I woke up around sunrise. So I headed out onto the balcony to do some picture taking. Then I started alternating getting ready for the day with picture taking as we docked at Castaway.
Nick got up at some point, and we headed to Marceline Market for breakfast. We both were pleased with the food quality and we both really appreciated the fact that the servers serve you at the buffet stations. We still remember that noro cruise in 2016. This is a positive change for the Wish Class ships. It also felt like they were more thoughtful about seating arrangements/utilizing seating space here. We basically always ended up at the counters with bar height seating, because these seats just make sense for couples.
Breakfast enjoyed, it was back to the room for sunscreen and more picture taking. Why am I not surprised that the rainbow ended at Castaway?
Once we were ready, we headed down to deck 1 and scanned off the ship. Yay for being back at Castaway! We grabbed towels and worked our way to the tram to Serenity Bay, doing lots of picture taking and a bit of shopping along the way.
A tram to Serenity Bay arrived just after we did, so we were at Serenity Bay within a few minutes of getting to the tram stop. Arriving at Serenity Bay after a NH winter just doesn’t get old.
We found some seats, ditched our stuff and headed for the water. It was, as always, a little cooler than I expected it, but we both got into the water easily enough, and spent about 45 minutes just chilling in the water. It was a beautiful day!
Once we’d gotten cooled off to the point of being chilly, we headed back to the chairs. I headed for the bathroom, and then followed that up with a stop at the bar for two Konk Koolers, since I was basically at the bar already. The poor bartenders were having to keep track of orders, specifically room charges, by hand, because their computers were down, but they maintained their composure and sense of humor, and pretty soon I was back at my lounge chair with a konk kooler in hand. Life is good.
We enjoyed our Konk Koolers and just took it all in, until shortly after 11:30. This girl runs on a high school eating schedule, so it was time for lunch! We headed over to the bbq, which is completely different from how it was before. There is now more seating where the buffet used to be, and a completely new buffet structure just up the hill from the seating. One side is for Serenity Bay normal guests. One side is for cabana guests.
I was not a fan of the new set up. They created two lines for the buffet, and it is SO cramped inside. We were lucky we got there early, because the line also does not move. By the time we had food in hand, the line was LONG. It also seemed like there were fewer food options this time.
After lunch, we decided we were both content with our beach time, and the sun had wiped us out (seriously…we don’t have that bright yellow thing in the sky in NH on days off…ever), so we worked our way through the tram stops back to the ship. Once back on the ship, we showered and napped a bit, and took more pictures of the island.
Eventually we headed down to the Grand Hall for pictures with Goofy. He’s Nick’s favorite, and on this cruise he ended up totally winning the character game. Nick was wearing one of his many Roosevelts shirts, and this one looked Hawaiian, but had storm trooper heads scattered throughout. Goofy noticed, and immediately challenged Nick to an imaginary lightsaber duel. Nick won, of course, and Goofy kneeled down to concede the battle before shaking hands. It was the kind of Disney moment that you really only get these days on the cruise ships.
Then Nick probably headed back to the room and I headed outside on deck 4 to watch us sail away from Castaway. This was actually pretty fascinating. The way they load towels back onto the ship with crates and fork lifts really speaks to the size of the ship. The amount of John Deere tractors on the island is mind boggling. There was the last passenger to re-board the ship…who celebrated being last on board. And then of course there were the monkeys disguised as workers who had to go out on this suspension bridge situation and then jump down onto posts to release the forward lines. And then there was the bittersweet fun of the island cast members waving us off with Mickey gloves.
Once we were sailing, I headed back to the room to swap the ultra casual clothes for a sundress. It’s dress up night. Once we both were ready…and by that I really mean me, we headed down to the Grand Hall for our picture rounds.
Then it was off to the Walt Disney Theater. Tonight’s show was The Little Mermaid. The show was fantastic!
After The Little Mermaid, we continued our lounge tour of the Wish with a visit to Nightingales. We both got beverages (a really smooth chocolate situation for me, something coconut for Nick) that came with a little audience participation. We were presented with our drinks and little hammers to smash the ice ball. That part was annoying, but, we created smaller pieces of ice and enjoyed our drinks. Piano music started soon after, and while this pianist wasn’t nearly as good as the one that was on the Dream when we sailed last year, he was still decent and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and stayed until it was time to head to dinner.
Dinner tonight was at 1923. We were in the Roy Disney dining room. Honestly, 1923 was the perfect dining room for dress up night. It really does have a more upscale (but still comfortable) atmosphere. I loved seeing all the decor, and our meals were excellent. I did the full 4 courses tonight. Nick did double entrees and desserts tonight. I had the pasta appetizer, which was excellent, the corn chowder, which was very good, the filet, which was very good, and the apple cheesecake, which was delicious. Nick got an old fashioned, which was his least favorite of the cruise, the filet and the lamb, and for dessert, the churros and the coconut tapioca. We definitely enjoyed the food in this dining room.
After dinner, we headed back to the room, where we found a towel animal Wall-E waiting for us. We both stayed up for a bit, watching the stars and the other ships in the area from the balcony and then crashed eventually. It had been another great vacation day!
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