Although we were a bit bummed that this was our last full day on our seven night Disney Fantasy Eastern Caribbean cruise, we were super excited that we got to spend it at Disney’s private island of Castaway Cay! I awoke as the ship was still a ways from Castaway, which gave me time to get my morning GoPro time lapse set up off of our veranda balcony.
I spent some quiet time on the balcony reflecting on our amazing cruise thus far. Our embarkation day was relaxing as we got settled into our stateroom and met our servers at dinner for the first time. We followed that up with two days at sea which were action packed with water activities and games that were offered on the ship. Tortola was our first port of call where we enjoyed a breathtaking beach day at Cane Garden Bay. We followed Tortola with a visit to St. Thomas where we explored Coral World, a beautiful aquarium and wildlife park on the ocean. And after our last sea day yesterday, we were ready to get some sand in our toes at Castaway!
The rest of the Hayes group arose shortly after I did. I like to believe it was because of the excitement of the day, but it could have possibly been all the sunlight that I let into the room opening our veranda sliding door for my morning time lapse. Either way, we were up and ready to seize the day. We got cleaned up and suited up to take on the beach and all the fun that Castaway Cay had to offer. We were a bit concerned that the forecast for the day included some rain and potential storms. Since we only got one shot at Castaway this cruise we were going to make the most of it.
We started our morning, much as we did every other, with a breakfast at Cabanas. We piled our plates high with our favorites as this was going to be our last breakfast at Cabanas. With the beautiful beach air calling us, we secured a table outside of Cabanas overlooking Castaway Cay. We were not the only guests with this idea as most of the tables were occupied. What we weren’t expecting was the other visitors who were excited that the Disney Fantasy had arrived, the birds. They literally swarmed the back of the ship looking for handouts of food left on unfinished plates. Check out the video at the end of this blog to see this in action.
The plus side to having a seagull infested breakfast experience is that it gets you moving on to your next adventure. For us this meant grabbing our pre-packed beach bag (thank you, Emily!) and heading down to the gangplanks on deck one to exit the ship to Castaway Cay. The morning was absolutely beautiful as we planted our feet on the island. Our first stop was a quick photo with Chip and Dale. We then took the morning stroll to pick up a beach wagon to help us haul our stuff to get to a beach spot. After stopping for a quick photo with Pluto, we arrived at the beach and plunked our stuff down on a few beach chairs.
With the potential threat of late morning/early afternoon storms, we decided to make snorkeling our first priority. We had purchased snorkels and masks prior to this trip and got some practice in the pool at home before we left. We took them out on our day at Tortola and saw some fun sea life. Hunter was hooked and ready to see what Castaway snorkeling had to offer. Emily agreed that she would go with Sawyer, and Hunter and I would go together. As you can see in the video at the end of this post, Sawyer wasn’t quite feeling the snorkeling vibe that day. Hunter and I ventured out a bit and had a little success but didn’t see a ton.
We returned to the beach to do a bit of swimming and digging in the sand but it was all short lived, as the storms rolled in, causing them to close down the beach. We grabbed our stuff and hustled through the light rain to get back on the Disney Fantasy. With the rain forecast for the remainder of the afternoon, we ruled out any afternoon swimming on the ship. We got cleaned up and changed into dry clothes to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
With the quick rush off the island, we didn’t end up eating our customary Cookies lunch which is located on Castaway Cay. This gave us the unplanned advantage of having one last lunch at Cabanas. With the weather, and morning bird debacle, we decided eating inside would be our best option. The lunch of assorted offerings hit the spot and fueled us up for our afternoon adventures!
Although we thought that yesterday would be our last day to get all of our favorite Disney Fantasy ship activities in, the shortened day at Castaway provided us another opportunity for fun. We started by launching a game of Midship Detective Agency. Our first goal was to play the game, but our secondary goal was to hit up clue locations that would take us into different parts of the ship that we could explore and photograph. Emily was feeling especially creative this day and caught lots of artistic images of the ship’s decor. The boys had fun because they got to see some of the adult areas of the ship during the day, which they don’t always get to see. Their favorite activity was to sit on the motorcycle and side car and pretend like they were bikers (see video).
The downside of the last day of the cruise is that you need to get all of your stuff packed so you can put your bags out at dinner time for them to be staged for disembarkation the following day. We returned to the room and Emily got to work on getting our stuff organized. Hunter was tired from his beach and ship activities and he fell asleep. With Emily needing quiet and room to pack, I took Sawyer up to deck 11 to get an ice cream cone snack. Must say I got the better end of that deal!
