Another Day at Castaway Cay

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We woke up this morning to this nice view of Castaway Cay, a nice place to return to - we were happy to see the weather a bit overcast and not quite as hot, which meant we could stay a little longer.  We've been eating so much lately that we skipped breakfast and pretty much went straight out to the island this morning.

Maddie was ready to go.  We packed our IDs and sprayed on a whole lot of sunscreen.  We had an appointment this morning with a port excursion, but there was one task we were ready for first, something we actually haven't done before.

Getting off at Castaway Cay is cool because of the view of the boat you're on.  You get a really good look at the back of the ship - the Disney Magic has Goofy back there, ever painting the name on graphics on the back of the ship.  

And right across from this point is the destination that we had in mind firstly.  Maddie actually had this spot on her mind as soon as she woke up.

It's the post office!  There's a post office at Castaway Cay, and of course things are sent not by air but by boat.  Maddie had filled out a post card to send to Nate, and I actually wrote one for Nana and Ye-Ye, and the three of us went inside the post office.

Maddie fixed the Bahamian stamp to the post card, and we gave the post cards to the employees there to send off.  She was happy to get her card in the mail, and as far as I know, the first post card she's ever sent.  Nowadays, communication is by phone or computer - post cards?  That's an old idea.  But there were a few on the boat, and why not fill them out?

We posed for a few pictures by the ship, making use of our photo account, and they turned out pretty good!  We were pretty happy with photo pass - by the end of this cruise we had them take over 200 pictures!

So after that, we found a pretty good place to set up at the beach, a few beach chairs underneath an umbrella right there by the shore line.  I went over to Castaway Rays to find out about our scheduled time of feeding the rays, but the feeding part was cancelled because of ... looming weather, I guess?  They offered a reduced rate for us to snorkel with the rays, but we declined.  

The great thing was that we were swimming out there later on in the water, and we saw a few sting rays beneath us anyway.  So at least we got to see a few swimming with us.  I had rented a tube, and Maddie got on board.  I was pushing her out as far as we could go, and there was a sand bar there where you could actually stand up, as the water was pretty shallow there.  It was nice just floating about today, just spending some time in the water.

Mom was walking in the water some, and just soaking up a bit of sun too in her beach chair.  We did all this pretty early today, and it was nice and relaxing.  We even spent some time hanging around in the hammocks there.

We found a great spot with a nice view of the blue water.

We weren't too far from Mt. Rushmore either!

Maddie and Mom had a chance to look around the shops.

Lunchtime was great at Cookie's Barbecue.  Mom's meal was gluten free!

Our servers were with us, following us to the island.

Seagulls:  rats with wings!

Maddie and I had a game of checkers - I got stomped!

Huge dinosaur lizards.

Back to the beach!

We didn't bring the phone out deeper, but there were sting rays in the water too.

Mom was nice and comfy under the umbrella there in her chair.

Ah, relaxing!

Here's Joey at the Castaway Cay sign.

Pretty sure these are props from "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.

Check out this rather large resident from the island, a pretty big lizard!

The family returns to Mt. Rushmore!

Getting on the tram to head back to the boat.  Mom and I don't do well spending too much time in sun.

Oh, buoy!  That's the running joke there.

Maddie spent some time journaling each day.

We were back in the cabin for a short window, but Mom was ready for a short nap while Maddie and I went off to try trivia again at the Soul Cat Lounge.  

It was "Disney Quote Trivia," and it was fairly difficult, but we still had a good time.  Definitely not our finest hour with quotes, and it's amazing how good a lot of other folks did - we were genuinely impressed.  The Soul Cat Lounge was where we spent the most time this trip, and I have to say I really enjoyed the seating and just the atmosphere.  We even stuck around the lounge there afterwards and made these cool crafts, the next scheduled event there.   We didn't plan on it, but we made some anchors.  Maddie made this one for Nate.

Coloring things in has been quite a therapeutic sort of thing to do.  We enjoyed just sitting there in the Soul Cat Lounge, coloring and making crafts.  I think by the end of this cruise we'll have made a few different origami items, plus the Junkanoo hats, plus these crafts too - lots of extra stuff to come home.

