Let The Memories Continue! – Day 19
The third day of our Disney Cruise adventure arrived. We docked into Castaway Cay early in the morning, and the staff were busy preparing the private island, just for us. Castaway Cay is a private Island leased by Disney for 99 years. Located in the Bahamas, it is home to one of the bluest and clearest waters I have ever seen in my life. Just looking at the island makes your jaw drop. The island is humongous, and it is picturesque. With such a forested area surrounded by such clear water, I might as well be looking at a mirage.
However, it was no mirage, and it was very real. We stumbled once again into Cabanas, where we were to have breakfast yet again, before getting onto the island. We had arranged to go together with the other family that we were seating with at dinner. At this point, we met Shawn, our waiter, who conversed with us, and told us that he had prepared escargot especially for our dinner tonight. Disney’s service was truly unbeatable, never before had I experienced a server order a dish from another restaurant and bring it just to serve one table.
At this point, Ashley had made good friends with them, and it was nice to have company from home, being thousands of miles away from home. For the first time this trip, I felt awfully homesick, and simple things like talking to my friends seemed like a priceless luxury. Putting those thoughts aside, we headed off to the Island. There was a short customs check before we were cleared, but after that, we had around 7 hours of free time on the Island itself. There are many activities to be done on the Beach itself. From slides, Jetskis to cycle routes, there is never a shortage of activities to be done. We decided it would be best just to relax on the beach and also have a swim in the pristine waters of Castaway Cay.
The sands of the beach were amazingly smooth and cooling, and its amazing to just sit in. The waters were cold but comfortable and the waters always felt inviting, almost as if the island knew our presence. We played around in the beach for quite awhile, picking up seashells and playing in the waters.
Soon after, it was time for lunch. Disney offered lunch on the island, with a more rustic theme. All the food was to be barbecued on the island itself, and it was provided free of charge. There was even a free drink station, very much like the one on the ship itself. However, the food left a lot to be desired, as the food was generally too dry and salty for our liking. However, the atmosphere near the arranged kitchens were very well done. Cooking was done on site, and one could freely take pictures and videos of the chefs going about their daily routine. The smell of charcoal also was present throughout the eating area. Somehow, Disney is always able to infuse great atmosphere into whatever they do, and this is a good example of that very fact in motion.
After lunch, we split ways, and I wanted to try to get a ride on the Jetskis. Ashley and her friends wanted to play more at the slides, so we split up. However, things aren’t about to go my way either. After the long walk to Scuttler’s Cove, it turned out that you needed a ticket to get a Jetski ride, and they were fully booked for the day. I left disappointed, and went back to the beach to bask in the sunshine once more. Approaching the end of the day, most tube floats were abandoned by their renters, and soon Ashley and her 2 friends all had floats to go around. This allowed us to skip on the rental fees, and also allowed them to travel to the deeper parts of the waters near Castaway Cay. Even though we had spent almost 6 hours on the island, we simply could not get enough of the serene and perfect scenery of the island.
Time passes very quickly while on the island, and it was soon 4 in the afternoon. At this point of time, we decided to return to the ship to have a bath and prepare for the activities still waiting for us on board the ship. As we entered our room, and noticed the signed Picture frame and the final dish extender gifts.We also decided to visit the arcade on board the ship. Although small, it hosted some of my favourite games like Nascar; The game and Afterburner: Climax. We also enjoyed the time we spent there, albeit short due to the time constraints.
(SF: We participated in the fish extender (Called so because you hang a bag or so on the fish hook outside your door. However, in our case, it was a sea horse instead) programme, which is a gift exchange between fellow cruises. This had been organised by a Facebook group which we had joined prior to the cruise. There were at least 3 groups participating and we had 16 families in our group. Based on the information like name, age and gender provided, I ordered personalised pens for the gift exchange and packed them into bags according to stateroom numbers. Throughout the 3 days, each time we returned to our stateroom, we would find gifts in our fish extender. Ashley had been so excited and would even suggesting just dropping by our room to check for gifts. We were fortunate to have received many wonderful and unique gifts, of which some were handmade.)
The third show on board would be Disney’s Believe, where a young gentleman strives to believe in magic, and is brought on a magical adventure through many Disney shows, to discover that magic is indeed real, and that he had to believe in it, to save his ailing situation. The show was done well, but I found it to be the most lackluster of the three shows that were shown in the whole cruise. Personally, Villains Tonight! was my favourite, with comedy that struck throughout the ages. After this, there was a Captain signing session with Captain Thord. We got him to sign a postcard and Ashley’s autograph book, and even took pictures with him.
(SF: During the show Disney’s Believe, Ashley enjoyed a special moment when Charlotte, Tiana’s best friend ran over and put on a shimmering green necklace on her. She was elated.)
Our dinner tonight would be at the Animator’s Palate, where there would be a revised version of Turtle Talk, and Crush and other Nemo characters would pop out next to your dining table, and converse to you through a live voice actor. However, since our table was far away from the screen, we were not able to take part in the activites with Crush, the sea turtle. Despite this, we still had a very good time at Animator’s Palate. Shawn served our escargot appetizers as promised, and even provided us with extra servings, as he had prepared more than needed for our table. All of us were able to have at least 2 plates of escargot before we were done with the huge serving. Our main dishes then arrived. I ordered the Veal, while my parents ordered the Beef tenderloins. Ashley ordered the pasta with meat sauce. We enjoyed all of our dishes, especially mine, which was lightly breaded after grilled, providing it with a crunchy texture while retaining the taste and flavour of being grilled. We were very satisfied, and ordered our dessert dishes, consisting of Sweet Temptations, a sampler, a Cookies n Cream Sundae and a Cheesecake, which were all delicious. Ashley had also signed up for the Play’N Dine program, so she rushed off to the Kid’s Club for some fun with her friends, before we needed to head off for the next activity.
Our final activity of the day would be the See Ya Real Soon party, held in the lobby atrium. This would be a large gathering of Disney characters, from Mickey and his gang, to all of the Disney princesses. There would be a short meet and greet session lasting around a half and hour, before there would be a sing along session. Ashley was able to get photos with Belle, Tiana and Rapunzel, within the short amount of time allocated. After this, a quartet was assembled at the lobby atrium. They also invited kids onto the steps next to the stage, and Ashley was very eager to get on. She used the candle given to her as a microphone and sang “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ with all her heart. She had tons on fun acting like a singer, as that is her current aspiration.
After this party, Ashley decided to head back to the Kid’s Club to play even more. With nothing much else to do, I headed back to the arcade to kill off more time, until I ran out of credits to use. I then headed back to the room to continue writing the blog posts, while awaiting the return of Ashley. She actually stayed at the club till 12 midnight, when the club was closing, before she reluctantly headed back to the room.
Since tomorrow would be an early day, and we would need to disembark before 9 in the morning, we decided to quickly pack up and head to bed, so as to prepare ourselves for the long day ahead.