davidmbfonz

After two near-full days at Castaway, we knew we had been spoiled. The weather had been perfect both days - climbed into the low-80s and we even got a little pink (in late October!).

We played on the hammocks a bit and headed back to the ship around 4 PM.

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This is what boys do - no such thing as relaxing in a hammock! Heaven forbid!

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Chip and Dale were waiting for us as we boarded the ship!

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Love those guys!

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If you look closely at the last picture in my last post, you can see the look on my younger son's face. Those were his last moments in the water. Both of my boys, unfortunately, got really freaked out by the stingrays. They love the water, and have spent days and days in the Atlantic surf up and down the East Coast. We swim every day all summer long. I can't explain what set them off.

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I mean, these were magnificent, even beautiful creatures who were quite friendly (and harmless!).

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Here's my oldest son trying to give it the ol' college try... I felt bad strongly urging him to continue, but didn't want him to miss out on this in case it 'caught on' with him. It didn't.

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The cast members were good with letting me wade in a bit and I even pet a few of the stingrays. We took about 15 more minutes of photos and video, my wife had her fill, and then we moved on to the next activity. A rare 'bum note' in this vacation, and certainly not Disney's fault. You can't plan everything perfectly with three young kids. We'll try again in a couple of years.

On a personal note, the stingray adventure is really what first got me intrigued by a family cruise several years ago. There was a commercial that played with some catchy music ("Lust for Life"?) and I think it was for a different cruise line. Something about seeing the family feeding and swimming with stingrays caught me as so cool and the perfect amount of "adventure" that I had near-iconic hopes for this. In the end, I'm ok that it didn't work out perfectly! My wife thought it was really cool!

After lunch, the princess took a little nap in the wagon - they have these wagons that you can use (and as far as I could tell - they were freely available). We covered her with a towel and headed off to the Stingray Adventure.

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This is located in an area to the 'left' (if you're facing the water) of the 1st family beach.

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There was an educational presentation orienting us to the stingrays. Spoiler alert - all of these stingrays have had their stingers removed AND they're all ladies (a couple of them were pregnant).

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We had pre-booked this 'excursion' for my wife and my two sons. I knew I'd need to stay with our daughter and also take pictures.

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Getting ready!

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After the initial feeding, you could have the rest of the hour to swim with and pet the stingrays.

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Agree - jwalk! 100%

A San Diego cruise? Is that one of the Pixar ones? Those looked awesome.

You'll love the decorations - they're not over the top, but are definitely there. Was an added bonus!

Thanks too, LuCruise for the nice words!

Some shots of Pelican Plunge and the 2nd Family Beach on this 2nd day:

I absolutely loved that you had to 'work' to get out to this slide... you really had to swim or else you couldn't go on it. My sons chose to ride on my back, but just for fun, I did push them off once or twice. And, be warned: the dark slide is scary!

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One of my best moments on this cruise/vacation/adventure (out of many, many!) was when I was waiting at the top of the slide on Pelican Plunge and the dad next to me was looking out at the ship and I said to him, "If you could dream up a perfect family vacation..." and he finished my sentence with "... this is it!" Awesome moment. And very true.

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Lunchtime!

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Very happy boy!

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Soft serve after EVERY meal? ;-)

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After breakfast, we headed to Castaway Beach - we're creatures of habit, so we were intent on going back to the 2nd Family Beach, right near, you guessed it, Pelican Plunge.

Can't get enough of that water, and the view of the ship!

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Took at picture of our stateroom once we stepped off the ship - not sure if Deck 9 is the very top row of oval windows, or the next one down?

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We stopped at the Post Office, right off the ship, to meet Olaf and Stitch.

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We rented an inner tube today - lots of fun to splash around with!

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Sorry for disappearing for a bit. I'm back!

Our 4th (and really, final) day began with my daughter's 2nd Princess Meet-and-Greet in the Atrium. She was a bit more responsive this time, but I think it was just too early for her. She had been talking about these princesses forEVER, and had a really magnetic reaction to seeing Cinderella at the Magic Kingdom about 18 months prior. She got some good interaction, but it's just not the joyous expression we're used to (call us spoiled!).

You can see the line-up here... no more than a 5 minute wait. LOVE the ticket idea.

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And the lineup of the Princesses! (I had snuck away, unknown to my wife, to take video of the entire meet from that 3rd floor balcony... these shots were from the sneaky vantage point).

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Pro Shots:

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DDR-141026-Belle_6x8-13871788 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

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After that, we wandered out to the atrium where there were character photo shoots, and family sessions as well. These were a lot of fun. How nice to go "out" to dinner and then have a family photo session! The photographer was really patient and spent about 15 minutes with us.

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What an incredible day! If we didn't have pictures of it, I don't know if I'd believe it! And we were going back to Castaway Cay again the next day!!!

A magical Halloween dessert! Creepy, but tasty!

