Sailing into Castaway Cay

After a late night on Christmas Eve, we were not in any hurry to rise and shine, but with the thought of a day at Castaway Cay, we were up early and ready to go. Janie couldn't sleep so she went and got the boys and they had an early breakfast. Rebecca and J. R. joined them just as they were finishing up at Topsider's. Alexander had to be at The Stack by 9AM for his teen excursion so he went and dressed and headed out. We hung around the room for awhile taking pictures of the Flying Dutchman outside our window.

Christmas on the Cay

It was a good thing we stuck around the room, too, because Alexander came back shortly before nine and needed his parental permission form signed to allow him to leave the ship without us. We didn't understand why they didn't give it to us with his waiver and were glad we were still in the room. We decided to go down and hang out on deck four for a while and watch the staff unload the ship while we waited for the signal to go ashore and take some pictures.

Treats

Finally the call from Brent came and we joined the throng crowding down the stairs to Deck 1. As we waited in line to key out, Jack Sparrow came rushing by us, scaring Rebecca a little. Soon we were off the ship and on the island. We ran into Alex with a group of teens heading off for their "Wild Side" excursion. The winds were too high for kayaking, so they were going to snorkel and do relay races and play games. Cast members were serving egg nog and Christmas cookies just as you got off the ship and Rebecca and J. R. grabbed Rice Krispies Snowmen to eat later. Thomas and Janie joined us shortly and picked up Rice Krispies Santa stockings.

Serenity Bay

Janie and J. R. had never been to the adult beach on two previous trips to Castaway Cay, so the plan was to drop off Thomas and Rebecca at Scuttle's Cove while Alex was on his excursion and then head to Serenity Bay. We dropped them off just as the club was opening at 10 and caught the tram to the adult beach. We grabbed a hammock, an umbrella, a lounger and a couple of Konk Koolers and relaxed for a couple of hours. The water was beautiful and a couple of crabs came out to entertain Janie.

Family Beach Time

At about noon, we'd had enough of the heat (no wind on the adult side of the island) and figured since it was Christmas Day, we should go find our family. We realized we had a slight logistical problem in that we told Alex to meet us on the family beach when he was done with his excursion, but forgot to give him a specific location. But he managed to find us in the gift shop where Janie was buying a T-Shirt and a polo. Then we went and picked up Rebecca at Scuttle's Cove, Thomas from Monstro Point, found some chairs on the family beach for our stuff and went to get food at Cookie's BBQ. Alex and J. R. were not hungry so we went to relax on the beach under an umbrella while Alex went off into the water. Janie, Thomas and Rebecca joined us after lunch and then went off to play in the surf themselves. Thomas spent his afternoon digging in the sand while Rebecca played with Alex and Janie in the ocean. Janie and Alex tried to see if there were any jet-ski appointments, but there were not.

Back to the Ship

By 3PM, we were hot and tired and decided to head back to the ship. We gathered our belongings and just caught the tram to save ourselves some walking.

Hanging out on the Magic

Alex and Thomas took Rebecca up to the Mickey pool when we returned for one last time, where she met up with Kimberly, "Tink&Cinderella's" daughter and they played for awhile. The Mickey slide was closed, however, which was disappointing as she wanted to take one last slide down the slide before we left. Janie and J. R. took the opportunity to finish up packing so we didn't have to do it after dinner, which would allow us to celebrate our last night on the ship.

Since we were ready early, we took the opportunity to walk around the ship and take some of the pictures we had been meaning to take, but hadn't gotten around to yet.

Dinner

We picked the kids up shortly after sail-away and changed for our final dinner. Tonight was casual dining with the "'Til We Meet Again Menu" in Animator's Palate. J. R. had the cheese dip and chicken tenderloins for an appetizer, the bisque as soup and, at Steve's recommendation, the Seafood Linguine Pasta. The appetizers were wonderful, but the soup was lacking something. The pasta was okay, but not excellent -- a little too blah for a cruise celebration.

Dessert

Dessert was "Chocolate Decadence" which the adults split. It was a white chocolate mousse as well as chocolate cake and it was truly decadent. Thomas had asked Steve what "Baked Alaska" was and found out when the servers came in with flaming trays as part of their farewell celebration. Steve brought a piece of Baked Alaska to Thomas to go with the Chocolate Decadence he had ordered, which was very nice of him. We said our farewells, tipped Stephane, Steve and Johnathan and left the dining room full and content.

Passing the Wonder

DCL scheduling messed with us again on this day. We would have liked for Rebecca to be part of the 3-4 year olds caroling at 7:30, but rehearsals started at 7:00 and we didn't get out of dinner until almost 7:30. We do wish they would think a little more about early dinner seating times and conflicts with activities. The boys still had points to spend on their arcade card so they headed to the arcade to play some games and then they were going to see the evening variety show, which was "Remember the Magic" featuring John Charles and Taylor Mason. We'd had enough of John Charles already so we headed up to the room to drop off the camera and some photos we had bought.

As we were hanging out in the room, we could hear a ship's horn going off. We opened up the window and saw a sight that totally made our vacation. Right outside our window, passing in close proximity, was the Disney Wonder, on her way out to sea. Captain Tom sounded "When You Wish Upon A Star" and the Wonder responded in turn to cheers and hooting from both ships. Unfortunately our camera doesn't take good night photos, and we couldn't get a good picture.

Night Time

Rebecca "really, really, really, really wished she could go to the kids club", in her words, so we dropped her off at the Oceaneer's Club and went to have a drink or three. We ended up in Diversions, where Janie's Miami Dolphins were going to be playing the New York Jets. We grabbed a couple of chairs near the big screen. Janie got the bartender to make her a chocolate martini, J. R. had a beer and we settled in to watch the game. A few drinks later, some of the crew came in for "pub night" where we sang "My Bonnie lies under the ocean" where all the guys had to stand on words that started with "M" (for Man) and all the women had to stand on words that started with "B" (for, well, I don't know) and Homer Simpson's "DOREMI-BEER" (DOH - The stuff that buys me beer. RAY - The guy who sells me beer. ME - The guys who drinks the beer. FAR - A long way to get beer. SO - I'll have another beer. LA, la, la, la beer. TEA - No thanks, I'm drinking beer. and that brings me back to DOH!). After that, a different cast of crew repeated the skit from the talent show the night before. It wasn't quite as funny the second time, probably because we knew what was coming. After that, we were done for the night, so we turned in our pager, picked up Rebecca, found the boys and went off to bed for the last time aboard the Disney Magic.

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