Day 4: Castaway Cay, Tuesday, January 13, 2009
I must admit that from having read numerous posts on these boards and from the PassPorters guide about how sometimes the ship is unable to dock at CC due to high winds or seas, I was very nervous Tuesday morning that we wouldn’t be able to dock. True, I know the chance is very low but I’d heard it happens more in January and February so I was keeping my fingers crossed. We were supposed to get off at 8:30, so around 7:00 I woke up and went out on the verandah to see what was up. I could see CC approaching, and I could tell the ship was being turned around. I had hoped we would back in so that we would have the great view of the island from our verandah. I watched patiently as the ship made a full circle, then I forced myself to lay back down in bed for a little while. When I woke up again around 7:45 the ship was fully backed in, and it appeared we had docked! I was so relieved! The sun was out more than it had been the day before too, and the view was incredible. Lee and I got ready for the day and headed up to the Beach Blanket buffet again for a nice breakfast overlooking the island!
At 8:30 sharp we were allowed to disembark. We made our way off the gangway and were given 2 towels each. I suppose we could have asked for more since they are so small, but I felt bashful asking…I would rather they have more towel distribution huts throughout the island to get more throughout the day as they got wet/dirty. Anyway we got a nice picture since the line wasn’t long immediately after getting off the ship with it in the background. Then of course we missed the tram to the end of the family beach. We always have the worst timing with the trams. I know we could have waited but I’m soooo impatient so we just decided to walk, bags and rolling cooler in tow. We walked all the way down to the very end of the family beach near the Heads Up Bar, which is my favorite area—far enough from the kids, yet close enough to all the action and I LOVE having the ship in sight, which is my only peeve with Serenity Bay. I love the peacefulness and natural beauty of it and all, but there is something about having the ship in sight that I love even more.
Anyway, Lee and I grabbed two lounge chairs and laid down, only to quickly discover that we were freezing. It wasn’t bad on the ship that morning or even walking down the beach (in fact it was hot and somewhat sticky/humid), but when we laid down the wind was outrageous. Even with my jacket on and a towel around my legs, it was so uncomfortable. I was trying to look on the bright side, after all at least we’d been able to dock despite the awful winds! After 15 minutes of trying to get used to it, I got the idea that maybe we should check out Serenity Bay since it was facing a different side of the island so maybe the wind wouldn’t be as bad. We decided to leave our stuff there so we didn’t have to lug it all the way there only to find it no better than the family beach. So we took the long walk down the airstrip to the adult beach. Alas, it was an oasis when we got there. Totally different, like being on another island. The waves were practically non-existent, the sun was warmer, no wind at all! Paradise found. Of course now we had to go back for our stuff. This time luckily though we caught the tram at least. We grabbed our stuff but of course didn’t want to wait for the next tram (they drive WAY slow), so we walked back to Serenity Bay, enjoying the warm sun on our backs along the way. Finally we had a chance to lay down, and perfect timing too, a server came around and offered me a much needed drink after an unexpectedly busy morning!
We had the jet ski “eco-tour” excursion scheduled for 11:00 AM, so before we knew it, it was time to head to the boat beach. We left our belongings on the chairs and took the tram back, and showed up in perfect timing to get pictures with Chip and Dale first. Then we walked over to the boat check-in, where we were told that the excursion had been cancelled because of the wind and choppy waves. Lee and I were so upset—the waves and wind really weren’t bad at all to us, we’ve owned our own waverunner in NJ for over 10 years, and this day at CC was an average/good day out on it at home. But, I could understand that it wasn’t the best of conditions for those who’d never operated one before, so we tried to get over it and take comfort in the fact that at least we have one at home to look forward to this summer again.
Since we were already back at the family beach, I thought we should try some snorkeling since I’d been contemplated doing it anyway, and with the jet ski tour cancelled, why not? The water wasn’t too cold for us at all. We rented the gear and had a great time. I loved finally getting to use my new digital underwater camera for some great shots! And finding the sunken Mickey was super cool. So the morning all kind of worked out, no waverunners but the snorkeling ended up being really fun. I’d highly recommend it, even if the water is a little cold when you first get in, you get over it so fast. I’m shocked that so many people say that they don’t go in the water at CC in the winter months, why would you even cruise that time of year then? And more importantly, where do you live in the US? I guess a lot of people live in FL or CA or southern states with warm water because I’m from NJ and our summer water temps are what CC was in January for us, no big deal at all. I guess everyone has different tastes, I just wouldn’t let a little initial chill stop me from a great day in the water!