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Carlos did a classic magic trick for my son. The service was really awesome - they felt like part of our family at this point in the cruise.

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More decorations/artwork:

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One of the photos that came with the pro CD:

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Then it was off to that night's show - "The Golden Mickeys". We enjoyed the show - lots of good production numbers. I can't remember if this was the show that had the floating jellyfish, but that number was just amazing!

Then it was off to our 2nd dinner in Animator's Palate.

Love the decorations there!

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This was our Crush talking night, since the previous night was Pirate Night.

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You haven't lived until you've had these black truffle pasta purseittes!

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my wife's appetizer:

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I had to go for some pasta - I hadn't had any in a week, and I usually can't go that long! :-)

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I also had the ginger-teriyaki dusted angus beef tenerloin (on wasabi-mashed potatoes!) Delicious!

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Thanks Pathfinder and Kiwi!

Halloween Trick-or-Treating was scheduled for the late afternoon, prior to dinner. Earlier in the day, when we returned from breakfast, our stateroom hostess has left 3 trick-or-treat bags filled with candy on our beds! The kids were so excited, but of course, we had to get off the ship and have a fun day at Castaway Cay first (is this an incredible set of experiences and events, or what?!).

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We came back onboard around 4 pm and got changed into comfortable clothes and costumes. We headed down to the atrium where the trick-or-treating, games, and photo opportunities were waiting!

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There were little stations setup with games to play - at the end of each turn, the CMs put a handful of candy in each kid's bag.

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And, of course, there was a Halloween Dance Show with the Fab Five!

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Wow again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anylofhzKjA

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anylofhzKjA[/YOUTUBE]

Have you folks seen this yet? Looks VERY intriguing...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/attractions/the-daily-disney/os-travel-disney-cruise-line-star-wars-20150211-story.html

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After lunch, we had ice cream back on the beach. I think they had either mango or peach soft-serve as a choice (can't remember which, but it was an unusual flavor, and quite tasty!):

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We had rented bikes in the reservation system, although it didn't turn out to be necessary - there were 100s of bikes available - all different sizes and configurations too.

My wife rode our daughter in a child seat, and my two boys each picked out their own bikes. And, we were off!

"Mr. Choosy" had a hard time choosing...

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All ready!

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The landing strip serves as the backbone of the bike path.

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We stopped at the Observation Tower for a short climb and a great view. There were water stations along the way as well, with ice cold water served in little paper cones. How thoughtful! (And necessary - that afternoon sun, even in late-October takes no prisoners!)

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Re two cabins. I'm sorry, somehow I lost one of your kids :confused:. You definitely got an incredible deal for a cabin! I paid $3,600 including tax and trip insurance for a 5-day Dream cruise back in June 2012. That was for a Deluxe inside for the four of us that I booked 17 months prior.

 

My upcoming 7-day Eastern cruise on the Fantasy in May 2015 with your cabin selection is just over $6,000 with everything and I booked it a year out. When you have to cruise during the summer, it's brutal on your wallet, especially when you want to pick your cabin in advance.

 

I just spent $5,000 at Disney World for our stay during Christmas week, so that mouse's wallet is heavy while mine is feeling pretty light ;).

I hear you there! I think right there in your last line you've got a good argument for why Disney Cruise Line is so much more than the other lines - they've got a couple hundred THOUSAND guests on any given day shelling out similar per-day rates for the WDW experience... a small subset of those visitors have figured out that you can get white-glove service and the complete "Disney experience" for about the same amount (or less!) on DCL.

It appears a big factor is the timing (of course!) of the cruise. We don't mind taking the kids out of school and going off-peak. I'm pretty sure this 10/23 through 10/27 sailing was off-peak. It left on a Thursday and returned on a Monday, returning only a couple days before the often-hectic Halloween holiday.

Just for fun, I went to DCL's site and priced out the 3-day Bahamas trip on the Dream that sails on 10/30 this year. A 4D Verandah for five right now is $3190. Two deluxe oceanview rooms (1 adult and two kids; 1 adult and one kid) are $1865 + $1349 for a total of: $3214. Just a few dollars more and nearly twice the space!

:D

My daughter helped get buckets of water for the castle - we received two of these buckets from our fish extender exchange - perfect gift!

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Before we headed to get lunch at Cookies Too, we stopped at the splash zone (which was just nearby). We stayed here for a good 45 minutes.

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There's a shaded pavilion area where the parents can sit and relax while the kids play.

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Lunch was delicious - I had some mango-pepper ribs that were out of this world! Still thinking about those ribs!

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We setup right near Pelican Plunge. By the time we got out to the 2nd family beach section (probably around 11 am if I remember correctly), nearly all the lounge chairs were taken (at least, the choice ones). However, we quickly realized how unnecessary it was to setup 'camp' on a bunch of lounge chairs and be so far away from where we'd be spending our time - in the surf.

