Trip log, day three. Castaway Cay.
3-Night Halloween on the High Seas Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
October 13, 2019
Guests Ashore: 8:30 am Guests Onboard: 4:45 pm
Personal Navigator – Day 3
To get a jump start on the day, Emily opted for the air conditioned and earlier alternative to the Castaway Cay 5k as she continues to ramp up her training for the upcoming runDisney and general Central Florida race season.
A lot of love goes to the pumpkin trees in the atrium, but my absolute favorite part of the Halloween on the High Seas decor are the various overlays such as the spiderwebs at Guest Services and the pumpkin portholes that yield in some awesome shadows.
We found a spot to hang out on the family beach and set up shop along the water. BRRRRRR, the water was a bit chilly for my liking, but it was still relaxing sitting in the lounge chair with my feet in the water.
We ditched Emily (not really, we let her have some peace and quiet to finish her book) and we headed over to In Da Shade. This is a great area near the family beach that is best described as a shaded recreation area. In Da Shade has 3 pool tables, shuffle board, basketball hoops, table top and floor checkers, foosball, and ping pong all in the shade! I highly recommend wearing shoes of some sort as the flooring under the pool tables is really uncomfortable in bare feet.
Time flew as I was getting worked over by my little pool shark and by the time we returned to the beach, Emily had finished her book and it was nearing lunch time.
The garlic foccocia was back at Cookies after being MIA in June. This is my goto DIY sandwich at Castaway Cay, and is pure garlicky joy when the bread is just right. Plus, the spicy chicken was well prepared and the chicken was still juicy.
Boy do I know how to have a great time. As lifelong Browns fan, I knew the best way to avoid disappointment is to put myself into a happy environment. Castaway Cay seemed to fit the bill. With another day of my International Day package from AT&T, I was able to listen to the Browns game. Although, the game didn’t end as I hope, I really didn’t know because the cell service was spotty and by halftime I could hardly get a simple Google search page to load let alone stream the second half. Turns out that was a blessing in disguise.
Since the water wasn’t at all inviting, we headed back to the Disney Dream Around 1pm to hang out on the pool deck. A lot of people were asking about the island and how it looks following Hurricane Dorian. We didn’t go walking around looking for damage or significant changes. Although we saw some areas that were impacted by the storm, we did not see or encounter anything that impacted the guest experience on the island. We had a great time ashore.
To Isabelle’s delight, Hercules and The Little Mermaid were the afternoon movies on Funnel Vision.
However, the afternoon pool situation took a turn as families we starting to trickle back onboard. The scrolling reminder that the pool is not a potty between films on Funnel Vision is unable to prevent actual accidents in the pool. The Mickey Pool was shut down and eventually fenced off to begin cleaning procedures. This almost happened yesterday, but it turned out to be food dropped in the pool similar to the Baby Ruth incident at Bushwood Country Club.
Our final dinner this cruise was at Remy because its preferred to save the best for last. The menu was similar to the dinner we had in June. One notable change was the bread service. On the heels on the new bread that debuted earlier this year, they changed up the butter. Instead of just the plain butter, there are now two flavored versions, one was chili and the other seaweed (which tasted more like broccoli). Out of the three, the chili was our favorite, although both new options were delicious.
It turns out we missed an all new menu by one sailing. On Monday October 14th, Scott Hunnel is boarding to introduce some new dishes which will be previewed for the Remy servers on Monday while in Nassau and will launch on Tuesday, October 15th.
Ok, after failing to find the Donald Duck Wishables in the blind bags, we were determined to use what we learned on Saturday to select a blind bag with Donald. When we arrived, the bags were hit, but Shelly from Trinidad and Tobago, who helped us earlier in the cruise, pulled out a giant bag full of blind bags and wished us luck. Basically, we helped shelve the blind bags as we searched for telltale signs of Donald Duck… Well, we managed to fill the shelf with a new allotment of blind bags and we guessed correctly! You’d think we won the bingo jackpot by our reaction when we opened the blind bag. There was a lot of high-fiving. Shelly was just as excited as we were.
We introduced Donald to Daisy and Daisy then proceeded to pack our suitcase and set it out. This is the second consecutive year where we been on an October Halloween on the High Seas cruise where the Pittsburg Steelers game was available in the stateroom. I feel like those in control of the football scheduling are confusing me with #1 Steelers fan, Len Testa. Oh, the Unoffical Guide to Disney Cruise Line 2020 is coming out soon and is available for preorder now.
It is interesting to watch a game just field audio and background music. In a perfect world I’d love to sync up the radio broadcast.
Trip log, day four. Port Canaveral – debarkation day.
3-Night Halloween on the High Seas Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
October 14, 2019
We arrived back into Port Canaveral. We were not in a hurry so we didn’t need to do express walk off allowing us to enjoy breakfast in Cabanas. We timed our debarkation between the two breakfast seatings allowing to limit the amount of time we had queue up to go through customs.
We even remembered to pick up our confiscated corkscrew which they describe as a muli-knife tool. Ok, after further review, that is a fare description of the item. This is whey you always have a backup corkscrew if you are brining on bottles of wine.
All good things come to an end, and cruises are no different. We were back at the car and on our way back to life on land until our next adventure which we’d love for all of you to join us on DCL Blog Group Cruise II. Our next group cruise is February 20, 2020 on the Disney Magic from Miami.
Once again enjoyed your experience! Are you going to do stateroom reviews also? Thanks so much! Denise