travels, races, and other musings

Castaway Cay Ah bittersweet day. Our last day of the cruise, but also a great day at Castaway Cay, Disney’s beautiful private island. I woke up first and headed out to the veranda as we were making our approach. Like most mornings, I headed up to Cabanas to grab some food to bring back to the room. After I returned, Roger was ready to depart for the Castaway Cay 5k. In the meantime, I sat on the veranda and enjoyed the view, reading my book while I let Emmaline sleep in. After awhile, I woke her up and got her dressed and sunscreened and ready to go to the island. Roger called and said he was done so we waited for him to come back from the island. While we waited, they began a crew member drill with a life boat and a dummy that they threw into the water to “rescue.” Roger came back to the room and Emmaline and I headed out to the island to our meeting spot while Roger went to Cabanas to eat. Later we met up on the island at our designated meeting spot. And there we spent a lo...

At Sea Another day at sea! We had no plans. Well, except for the big list of things I saw on the Navigator that I wanted to do. Otherwise, no plans! :P We slept in for a bit and then had breakfast in Lumiere's which was just okay. After breakfast we happened to see Sofia the First meeting. When we got in line they told us Sofia was leaving and that we could instead meet with Jake the Neverland Pirate. So we did that and then checked out some of our photos in Shutters before we headed down to the Atrium for a character dance party. Emmaline danced her heart out with the characters, especially dancing with Chip (of Chip and Dale) for quite a long time. She had a lot of fun. After this, we ate lunch, again in Lumiere’s (but it wasn’t as yummy as the day before) and then Emmaline went to the kid’s club for awhile. Before the cruise, I had made Emmaline a little waist pouch to fit an iPhone in which she put an old iPhone with the Disney Cruise Line Navigator app on it. From ther...

Grand Cayman I awoke early and couldn’t get back to sleep so I quietly creeped out to the veranda to watch our approach to Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman doesn’t have a cruise dock, but is instead a tendering port, meaning we had to take smaller boats from the Disney Magic out to the island. I ran up to Cabanas to grab a plate of food to take back to the room so we could eat and get ready to meet for our 7:15 excursion. Cabanas wasn’t open. Grrrr. So I grabbed a few pastries from the poolside quick service location that was opened and took those back. We got ready and munched those and then I headed back to Cabanas once open to grab more food we could slam down prior to meeting in D Lounge at 7:15. At 7:15 on the nose, we were in D Lounge where we had to hurry up and wait for everyone else to show up. Finally, at little after 7:30 everyone had trickled in. I found this annoying. Not only were we not able to eat breakfast, but nothing really happened until 7:30. It seems to me, if you...

Saturday October 24 - At Sea I wasn’t sure I was going to like being at sea but as it happened I really liked it. There were so many things to do on board the ship. It was impossible to do everything we wanted to do. After breakfast at Cabanas we started our day in the pools. I took Emmaline to the pool while Roger headed to deck 4 to check out the running track. After he was done running, he came to the pool and I headed up to try out the Aquadunk, a water slide for those over 48 inches tall (so, not Emmaline). You stand upright in the chute and after a countdown, a trap door opens under your feet and you plunge straight down, go around a curve and end about 10 (adrenaline filled) seconds later. The view from up there was lovely and that’s about all I have to say about that slide. After that, we showered and changed and went to Cabanas for lunch before heading back to the room to change Emmaline into her Halloween costume for room to room trick or treat at 1 PM. This was not a s...

Embarkation Day - Miami, FL This is my trip report for the Disney Magic Halloween on the High Seas cruise departing Miami with 2 days at sea, and stops in Grand Cayman and Castaway Cay. The cast of characters: Summer (me), Roger, and Emmaline (age 7). This was our second cruise with DCL. We awoke in Miami after having traveled the previous day from Austin to the Fort Lauderdale airport. We then took a shuttle service to the Intercontinental Miami where we spent the night. We took our time in the morning, eating breakfast at a cafe downtown before packing up and taking a 10 minute taxi to the port. Last time we cruised out of Port Canaveral and I have to say that the experience in Miami was somewhat disorganized and chaotic. Our Port Arrival Time was 11 AM (the earliest possible time for Miami). Our taxi arrived at almost 11 on the dot, we gave our luggage to the porters out front and went into the building. We checked in relatively quickly, being able to head to the repeat cruiser ...