Postby KeithS » Sun Mar 31, 2013 12:25 pm
29 March 2013 – Castaway Cay
We woke up early today so that we could watch our 8:45 arrival at Castaway Cay. We sat on the balcony watching the sea go past and looking at other cruise ships sailing nearby. We also had the bridge view television camera switched on in our stateroom TV so we could watch Castaway Cay appear. Eventually, it was land-ho, so we headed up to Cabana’s for breakfast at the rear of the ship so we could watch it reverse into Castaway Cay while eating breakfast. It was a truly wonderful sight to behold as the weather was perfectly blue – and the colours of the water were magical. We hurried back downstairs to our stateroom to brush our teeth and get ready to hit the island.
Pretty soon, word came over the loudspeaker that we could leave the ship and we headed downstairs and out onto the deck. The first thing we did after collecting towels, was to head to the post office to get photographs and autographs with Donald who had managed to avoid us all week! We then got a Castaway Cay photo with the ship in the background. With that done, we headed further into the island, walking all the way. We checked out the first merchandise store before moving on to get a drink at a Cookies BBQ. We then hit the next merchandise store and bought Castaway Cay shirts as we didn’t want to leave that until the end of the day.
Next, we picked up our bikes and rode down the runway towards Serenity Bay – taking the detour up to the watch tower. At the tower, we took great photos of the island which you could see all around. We then got on the bikes again and headed to the beach at Serenity Bay which is the adults only area.
On the beach, we headed along and got ourselves a pair of lounges under an umbrella. There was no one else around us and it felt like we by ourselves on a deserted island – just magical. We went for a stroll down to the water which initially felt very cold, but we soon got used to it and walked the length of the beach through the surf. There were fish everywhere, as well as pelicans who were dive bombing the water to feed! We literally took hundreds of photos!
Next, we headed up to the adults only BBQ. I had pork ribs, BBQ lemon-marinated chicken, coleslaw and salad, Della had a hamburger cooked to order on the BBQ. After eating, we grabbed some drinks and headed back down to the beach where we laid on our lounges for some time before grabbing our bikes and motoring down the runway and doing a lap of the path to the watch tower again. We eventually dropped the bikes off at the rental point and headed to our Stingray Adventure.
The Stingray Adventure was brilliant! We were issued with goggles and a snorkel, then had a briefing about stingrays and what we would be doing. We then waded out into the stingray pool where floating ramps were set up that the stingrays would swim on to feed. We got to hold food between our fingers and they would swim over your hand and suck it out – it was a weird sensation but an amazing experience. On one occasion, a ray mistook my finger for food and tried to suck it in, which actually drew blood but didn’t worry me. After the feeding, we then put on our dive goggles and snorkel and swam over the stingrays in the water – it was just fantastic as there were so many of them and I used my underwater camera to take pictures. Soon enough though, we realised that we needed to get back to the Fantasy as it was all aboard by 4:30pm.
We walked out of the water, dropped off our gear and picked up our Stingray Adventure badge before walking all the way back to the ship. We boarded and headed straight up to our stateroom to shower and get changed so we could go up on deck to watch us depart Castaway Cay. We went up onto deck 12 and caught up with Brian and Patty as the Captain played the Fantasy’s musical horn. We got some group photos on the stern and took great photos of the island as we sailed away. Then we headed to our stateroom to do some packing in preparation to getting our bags out the door before dinner. After spending an hour working on our bags, we headed to the farewell show with Brian and Patty in the theatre. The show was called An Unforgettable Journey and included Mickey and the gang, princesses, music, people’s photos from the cruise, along with lots of emotion. Our cruise director Clayton Lindsey (who was terrific throughout the cruise) led us all in the cruise dance that we had been doing every day – I think everyone on board wanted to stay for the next cruise – the final show was a great tribute to everyone on board, officers, crew, cast and passengers.
After the show, we hit the shop one last time before going to our room to finish packing. We got our bags packed and left them in the hallway for our stateroom Flori. We took photos with her before heading down to dinner in the Animator’s Palate. Tonight in the restaurant, we had the animation show where you draw your own character and it gets animated on screen – the whole night is a wonderful tribute to animation and had us laughing at our artwork as it is animated in front of us – something only Disney could achieve, a truly magical moment. We handed our servers their gratuity envelopes and took final group photos with everyone on our table.
After dinner, I dropped our Animator’s Palate pictures in our room and then met up with Della in the atrium (she had been shopping again). We got last minute photos with Goofy and then Brian and Patty turned up, so we grabbed group photos with Donald, Snow White, Daisy, and Chip ‘n’ Dale before heading to the balcony overlooking the atrium to watch the See You Real Soon final celebration of the cruise. The four of us then headed back down to the lobby floor to dance to the June Gypsies which was the final entertainment of the night. There were only a handful of people left as I guess everyone else was getting ready to depart. When they finished their set, Brian and Patty got their CD signed, and we chatted for a while before calling it a night and going back to our stateroom.
Keith
Trip history:
DLR: 2005, 06, 09, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18
DLRP: 2006
HKDL: 2006 (Mar & Sept), 11 (Apr & Dec), 14, 19
SDR: 2017
TDR: 2008, 10, 17
WDW: 2006, 13 (Mar & Sept), 16, 19
DCL: 2013, 15 (Alaska & Hawaii), 18
Aulani: 2015