Day 5: Castaway Cay, Bahamas
Today was the day almost every Disney Cruiser looks forward to. We were docking at Disney’s private island in the Bahamas called Castaway Cay.
When we went to Cabanas for breakfast and Sander found us a nice table outside on the deck with a view of this beautiful island. Once breakfast was finished we went back to our stateroom to get our stuff for our day at Castaway Cay. We took the AFT elevator to deck 1 and around 9:00 am we set foot on the island.
We got ourselves some towels and took a picture in front of the ship. Next was a picture with Captain Jack Sparrow. As we walked towards the family beach we met with both Mickey and Pluto in their beach attire. We also did some shopping for Castaway Cay merch (only available on the island) and finally found ourselves a nice spot on the beach.
The rest of the day we spent in the clear water of the family beach. Had a BBQ lunch at Cookies BBQ and did some more swimming with Becky, Chris and Sophie after they had their Port Adventure on the Island.
Around 3:00 pm we were back at the ship and before we went back onboard we met with Pluto on the Gangway. Back in our stateroom we showered and had some quit time before heading back to the lobby to meet some characters in their Pirate outfits because tonight was Pirate night.
We met with Stitch, Chip & Dale, Mickey and MInnie before going to Lumieres for our Pirate dinner. It was delicious and our head server remembered we like the fried Brie so much he gave us a plate as an extra in-between course.
To finish the day there as the Pirate Deck party on deck 9 and 10 ending with an amazing fireworks at sea. Then we went back to our room because we all were exhausted from this beach day.
Tomorrow is already the last day of this cruise. The ship will be docking in Nassau, Bahamas but we don’t plan on going ashore.
Day 11: Our way to Disneyland Resort Paris!
We did not set an alarm as we would wake up early enough anyway. At 8:00am we arrived at the breakfast, delicious! Soon after breakfast we made our way to Terminal 4 from which the Magical Shuttle, a bus, to Disneyland Resort Paris would leave.
We arrived 15 minutes early but the bus was already there, the driver didn’t care much and took off without loading any passengers. Came back 45 minutes later, 15 minutes behind schedule and had fun seeing guests struggle with their luggage as he decide to let them load at the other side of the bus. While loading the bus my glasses fell on the ground, resulting on large deep scratched n one of the glasses, so no more glasses for me which also meant no more blogging as I really struggled seeing the letters on the screen.
Finally in the bus we arrived at Disney’s Hotel Newport Bay Club, our hotel for the first nights. Security was a mess and check in was a total chaos, it felt like a hotel which just opened and had never seen guests before. About 45 minutes later we had our magic passes and we were ready to go to the parks after we dropped of our luggage.
The first surprise was that the boulevard / walkway from NPBC to Disney Village being closed, meaning we needed to walk twice as far to Village as we thought we would, not a big problem as long as the weather is nice, which it was this day.
For lunch we ate at Earl of Sandwich before heading to the park and did some shopping at Disney Fashion. Here Danielle finally found a black Disneyland Paris spirit jersey and we found some nice shirts for Emily. We asked the Cast Member to deliver the items to our hotel, which resulted in some confusion as this probably doesn’t happen to often in Disney Village?
Park time, we decided to go through the center entrance of the park, under the Disneyland hotel. After the entrance we ran in to the two friendliest Cast Members the whole trip Emerico and Enzo. We exchanged some Disney trivia before we walked down Mainstreet U.S.A.
First stop was Phantom Manor, finally open again after a lengthy refurbishment. Beautiful dark-ride, Emily wasn’t sure if she liked it or not but she didn’t cry. After Phantom Manor we walked to Fantasyland for some fun rides. We rode multiple rides but only took pictures in Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups.
We were all a bit tired form the travel day, the heat and Emily was hungry. We decided to make a brief stop in Videopolis in Discoveryland where we enjoyed ice-cream and water, thanks to the generous Cast Members we met while arriving in the park earlier.
While we were enjoying the Mickey Mouse cartoons Danielle and I decided to ride the Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain, an indoor roller coaster in its 3rd life after the indoor theming had been changed from its original Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” from 1995 to Mission 2 visiting a supernova in 2005 and to the Star Wars theme in 2017. We liked it, the trains were a lot more comfortable as we remembered.
While Danielle was riding Hyperspace Mountain, Emily and I meet with Goofy and Pluto.
And we even visited Darth Vader, not Emily’s favourite as he did not want to give us a high five!
And now it was time for the parade, due to our Infinity annual passes we had reserved spots to watch the parade. Emily was sitting front row in her stroller, best view of the parade you can imagine. But she fell a sleep.
The parade was beautiful, afterwards we decided to leave the park and went for dinner to Anette’s Dinner in Disney Village. Emily woke up after we just ordered so she could join us for dinner too.
After dinner we went back to Newport Bay Club to see if our room was ready, and it was. Room number 3200 with a balcony, but unfortunately the Air-conditioning was broken, after a call to maintenance and waiting 45 minutes for someone to show up I was done with it and went to the reception myself. 5 apologies later we came to the decision that it was best to switch to another room.
The new room 3138 was much cooler, and this is where we stayed until the end although we encountered many other smaller issues during our stay in the room. Not exactly what we expected for a hotel which was fully renovated in 2016.
Soon Emily was out and Danielle decided to go back to the park while I almost fell a sleep at 9:pm already, due to the reserved section she had an amazing spot to watch the fireworks from.
She enjoyed the night-time show Illuminations a lot and was back in the hotel close to midnight.