We noticed that others were setting their bags of stuff down, and then bringing deck chairs up near the water. We did the same, and found that was all we really needed. We, along with anyone else who wanted it, had 'waterfront seats'.

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You can see the 'seat strategy' a bit in this shot... also note how blue that water is!!

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Now, a warning about this next shot: if you haven't been to Castaway Cay before, or haven't visited via one of the big ships, this next shot might put you in a panic. It wasn't nearly as 'crowded' as this looks - this was a high f-stop and so a big depth of field - the whole Family Beach #2 is in this shot. I wanted to include it to show what it looks like, though, at least from the camera's point of view.

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Jason gave Castaway Cay a thumbs-up!

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So did our oldest son:

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We built a sand castle, using a pirate flag someone had given us as a fish extender gift, and using those beautiful white seashells found at Castaway Cay as decoration.

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Re: the two staterooms - we're a family of five, which still would have fit in just one deluxe oceanview stateroom. However, we had booked 18 months out (right when these sail dates were released), and so the prices were the most reasonable that they were likely to be. I had read on these boards, and other places, that two inside staterooms were often the same price as a verandah. And so we set our sights on getting two rooms. We had to book 1 adult in each room (with 1 kid in one room, and 2 kids in the other). You can try pricing that out right now, and you'll see that it's often only a few hundred dollars more!

One thing I'll note - it did feel luxurious to have all that 'extra' space - we really didn't use that 2nd room except for when the kids were sleeping. It also helped to have the extra dresser space. But we didn't even use both closets! This made it easy to get dressed as well - once one kid was dressed and ready, we could have them go hang out of the way in the other room, and so on. With three kids, remember, it's all about divide-and-conquer! :D

With all of that said, we could probably have lived with just one deluxe stateroom. For an extra $300, we felt it was a steal!

I immediately noticed the way the sunlight was hitting the palm trees - tried hard to get the exposure just right to capture that luscious green!

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Have seen this picture so many times... but now it included MY kids! ;-)

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View of family beach #1:

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I couldn't believe we were finally at Castaway Cay! My first impression was that the island was much bigger than it appeared in the maps. We made our way to the 2nd beach by walking, since we wanted to see the characters along the way. It took us, at a leisurely pace, a good 45 minutes to get situated at the 2nd family beach; we chose this beach because we wanted to be near Pelican Plunge. Keep in mind the 45 minutes included buying sunglasses for the kids so that they wouldn't squint in the pictures (oops! forgot to pack those!). We stopped for several photos with the characters.

Looks like another morning on the Disney Dream:

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Our view of Castaway Cay from our stateroom window:

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What it looks like to get off the ship - I believe this is Deck 2.

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First view of the outside of the ship in 36 hours:

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Could stare at this picture all day!

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I took a picture of the weather on the stateroom TV. It looks pretty nasty, but it was as clear as can be up on deck at this point (slightly after midnight on Saturday morning). I think the Captain did an excellent job of giving us as good of a 1st day in the Bahamas as we could expect.

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You can see the hourly forecast for our first day in Castaway Cay as well. This matched-up with all the forecasts I had been looking at for the previous 10 days. There was a good chance that it would rain in the morning, but that we'd get a great afternoon. The reality is that it was bright and sunny our entire two days in Castaway Cay! With that direct full sun, even in late October, the temps reached into the low-80s. Nearly perfect!

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This is the view we awoke to (Doesn't look like rain to me!):

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On our way to breakfast in Royal Palace, we took pictures of the magically transformed Pumpkin Tree - those seeds from the first night had sprouted!

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Some expert pumpkin carving, for sure:

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Thanks 'perditax' - you're welcome!!

Some more fish extender gift exchange pics:

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And I managed to take a picture of the check-out process - very cool system they've got: the kids hold their bracelets up to the 'Mickey Scanner' and the parents' pictures popup on the computer screen. Way cool!

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Towel Monkey!

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... and our first late-night room service...

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Club Pirate!

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The party was a lot of fun - we bought the kids some glowing swords and they proceeded to have a sword-fight right there on the deck.

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We hung toward the back and could see the pirate show just fine. You can see the deck was a little wet from the rain earlier in the day, but the sky was pretty clear!

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After the show, there was a fun dance party - it took my boys a bit to get into it, but once my middle son did, he starting break dancing! People cleared a spot for him. I have no idea where he learned those moves!

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Wow - thanks "bethy" - very cool. You'll love your cruise - the Halloween aspect just turns the cruise into a big fun circus!

Here's the jerk chicken salad that had as an appetizer:

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My wife had something called "Pearls of the Caribbean" as an appetizer:

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The infamous trio dessert sampler:

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After dinner (remember, we were 2nd-seating) we headed up to the Pirate Party. We passed a bride on the way; she stopped and had a moment with my daughter.

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