We all took a break from packing and napping to watch the ship sail away from Castaway Cay. I returned to the Palo bar area on the aft of deck 12 to set up the GoPro for a time lapse. Emily and the boys watched from the Goofy Golf area as we waved goodbye to our favorite island in the world.
Emily returned to the room to finish up packing (yeah, we had a lot of stuff on our seven night adventure). I took the boys to play some foosball and Goofy Golf as the Disney Fantasy began its sailing back to Port Canaveral. We returned to the room just as Emily was finishing up the packing. It was just in time to get changed into our last dinner outfit for the cruise. The boys dressed in jackets and bow ties, and of course their new captain hats, and looked super cute.
We took advantage of the fact that they willingly got dressed up and we paraded them around the ship to get as many fun photos as we could. We took some on our veranda before we left, a few in the atrium with the statue, and a bunch more silly photos on deck four outside. They were in rare form and we were having a blast. All this posing worked up our appetites. A stop at the Vista Cafe helped to curb our pre-dinner hunger pangs.
After a quick snack it was time for our final shopping visit to the stores on deck three. Emily happily took the boys to the store while I held our place in line for a meet and greet with Captain Mickey. Emily and the boys secured some last minute souvenirs and returned just in time to get our photos with Mickey.
Our last dinner of the cruise brought us back to Animators Palate. While the first night we got a visit from Crush from Finding Nemo, this night they changed things up just a bit. When we arrived at our table there were papers and markers on the table. These papers had boxes that you could color in to draw your own character. There were boxes for the legs, body, arm and head that you could fill in as you chose. After we all completed our creations (photos in the slideshow at the end of this blog post), they collected them all from the table and whisked them away.
We continued on with our dining experience and had a blast reliving our favorite events from the seven night cruise. After we finished the main course Mickey came on the screens around the entire restaurant and announced there would be a special event coming up. When the video started, all of the animated drawings that we all handed in earlier in the evening began to appear on the screen, dancing to the music on the video, and even sometimes alongside Disney characters (see video below). It was super fun to watch all of the drawings that we created be animated in front of our eyes! It was the perfect ending to our dinner as we enjoyed our dessert and the show.
Hard to believe the the boys still had energy after the late dinner seating, but they were still going. The asked to go back to the Oceaneer Club one last time before bed. We were happy to allow this and it gave us the perfect chance to have one last drink at the Skyline bar. We also took the opportunity to drop off some chocolates to our server Amanda from earlier in the cruise at Palo.
We swung by and picked up the boys who were ready to head back to the room. When we arrived at the room there was a note from Stateroom Santa telling the boys that there was one more gift waiting for them on their beds. When they got to their beds they realized it was the captain outfits that they had seen at the merchandise store and really wanted. They immediately wanted to put them on, which they did.
It wasn’t just enough to wear these outfits around the room, we had to go show them off to the entire ship! Emily had brought some glow tridents that we illuminated and headed out to deck 12 to do one more spin before bedtime. The boys had such a good time parading around the deck. Hunter did his best impression of Commodore Tom (see video) on our walk.
We finally ran out of juice and returned to our stateroom to retire for the evening. We definitely made the most of our last day on the Disney Fantasy. Check out the video below of all of our adventures from our Castaway Cay day below!
Castaway Cay – Disney Fantasy Eastern Caribbean Cruise Video
Disembarkation Day, Port Canaveral
We reluctantly awoke to the ship already docked at Port Canaveral. I took the opportunity to set up a time lapse on the veranda as the sun was about to rise over the water. It worked out perfectly as the the Carnival ship was just pulling into port as the sun was rising (check out the ending of the video above). We got ourselves ready, packed our remaining belongings in the carry-on bag, and said goodbye to our beautiful stateroom which had been our home over the past week.
Our final breakfast on the ship was awaiting us at Animator’s Palate. We got to enjoy one more meal with our amazing wait staff before we had to disembark the ship. It had been such an amazing cruise that we enjoyed our time at breakfast retelling some of our favorite vacation stories from the trip. Breakfast was delicious and quick as they were eager to get us fed and out of there.
We did one final stroll around deck three to get one last view of the amazing Disney Fantasy. We eventually had to leave as we said our goodbyes and left they ship. The drive home is never quite as fun as the drive to the ship, but we returned home, excited for another opportunity to sail sometime in the future!