After snorkeling we took the tram back to Serenity Bay around 12:00 for lunch. It was fabulous! Great salad bar, lots of sandwich choices, the works. I had potato salad and a nice grilled chicken sandwich with nice toppings, plus another cocktail. Then it was time for a nice leisurely afternoon on the beach. We stayed on Serenity Bay until around 3:00 before heading back to make sure we had time for shopping at Sea-Shells. I picked up a nice CC Christmas ornament, a postcard, pin, and t-shirt. Then we took the tram back to the ship, and I mailed the postcard…hopefully it won’t take too long to get to me! Perfect timing again, Mickey was at the gangway for pictures when we arrived. Back onboard we went straight up to the adult pool for a little more sun and pool time. We stayed longer at the pool because we decided that we didn’t really want to see tonight’s “show” (it was Bolt in 3-D), we’d rather relax for one night and not have to rush for the show and getting ready for dinner, plus we needed extra time to get ready in our elaborate pirate costumes!
Lee and I had fabulous pirate costumes from head to toe. If someone can tell me how to post pictures in my report, I can try to post so you can all see how cool we looked! Seriously we even had someone ask to take a picture with us! After getting all decked out it was very important to us to get pictures with Pirate Mickey, Pirate Minnie, and Jack Sparrow. Of course Disney had their ridiculous line system set up whereby each character has a separate line, unlike in WDW where there would be one line, and you would “move across” to see each character when it was your turn. The system onboard had been very frustrating for us thus far, since we’d have to wait upwards of 15-20 minutes in each line, or skip the character in the other line. It didn’t matter if you arrived 15 minutes early, or if you showed up at the exact time and waited in line, either way each character was a 15 minute ordeal. So for Pirate Night, I refused to wait like that. We went down 15 minutes early so that Lee could stand near the front of the one line, and I was at the front of the other. I told her to simply tell the person behind her that when I went up for the picture on the other side, she’d be joining me but we would both be returning to her place in that line. The person she asked to hold her spot was pretty nice, but some of the people around her seemed annoyed, but we did not care at all. This was day 3 of the cruise and we’d patiently waited for every little kid to take their turns, get autographs, etc. so we figured it was our turn to get our pictures the way we wanted. It worked out great, we had pictures with Mickey and Minnie done in 5 minutes versus what could have been ½ an hour if we’d done the separate lines. Then we headed up to Preludes where Jack Sparrow was, and luckily his line was very short. It was fun getting pictures with him, he was pretty cute and really in character, he said “and where have you ladies been all day, eh?” in his accent, so cool! The pictures came out great.
Tonight’s dinner was in Triton’s for Pirate Night. I loved having the menu on a scroll to take home. For an appetizer I had Black Beard’s Jumbo Crab Cakes, which were surprisingly delicious. Not exactly jumbo size, but good quality…I think the quality of the seafood in general was a lot better on this cruise than my first one in 2004. Lee and I also had the Hideaway Bay Salad, basically a nice Caesar salad. For dinner I had Castaway Cay’s chicken breast rubbed with island spice, and Lee had the Black Beard’s oven-roasted beef tenderloin, and she gave me the chive mashed potatoes that came with it which were pretty good. For dessert I had the Lost Banana Treasure, which was like a Banana’s Foster flambé dessert, probably the best dessert in the regular restaurants that I’d had, but still just okay. Everyone is definitely right when they say that the desserts look a lot better than they taste on DCL with the exception of Palo’s of course. Lee’s dessert, Walk the Triple Layered Chocolate cake, didn’t even look good though…it was a 4x1x2 rectangle of fudge like chocolate, but when she put the fork to it some watery chocolate oozed out of the bottom, yuck. Not a winner, but we were stuffed from dinner luckily. Hopefully DCL can improve on the desserts in the future.
We told our servers, Sunsil and Toni from India, that we wanted to be finished dinner by 9:30, which they said was no problem. Actually, our table seemed to be ahead of most of the others every night which was nice, probably because we were all adults, a small table, and always knew what we wanted to order each night. So in fact we were done by 9:30. We missed the Pirate line dance thing they did, but that wasn’t my cup of tea anyway, so it was all good. We went up to Deck 9 to get a good spot for the party. I had mixed feelings about it overall. I’m glad we went early and were in the center of the action, but I think next time I’ll just hang out on Deck 10 and watch from above. The first 30 minutes of the party were just the CM’s dancing around on stage to the music. Some characters came out but they went out into the crowd and got lost in the sea, no pun intended! It wasn’t until they all came back onstage and the “show” started that we really had fun. I loved how Mickey came flying down on the line like that. And the fireworks were great too. Overall, I had fun dressing up (and will do that again) but I think I’ll take a more spectator spot next time for the party.
After the party we were pretty pooped, so Lee and I just decided to relax on our verandah and smoke some cigars we’d gotten in Nassau the day before. It was a nice, quiet end to a VERY busy day. We were certainly looking forward to our day at sea in the morning!
I hope you all had fun at DW on Thursday and a safe trip back!!
