Day 5 of our cruise was Castaway Cay, which is one of our favorite stops.  Imagine if Disney had taken an entire Caribbean Island and turned it into a water park.  That’s basically how I describe Castaway Cay to people.  We aren’t beach people, but we love this port stop more than any others.  As usual, Nancy had signed up for the Castaway Cay 5K, so she got off the ship before the girls and I did.  She had her cabana wrist band, so she could meet us there once she was done.

We took our bag for the day (complete with Nancy’s change of clothes for after the race) and headed off the ship.  Normally, we would have grabbed towels at the end of the gangway, but we knew there would be plenty of towels in the cabana.

The first thing you will encounter when leaving the ship is the Bahamian Inspection Station (I think that’s what its called).  I believe they want to make sure you aren’t bringing alcohol onto the island and they check your id when you get back onto the ship.  I don’t quite understand it, since the 99% of the people on the island are the people that just got off the boat (there are only a handful of people that stay on the island overnight).

Once you clear the inspection station, you will see a post office (yes you can mail items back to the US) and the excursion shack (known as Marge’s Barges and Sea Charters Dock).  You can check in here if you have boat related excursions.

Our first stop was the tram stop.  Yes, Disney runs a tram just like at the theme parks.  There are three tram stops for the family beaches.  You can also get a tram to the adult beach, but you have to transfer at the last family beach stop.  We got on the first available tram and headed to the last family beach stop, known as Pelican Point Tram Stop.

The Cabana check-in shack is located right next to the last tram stop.  We let them know we had Cabana 19 for the day.  They checked our names and loaded us into a golf cart.  The driver took us onto another road and drove us down to our cabana.  Cabana 19 is at the very end of the family beach, with only the large Family Cabana #20 past it on the end.

We had rented Cabana 6 on a prior cruise.  It was interesting to compare the locations of the two different cabanas we’d experienced.  Cabana 6 is close to the regular family beach, near the rope barrier that separates the family beach from the reserved beach that is limited to cabana guests.  Cabana 19 was farther from the family beach.  However, the lower number cabanas (which I believe are the original cabanas) are spaced farther apart than the higher number cabanas.  We felt like we were much more on top of our neighbors in Cabana 19 than we had in Cabana 6, especially when we were sitting in the hammock or beach chairs.   The other big difference between these cabanas is the beach experience; the beach near Cabana 19 is narrow and the lagoon is not as wide or deep as other parts of the beach.

As you can see from the pictures below, the Cabana rental comes with a few things.  The first is a cabana host.  They will take you via the golf cart around the island (mainly to get lunch or to a tram stop).  There are a ton of towels in the cabana for your party to use that day, including cold washcloths in the mini-fridge for you to use when you want to cool off.  There are snacks (chips and granola bars), fresh fruits, sodas and water.  I’ve heard you can request certain sodas beforehand, but we’ve never done that.  There is also sunscreen (spray and lotion) included with the cabana.  You have a large number of chairs, a hammock, and beach chairs/loungers.  The cabanas also have sand toys you can use, as well as a huge number of rafts and floats.  Cabana guests also have use of snorkel equipment for the day.

We decided this time to use the snorkel equipment (the girls and I), since we figured it would be a safe learning environment for us.  Well, I don’t have any pictures of the experience.  My youngest daughter and I didn’t like snorkeling at all.  We either weren’t doing it correctly, or just don’t like it.  She couldn’t get her mask on quite right and I spent a lot of time helping her with it, while sucking in way too much water.  We tried it, but probably won’t repeat it.

I’ve included a video of the cabana as well.  I’m really sorry I took the video in portrait mode.  Big fail on my part.

While we were enjoying the cabana, I looked off into the distance and saw another ship coming towards Castaway Cay.  It was weird, because we hadn’t ever seen another ship pull up close.  As the ship got closer, you could tell it was another Disney Cruise ship.  Based on the size, it was either the Fantasy or the Dream.  Based on itinerary, it turned out to be the Dream on a sea day.

As the Dream got closer, it started a horn battle with the Wonder.  The Dream has a much wider range of songs to choose from, but it was great to listen to.  The Dream was in the area for almost an hour before pulling off.

After the horn battle, we settled in for the rest of the day and enjoyed the beach and cabana.  We eventually walked up to Cookie’s Too for lunch and carried our food back to the Cabana to eat.  We stayed in the cabana till almost 4:30 before heading back to the ship.

Here is a time lapse I took of the beach that afternoon:

Getting back on board was kind of a let down.  We had this little note to deal with.

Nancy organized the luggage a bit and we got ready for dinner.  Here are some of the dinner items we had.  I have no idea what this appetizer was.  I believe it was a layered potato type thing. My youngest daughter got pineapple for her appetizer, which is what she always has.  Shane already had this figured out by now, so he brought it without us even asking about it.  For dinner, I had a Tandoor Lamb Duo, which was a new item for me.  It was great!  I also ordered the Trenette pasta with shrimp, as a backup item in case I didn’t like the Lamb.  I liked the lamb a lot better though and only ended up picking the shrimp out of the pasta dish.

I ordered two desserts, mainly because I wanted to.  I’ve looked through online menus and can’t figure out what these two dessert are. This first one looks like a mousse.  I don’t know what the second one is.

We headed back to the room after dessert to get ready for the next day.  We decided to skip breakfast, so we made sure we had said our goodbyes to our wait staff.  We decided to walk off the ship with our luggage the next day, because we had plans to head up to Walt Disney World for a quick visit.  We would leave the ship as soon as it was cleared, then grab a cab to the airport.  There, we would grab a rental car and rush up to Orlando to visit the Magic Kingdom, then go to Epcot the next day before heading back and catching a flight out of Miami at 7 pm.  It was going to be a rush, but we were on a mission!

Planning | Travel | Boarding | Sea Day | Cozumel | Sea Day | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation

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