Day 4: Thursday 4/28/16, Part 1
Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and realized that Nick had left the verandah door open (shh don’t tell the verandah police!), so I got up to close it. I couldn’t help but notice that there was another ship in the distance, so I stepped out onto the balcony to look. I don’t know for sure, but it looked an awful lot like there were Mickeys on its funnels. And, after scouring the internet, it looks like the Dream was at Castaway Cay the day before us, and was doing a sea day this day, so, I guess it’s possible that it was, in fact, a Disney ship.
Once I’d stared at the other ship for a few minutes, I went back to sleep until shortly before 7, when I heard the engines really kick in to back the ship into the dock at Castaway Cay. Needless to say, I made my way out to the balcony with my camera to watch this process.
Nick woke up at some point and joined me on the balcony. We were pretty impressed with the island and we weren’t even off the ship yet. And side note, I got so spoiled by being able to just step out on the balcony in my pajamas to see what was happening. I probably should have cruised ocean view this time so that I didn’t set the bar so high. Also, we had one of the balconies that had the solid white wall because I didn’t feel the plexiglass was worth an extra $150. If I had kids, I’d probably change my tune, but well, we’re up to reason 6035 why I won’t be having those, so, if the white wall is a considerable cost savings in the future, I’ll continue to go that route, because I couldn’t figure out during the cruise why the plexiglass was that much more money. My vacation was in no way compromised by having to stand to see the ocean. YMMV.
Eventually we got dressed for the day. Neither one of us consider ourselves beach people, but we were both oddly excited for today. Once we were ready for breakfast, we headed for Parrot Cay. It was open every morning as a buffet, and Tritons was the sit-down restaurant for breakfast each day. Nick is a big fan of buffets, and I like them when I’m not paying out of pocket/they’re already paid for, because I don’t generally eat enough to make them worth it. But I love the variety of choices.
As we emerged from our room, Sentana, who was setting up his cart for the morning round of room cleaning greeted both of us by name, and chatted for a couple of minutes. He was very friendly, and seemed to know from moment one that I was in charge of this vacation. We liked Sentana a lot.
We were seated in a different section of Parrot Cay this day, and had a server who was attentive to both of us. We got pineapple juice with breakfast and attacked the buffet. You know...lots of french toast and pancakes, hash browns, a krispy kreme doughnut, and a bit of fruit. Hey, we’re on vacation!
Breakfast was quick and tasty, and pretty soon we were back in the room loading my backpack for our beach day, and taking a few more pictures of the island from our balcony.
From the looks of my pictures, we were making our way off the ship shortly before 9.
Once off the ship, I did a lot of picture taking as we made our way by foot to the tram stop for Serenity Bay. I have to give huge kudos to the photographer by Mt. Rustmore. When I saw him standing there, I walked over for a picture. He told us that he was actually waiting for a character appearance and wasn’t allowed to swipe the key card and take a picture. I then asked if he was allowed to take a picture on my camera. Nope, because it’s not Disney running this show, it’s a contracted company. But, he could take a picture on his camera and allow facial recognition to get our picture to our file. Yes, please! I really appreciated how he came up with a solution for us, despite his company’s asinine policies. Now, I’ll let the pictures do the talking for this part of exploring Castaway Cay.
We made it to the tram stop after I bought a couple souvenirs, and a tram appeared soon after that. Within minutes we were arriving at Serenity Bay!
Picture taking temporarily done, we found a pile of chairs to claim as our own. Cruise director Peter wasn’t kidding when he said there are plenty of chairs on Castaway Cay. Actually he told us there were 2700 of us on the ship, and 6000 beach chairs on the island. Those are pretty good odds!
Chairs claimed, Nick headed for the water, and I headed for the restrooms, where they were playing Jimmy Buffett music! I’m a big fan of Castaway Cay already!
When I returned to the beach, one of the roving drink servers stopped me and asked if I was with the man that had ordered 2 pina coladas. No? I returned to the chairs to ditch my flip flops, and looked up to find the server handing Nick 2 drinks. I walked over to him, where he had parked two chairs at the edge of the water, and laughing, told the server “oops, guess I am with him”. She chuckled, and he and I parked ourselves in the chairs in the water, with our pina coladas. Did I mention it wasn’t even 10 am?
Nick and I are anything but beach people. Here in NH, going to the beach requires getting there at the crack of oh-my-god-it’s-early to even find a parking spot at a good beach, paying twice as much to park if you have to go to the bad beach than it does to park for a day at WDW, being elbow to elbow with tens of thousands of your closest friends, and as an added bonus, baking in those 100 degree heat indices, only to cool off in 60* water. 65 if you’re REALLY lucky. Hypothermia and a numb body anyone? Then you hop out of the water, burn your feet running across the oven style sand, and bake some more, next to all the people experiencing deoderant failure. NO THANKS!
That being said, I like the ocean. I like listening to the waves, I like taking a walk on the beach. But I’m not good at sitting still. And Nick isn’t either. We’d both been wondering how this day would go, but also knew there were plenty of other activities on the island if we got bored.
After just a few minutes of sitting in our chairs, in water that was pretty darn close to the air temperature (mid 70s...cooler than I’d expected, but warmer than it ever gets in NH), sipping pina coladas, we realized that there are scenarios where we can be beach people. Apparently at Castaway Cay, we can be beach people!
Once the pina coladas had been finished, I brought the empty cups back to my chair and got my little camera. So this is why I took advantage of that epic sale on a waterproof point and shoot a couple years ago! We couldn’t get over how clear the water was. I took the camera back to the water with me.
After quite a bit of time in the water, we headed back to the chairs. As we were emerging from the water we heard “hey guys!”. Andy and Jackie had finished snorkeling and had made their way to Serenity Bay. We chatted for a few minutes, and then they headed off to yoga on the beach, after trying to convince us to join. Uh...no thanks...there’s an adult beverage calling my name.
As they walked down the beach, we saw Captain Jack Sparrow walking up the beach in our direction. We headed over for a picture, that I’ll pass on posting. Krispy Kreme doughnuts... Our interaction with him was, by far, the best character interaction either one of us has had.
After advising the Captain to go find the rum, we headed back to our chairs, and I went back into the water for a bit. I still couldn’t get over how clear the water was, or how tropical it looked!
Once was I was sufficiently cooled down, I joined Nick at the chairs. Sandra, the drink server, appeared a minute later, asking “Mr. Nicholas” if we needed anything. Good memory for someone whose tag said she was just “earning her ears”! We asked about the Konk Kooler, having read about it online. This must have been Sandra’s first time on the island. She had no clue what we were talking about, but she offered to see if anyone knew. She was only familiar with the drinks on her little tray menu. No worries! The bar is just over there, and we’re headed to lunch anyway.
Next stop? The bar. 2 Konk Koolers please! Damn were those good! As we enjoyed our drinks, we headed for lunch at the bbq. Nick probably had ribs, and I think he might have had fish too. I had a cheeseburger. We were really impressed with the offerings and set up here!
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