Day 5 - Castaway Cay, Bahamas

Day 5- Disney’s private island- Castaway Cay

I woke up this morning having slept through my alarm at 7am to a knock on my door (room service I had pre-ordered the night before). The thought of coffee on the other side of the door promptly got me up.  We all ate breakfast slowly and then got ready.

I went our on my veranda and saw that we were approaching Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. It was stunning from a distance- and the kids were so excited to see the Flying Dutchman from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (they towed it over- it is the same one from the movies, not a “fake”). I took a stroll up to deck 9 for a latte from Cove Café. It is an adult only café, so I can only venture there if the deck is pretty much deserted and I can leave the kids by themselves for a minute (deck 9 has plexi all the way up so no accidental falls are possible).

We left the boat around 8:30 and walked right off the gangway to the island. There were so many things set up to do on the island- sports, bars, outdoor kids clubs so adults can be alone, all kind of water equipment including boats, jet skis, floats, etc. They have a staff that lives on the island to take care of rescued stingrays (many have been injured) and those are in a protected lagoon as well. They have a full outdoor restaurant, and large shops.

We headed to a place with both sun and shade and had an umbrella and a palm tree and settled in for the day. We left our items on the chairs and decided to take what we needed back and forth. I have a lanyard that is waterproof and rip proof that I carried my room keys and id in, but otherwise most things were left on the chairs all day. The kids headed straight for the ocean to play in, and we also made sand castles for awhile. There were many fish - even in less than 1 ft deep water- and even saw a couple “escaped” stingrays from the lagoon next door at about 3 ft.

At 10:30 I dropped Aidan off over at Scuttles (kids club) and P and I took a walk towards Castaway Ray sting ray excursion. We ran into Jack Sparrow on the way:)  

Piper and I had a blast with the stingrays. We had an hour in the lagoon with them (can’t wait to get my waterproof camera pics developed!). I fed them but P was a little nervous- it’s like having the attachment end of a vacuum pass over your hand. They are incredibly friendly- swimming all around your ankles and legs to play with you. All 53 of them in the lagoon have their barbs trimmed down but they can still harm you if stepped on, so shuffling your feet is very important. One of the sting rays was pregnant and I got a chance to interact and hold her a lot. I was able to calm her long enough to feel her pups moving inside her. She is due any day now so she was huge!

After our stingray excursion P and I had lunch and then I switched the kids at the clubs so we could do our parasailing excursion, scheduled for 1pm. Of course, my luck had it so there was a brief electrical storm during that hour so we weren’t able to- but him and I still had fun together. We picked P up and all played at the beach some more.

We got back to the boat and the kids and I hung out in our stateroom for a bit and P took a small nap. We had dinner tonight at Parrot’s Cay again tonight- and it was Pirate themed night. The kids got glow in the dark pirate drink glasses, and many people were dressed up. I once again had amazing food- everything that comes out of the dining room looks amazing. But they are smaller portions, which I love but others may not. I also only order 1 appetizer, and skip the soup/salad. The nice thing is that you can order none of that and 3 entrees, or 1 of everything, or 2 appetizers and 1 entrée, etc. It’s all free and they encourage you to order what you want.

We hung our a bit after dinner just walking around and watching people from the mezzanine from deck 5 looking down into the lobby. The kids love to people watch, lol. We went and saw Toy Story 3 in 3D tonight which was really good but really sad/bittersweet at the end. Many people were sniffling and crying and all the kids looked at us like we were crazy.

The Pirates In the Caribbean deck party was after that which was like a dance party with a semi story line, followed by Mickey zip lining in and starting the fireworks which were so great. Disney cruise line is the only line allowed to have fireworks at sea! We went back to our room, Aidan crashed and Piper ordered an ice cream bar from room service. She fell asleep as soon as she was done with it.

 Tomorrow is a day at sea, which kinds sucks cause Castaway Cay was so nice, but there are many events the kids want to do in the clubs, and I would def like some grown up time. I have a wine tasting at 3, which should be fun.