Disney Dream cruise and Walt Disney World 2014 - Day 3 - Castaway Cay

Castaway Cay

We woke up to the ship docking at Castaway Cay. It was a beautiful sunny day and the water looked amazing. It was just absolutely gorgeous. I made a quick run up to Cabanas to grab a few pastries to tide us over so we could go meet princesses and then Roger headed off the ship to run the Castaway Cay 5k. Emmaline and I arrived 20 minutes early to the princess gathering and there was already a really big line. It was really cute though how the princesses made a grand entrance down the big staircase in the lobby. We met all the princesses in attendance (Tiana, Snow White, Ariel, Rapunzel, Cinderella and Belle) and were done with that around 9:20 at which time, we went up to Cabanas to have some more breakfast. We sat outside (I didn’t realize there was an outdoor seating area until the last day - bummer) and enjoyed the absolutely incredible view of the island. You can literally see the entire island from up there! It was amazing to see the sparkling blue water and the sand. (Have I mentioned Castaway Cay is beautiful?) After breakfast we headed down to get off the ship. Roger came back to the ship after practically melting on the 5k. It was already getting really hot!





On the way off the ship we stopped for a quick picture with Daisy before hopping on to the tram to head to the Pelican Point section of the beach. We played in the water and the sand (Roger joining us after a bit) and Emmaline wanted to rent a float so I went and got one of those for $10. Eventually it was time for lunch so we headed over to “Cookies Too” (they have two BBQ spots on the island, “Cookies” and “Cookies Too”). I ordered up a veggie burger and Emmaline and Roger had cheeseburgers. We also enjoyed fresh fruit, potato salad, corn on the cob, chips and, of course cookies (Emmaline had ice cream).



After lunch we headed to the kids area and checked Emmaline in there so that Roger and I could hit up the adult beach, Serenity Bay. It lives up to it’s name and reputation. It’s one of the most beautiful, calm beaches I have ever been to. I swam out to a buoy probably about 200 meters out (estimation based on how long it took me to get out there). All the way out, the water was incredibly clear (and not terribly deep). We hung out there for a short time, not long though because I wasn’t sure how long Emmaline would want to be in the kid’s area. We headed back and picked her up and I left Roger and Emmaline to play in the water while I went to check out the water slide at Pelican Plunge. After I plunged (what a view at the top!), I decided Emmaline wouldn’t like it so she and I floated around the in the float while Roger rode each of the two different slides. Throughout the day, the weather was beautiful. Sunny and warm (okay, hot) and we didn’t get any rain (even though there was a chance in the forecast). The water was a little cool at first, but felt great once in.



It was getting to be late in the day, so we headed back to the ship to get cleaned up. Emmaline took a bath and Roger and I took turns taking showers while she watched “The Jungle Book” on the TV in the room (which had pretty much every Disney film ever made on demand). We ordered a cheese and cracker plate and fresh fruit from room service (which was very tasty) and got ourselves ready for our last evening on board. Oh, the room service reminds me, the only other room service we ordered was hot cookies the night before and they were also great.



I had wanted to try to catch the Sea You Real Soon event, but by the time we were showered and ready for action again, we had missed it and the other one wasn’t until 10:15 PM, which was too late if we were going to finish packing and get to bed on time to our assigned breakfast time of 8 AM. So instead Roger and Emmaline went and played miniature golf and ping pong on Goofy’s Sports Deck while I went to Shutters to look at all the photos we had taken on the cruise and decide what we wanted to do about ordering them. Evidently half the ship had the same idea and Shutters was busy. I ended up purchasing a digital photo package with 10 images on a CD that I could pick up the next day. Actually, I picked up a CD of all our images which had the ability to unlock 10 of them in high(ish) res.

Then we noticed that Mickey was greeting in his captain’s outfit and even though we’ve already met Mickey in multiple other outfits, we decided the captain outfit would be fun so we did that. Then we saw that they were taking more family photos in the lobby in front of some different backgrounds and we decided to do that, too (and I’m glad we did both because we chose those two to be part of our ten images).



Then it was just about time for the show so we headed in and found some good seats. Emmaline wanted popcorn (which costs money) and I had held her off successfully the previous two nights, but we caved and bought some the last night. This show, “Believe” was actually my favorite of the three. I liked it quite a lot. Really, all three shows were great, I just preferred this one. Emmaline loved them all.

After the show, Emmaline made her final purchases in the shops (again, along with half the ship that had the same idea) and then we attended the officer pin trading and she traded all the pins we brought to trade. After that we headed out to the lobby and we saw Pluto greeting so we jumped into that line to say hi to him. Then it was time for dinner so we headed to our last dining experience, Enchanted Garden. I thoroughly enjoyed both my dishes that night - a really refreshing cucumber veggie roll, spinach raspberry salad and a really delicious portobello mushroom and lentil dish. I should mention that I was so pleased with the variety of the DCL menus for vegetarians. Each menu had a specific section for vegetarian dishes. In most restaurants I have basically one choice on the menu. On the ship I had so many options. And the first night I ordered a vegetarian dish, our server asked. She also knew how Roger liked his meat after the first night and she knew Emmaline's preferences as well.

Emmaline didn’t want to go to the Oceaneer Club so she stayed until we were done and the assistant server taught her to make origami flowers. Our servers had a little more time to spend with us because the other family at our table didn’t arrive for dinner (we found out later that they were too tired and just had room service and pool-side food) and there were a couple of other dinner no-shows as well. I guess everyone was cooked from Castaway Cay. I have to say, some people were literally cooked. I saw a LOT of sunburned people.

We headed to our stateroom, finished packing and gave our luggage to our room steward (minus a carry on bag and stuff we would need for the next day) and fell into bed. It was a fantastic day and definitely my favorite day of the cruise.

Click here for Day 4.