2015 Disney Cruise Day 3 Part 1 - Castaway Cay

The following is the first part of the third day from the account of our Disney Cruise to the Bahamas from earlier in the summer.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

When I woke up, I was pleased to realize that I had slept well and that the ship and I weren’t shaking as we had the previous morning. I had been pretty tired, so I could have slept through a lot, but I don’t think I would have slept through all of that. So that was good.

Good morning from Castaway Cay! Check out those Castaway Clouds, though.

The weather conditions when we woke up were not quite as good, unfortunately. There were thick clouds in the sky, and the radar channel on the television in our room was showing rain all around us. Those aren’t quite the ideal conditions that you would want for visiting Castaway Cay. After all, a private Bahamas island should be nice and sunny all of the time, shouldn’t it? But I know they can’t control everything on these cruises, and sometimes you just have to make the most of it.

We were still all smiles despite the clouds. Let a smile be your umbrella, as they say.

Once everyone was ready, we headed up to our usual breakfast spot at Cabanas. Nothing like some Mickey waffles to brighten your morning. And expand your waistline. But calories don’t count on vacation, right? That’s what I keep telling myself. If only I hadn’t left my Fitbit at home so that I would know how much more I could eat!

Breakfast time at Cabanas, which actually was our breakfast spot every morning.

Mickey waffles! Mickey looks happy, even though his head is about to be eaten. And what happened to the rest of his body, anyway?

While we were eating, and while we were back in our rooms brushing teeth and such, we were keeping an eye on the skies. But we also knew it was our chance to be at Castaway Cay, which is always one of my favorite parts of the Disney cruises, so we got our things together and headed down to Deck 1 to leave the ship and go to the beach.

Hello, down there! Not that many people were down there yet.

Laura was enjoying the island view.

Another view from up above. That’s the post office on the right, and the security check on the left, by the way. And I didn’t remember the security check from before, either.

As we were leaving the ship, one of the crew members was handing out warm towels. I don’t know if they had a towel warmer, or if she had just gotten a fresh load from the dryer, but either way my warm towel did feel nice, because a few raindrops were starting to fall. Nothing big enough to make us run back to the ship for cover, but just enough to get us a little wet. We did stop for a photo or two with the ship in the background, some with our cameras and one with the professional photographer, who was about to close up shop because of the sprinkles of rain.

Passing by the Pump House, where the greenery is about to overtake the gas pump.

Laura, Karen, the Disney Dream, and the rain. And some other small boats, too.

As usual, we decided to walk over to the beach instead of riding the tram. It isn’t that far of a walk, and we did have those Mickey waffles and other things for breakfast, so walking was probably the best choice. Riding might have gotten us there a little more quickly, but it didn’t matter too much.

Welcome to Fantasy Island! I mean Castaway Cay.

No tram for us, we will just walk. But thanks anyway.

When we arrived at the beach, there were still plenty of beach chairs with umbrellas available. Maybe everyone was back at the ship waiting to see if the rain was going to get serious or not. Or maybe we were just out earlier than we sometimes are. But we were happy to grab our spot where we wanted it to be.

Getting farther away from the Disney Dream. It’s going to be a long walk back if it rains.

We will skip the souvenir shop for now. Don’t worry, we will be back.

Not all of us are water people, but some of us are. So those of us that are went out to the water for a bit. There were a few raindrops falling, but we were already wet from being in the water, so it didn’t bother us too much. And it looked like we wouldn’t have to worry about whether we had applied our sunscreen evenly, because the clouds were pretty thick.

We made it to the beach!

Read more about this photo in the earlier post The Family Beach at Castaway Cay.

Different members of our group started heading off in different directions. Mainly, the boys and Brant went to play soccer, leaving me and the girls (meaning all of the females in our group - “girls” is non-age-specific here) at the beach. After a bit, we decided to go explore a little while. Laura had wanted to get some braids in her hair again, as she usually does at Castaway Cay, so we decided to check that out. As we walked by the hair-braiding location, we saw that none of the hair braiders were there. Perhaps they were waiting to see if the raindrops got heavier or lighter. Since there wasn’t any reason to stop there, we kept on going.

“In summerrrrrrrrrr!”

Laura and Katie decided that they wanted to go down the big water slide, so we went that way. To get to the slide, you have to swim out in the water a bit to get to the platform. They do provide life vests for those who aren’t strong swimmers, but Laura and Katie didn’t need those. Karen decided to watch for them to come down the slide, and I went off to get some photos, since I always love Castaway Cay photos. It isn’t like you can just drive over there whenever you want to, after all.

Even the ship wanted to get under some umbrellas to stay dry.

Laura and Katie didn’t have to wait all that long to come down the slides. And they quickly figured out that they liked one slide better than the other one. Because they went at the same time, they knew that one slide was faster than the other. And they also found out that because it was mostly enclosed, several people didn’t want to go on it, meaning that if you wanted that one you might have a slightly shorter wait. So they went back again to test their theory. Karen waited more, I photographed more.

I wonder what that bird is thinking? “I wish I weren’t wooden so I could fly away from this storm!”

After Laura and Katie made their second trips down the slide, Laura called for Karen and me to come with them. Karen chose not to, so I left my camera bag with her and swam out to the platform to join them. And of course, I chose to go on the faster, enclosed slide just like they did. I am proud to say that I didn’t get too much water up my nose when I reached the end of the slide, although I am not sure how graceful I might have looked. But since no video footage has surfaced, we will assume that I did just fine. Maybe even better than fine. Because who can say otherwise?

Katie comes down the slide at the right. Every trip after that would be on the enclosed slide on the left.

Right about that time, Brant, Zach, and Jaylin showed up, just as Laura and Katie were getting in line for another trip down the slide. Zach and Jaylin decided that they wanted to go, too, so they swam out to the platform while Brant, Karen, and I waited. As we were waiting, we started to feel some sprinkles of rain falling on us. It really wasn’t surprising, because clouds can’t be that dark without eventually letting go of some rain drops. We had the feeling all morning that it was just a matter of time. But sprinkles weren’t that big of a deal.

Just a ship at a tropical island. No big deal.

When everyone had finished their trips down the slide, we decided that we should go ahead and eat lunch before it got to be too late. We made our way back over to Cookie’s BBQ for our lunch, and as we did, the sprinkles turned into larger rain drops, and more frequent rain drops, too. We decided it might be best for some of us to hold a table in one of the covered seating areas while others went to get our food, just in case the rain got to be worse. So the girls waited at the table while the guys went to get our food. And the rain got harder.

Did we survive the rain? Or were we washed away, never to be heard from again? See more at our cruise report!