruise. Having waved goodbye to Captain Mickey for the last time, we headed upstairs to join Snack Packer.

I really enjoyed standing there for the next few minutes soaking up the atmosphere. Characters everywhere, music playing a buzz of emotion in the atmosphere. Even the character attendants were having a great time, dancing with each other to the music! I never wanted that moment to end! Before long, the officer on the microphone called all the characters back, and, well...i’ll let the video do the rest.



When it hit the ‘Sailing Away’ part, every single one of us shed a tear. There’s no denying it. Every. Single. One of us. We got more emotional than we do when we leave Magic Kingdom for the last time! IT WAS JUST SUCH A MAGICAL WEEK OK? Don’t judge me. I still can’t watch that video without welling up.

The video doesn’t capture it very well, but TONS of confetti fell from the sky, and when the show finished, we dashed down there to collect some for our scrapbook. We all felt like children again scrabbling around on the floor collecting shiny confetti, it was a great moment! I did have to laugh at a cast member that appeared with a broom... I don’t think she needed that! The guests were doing it for her..after all, who would say no to something...anything...that was free at Disney?

With pockets full of shinies and hearts full of magic, we made our way back to our stateroom to do the last bits of packing, before falling into our cabin beds for the last time. We really did have an amazing, very eventful cruise, and I can’t speak highly enough of the crew on the Disney Fantasy. They were out of this world, they really were. I shall leave you with this photo – the last view we had standing on our veranda the following morning, having docked at Port Canaveral.



Thank you Disney Cruise Line, thank you.

[clochette]

Wow, what an eventful day. Very well done for completing the run - it's all I can do to run for a bus in that heat. The storm sounds terrifying. I'm glad I wasn't there. I'm constantly amazed at how much you manage to fit into your days. You could do with another holiday to get over it - same you have to go to school.

[Guest]

Fantastic report of your day at Castaway Cay!

[Guest]

😂😂fantastic , makes me want to cruise
XxTracy

[Mexy02]

Loved reading this. Thank you for sharing. I would have been a wreck in a storm like that so hats of to you all x

[debsym62]

Wow what a report

[kilbroney]

brilliant loved your trip report

[disneymadhouse]

Brilliant report, thanks for sharing! Makes me even more excited for our cruise on Dream over Christmas this year

[Chilly80]

Fab report please do more I've never laughed so much when reading at TR before