Speaking of therapeutic, our next stop was our last visit to the Cove Cafe, where Maddie ordered one more coffee.  There was a little girl in that window above, and Maddie was using her plush friends here as puppets to entertain the little girl, who had a big smile on her face.

Maddie had a big smile on her face for her favorite coffee too.  She settled on a favorite flavor that she came back for time and again, a salted caramel coconut latte, iced.  I got a pistachio flavored one that I was enjoying too.

These were a little wet from a recent swabbing of the deck.

We had a few games of shuffleboard too, sort of an official item on the list of things to do for us.  Not seeing shuffleboard on the other boat, we longed to do this again - so here we are.  It was pretty cool playing a game of shuffleboard here with Castaway Cay there as a view on deck.

Oh, and the Aquadunk!  I tried it out.  I actually braved that one, and we did another slide too, the big long yellow slide called "Twist and Spout."

But it was time to dry off after that and get ready for our night's entertainment!

We went to the theater one last time tonight, and it's always somewhat of a bittersweet thing, the last show of the cruise.  We saw "Disney Dreams" tonight, and it was a nice show - a collection of songs and scenes from classic Disney stories.  Peter Pan helps a young girl find the magic again with visits from Cinderella, Ariel, Aladdin, Elsa and Anna, and characters from the Lion King too.

We had good seats again, and in fact we've had great seats this entire cruise.  It's a large theater, and we could see everything just fine where we were, enjoying the songs and watching as different characters went by, or were seen in balconies above, or flying overhead!  These productions are so good with such a talented cast.  The costuming, lighting and stage are all just so good - we've been loving a trip to the theater each night.  

Each night between the production and dinner we have a little bit of time, and we've been using that to take fun pictures in the gallery, although we missed out one particular night.  That's okay, we'll get it next time!  Anyway, going along with the theme of various Disney stories tonight, the studios had themes that went with the movies "Encanto" and "Wish" as well.  Here are our photos from those sessions, which were super fun to take.  We've enjoyed talking with the photographers, and we're having a great time tonight.

Oh, and we had one more photo shoot too, one just before dinner right there at Lumiere's.  Everyone was ready to go in and get a bite to eat, but we squeezed in one more group of photos, having the photographer take pictures of us in front of the Mickey located in the atrium there.  These turned out nice as well!

So one other great thing we did before dinner was see a guest singer perform at the Fathoms Lounge in a regular show called "Songs for Everafter."  She was Mother Gothel in the production of "Tangled," and Lady Tremaine in the "Twice Charmed" production the earlier night.  Marlana Dunn - she had an incredible voice, and entertained us all with songs from various Disney stories, from "Where the Lost Things Go" from "Mary Poppins Returns" to Ursula's big number to Meg's "I Won't Say I'm in Love" from "Hercules." 

 

Right after the show, Maddie spotted something out on the water - it was another Disney ship, traveling in the opposite direction!  Ships literally passing in the night.

Okay, so then there was dinner too!  Yes, we were at Lumiere's tonight, and of course we were here five nights ago for the opening night of the cruise.  This dinner had bit of bittersweetness to it, as we were saying goodbye to our friends at the table next to us, and wishing our servers well - we gave them all generous tips, as they certainly earned it!

Chateaubriand!  

Crusted Salmon!

Maddie is surprised with congratulations for her graduation!

And now comes the tough party - really saying goodbye.  The one weakness of the Disney Magic may be this atrium, which compared to others is remarkably smaller.  You have to get there super early to see much, but we did see a little, and we got to see the casts of the plays go by, and we got to see a lot of the characters too.

Maddie poses with one of our favorite photographers

Maddie with some of the cast from "Tangled."

You know who this is, of course!  How great we got to take a picture with him!  Earlier, there were tremendous lines to see Captain Hook, and although we didn't have this with the official Disney photos for our online album, taking a picture with the good Captain on a cell phone was just fine tonight.

And so it came to pass that we got to our rooms afterwards, and went to bed fairly quickly.  Of course, we read from our Kingdom Keepers book, and we said our prayers as well.  But we were really worn out, and we were quite ready for bed.  Plus, tomorrow we get up early to make our departure.  It's been a lovely cruise!