Trip log, day four. Castaway Cay.
5-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral, Florida (Maiden Voyage)
July 17, 2022
Guests Ashore: 8:30 am Guests Onboard: 4:45 pm
There is something special about late July when you can wake up, and watch a major golf championship – today is the final day of The Open! Keg & Compass did not open until 5:30 PM and considering it was airing on NBC, I never considered checking ESPN or ESPN 2 (foreshadowing). Only thought to check the special events channels, but had to settle for some streaming.
Totally unrelated, but since I’m on the subject of stateroom TV channels, I found it a bit strange that ABC was always “temporarily unavailable.” I completely understand the geographical issues, broadcast rights, and whatever other reason has been stated, but… The Walt Disney Company owned ABC was not available from random checks during the maiden voyage nor during the June 29th 3-night with the same ports. If this is a geographical/rights issue, then remove the channel from the list of channels as the Wish will only be sailing in The Bahamas for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, this is just a hiccup because college football season is around the corner (although the ships have been notoriously bad for watching live sports).
I decided to take advantage of the early morning and set up a GoPro for the following time-lapse arrival into Castaway Cay. The smoking area above the Quiet Cove offers a good spot to set up a camera.
I headed to Marceline Market for breakfast. The little quiche things offered through the cruise were perfect; today was a delicious blue cheese, spinach, and broccoli offering.
During breakfast, I was on a FaceTime call, which worked flawlessly with the new internet option onboard, I will cover this more in detail later as there are some things that need to be pointed out. Anyway, during my conversation, I was able to watch some of The Open.
The main goal for today was to go snorkeling and see the newly added items which render this Castaway Cay Snorkeling Lagoon article a little out of date. The wind was blowing in creating a bit of a chop and current in the snorkeling lagoon. If you have time on your side, consider waiting for later in the day for visibility to improve and for the wind to shift making it a less of a workout. The downside of waiting, is that conditions could worsen or storms could roll in and cause you to miss out on the opportunity. I prefer to go out in the morning in the event the weather turns later in the day.
I managed to see everything I wanted to see in the snorkeling lagoon, except Minnie which was not in her historical location, & the consensus from others was she was temporary out of the water for cleaning; but then again visibility was not great in the morning.
Speaking of the Captain, Minnie was taking some time away from the bridge to great guests on the beach in her custom painted MOKE.
After snorkeling, it was back to the ship to drop off the snorkeling gear and grab a camera to walk around. The idea of lugging a bunch of stuff to the island for a full day ashore was not my idea of fun, so it was pre-planned to snorkel then bring the gear back to the ship. While in the room, I checked the special event channels for The Open and while flipping channels there it was – The Open on ESPN 2 in the stateroom! It took everything I had to head back to the island and not watch. Maybe sports onboard is not such a great thing, as it keeps you from doing other things you cannot do at home. Maybe if Eldrick was at, or near the top of the leaderboard instead of missing the cut, I’d would’ve camped out in the stateroom and ordered room service.
With a camera in hand, it is back out to the island to take pictures of the Disney Wish from various vantage points around the island.
While walking around Castaway Cay, I realized a gift was in order for a friend back home that doesn’t necessary love Disney merchandise. The light went off in my head – the Bahamian Retail shops to the rescue.
The photo walk around the island continued, I had a side mission focusing on signage at Castaway Cay in adding to photographing the Disney Wish. If you walk around long enough, you may just find where you belong – Cabana 4! After snorkeling, and walking around for a while I was parched. The bottled water and the cold towels in the cabana mini-fridge was the equivalent of finding an oasis in the desert.
Fully hydrated, I left the cabana with plans of making it to Serenity Bay then taking the tram back to the ship. Well, I sorta found both signs I was searching for in my side mission.
It was later in the afternoon now and so I joined the group and headed back to the ship. Tonight was going to be a late night with pirates taking over the Disney Wish.
Ok, remember the arrival time-lapse, well, I decided to bookend the day at Castaway Cay with a departure time-lapse.
Grabbed a cold beer from the Cove Bar and took a seat to enjoy the departure from Castaway Cay with some friends. Not a bad way to leave the island.
Our rotation had us back in Worlds of Marvel tonight and I was on yet another mission – order the Quantum Sipper which I’ve completely forgotten to do during my previous dinners in this restaurant. Normally, I leave the souvenir cup collecting to Derek Burgan of the multiverse famous Saturday Six, but this caught my eye a number of times as it lights up! Obviously, I “needed” it to help collect dust on my desk. Although it was the Pirates in the Caribbean menu, our amazing assistant server was able to sell me the sipper sans beverage. In fact, she even brought out the drink for us to try, it was not bad. I was expecting a really sugary concoction, but it was much more like an ice cream shake.
In the past, Pirate Night dinner has been the night we’d often skip to go to one of the adult restaurants. Not sure if the rarity of the menu has been an amuse bouche of sorts, but so far the pirate night fare has been enjoyable.
Worlds of Marvel has potential to transform into something special during pirate night depending on the lighting control systems and their capabilities. I could see some sort of cave like imagery on the screens either from the movie franchise for from the theme park attractions with some accompanying lighting. I will say, I was a bit odd the music for dinner was not switched over to the onboard pirates playlist. Again, this may just be one of those things that is still a work in progress. Time will tell.
Tonight’s entertainment was Thor Love & Thunder, but we saw the movie opening weekend at home. Therefore, there was free time to walk around the ship before the deck party started. Possibly one of the cutest statues is Jiminy Cricket on the left hand side of the bar at Wishing Star Café.
Muppet Treasure Island was showing on Funnel Vision while the stage was being set up for the band.
Walking around deck 12, a hidden Mickey was discovered.
For anyone that has the Wish Tower Suite booked on an upcoming cruise, just be aware that everyone can see you from Currents bar across the way. Best lower the blinds to avoid an audience. I still have a video tour of the suite to edit and share, but there are a lot of tour videos out there already if you want to see inside.
Rex shines in the evening lights.
So far, it appears pirate merchandise will be available on deck 11 in Dory’s Forget-Me-Knots, which is right inside the main pool deck. It is ideal for guests to stop in for some last minute pirate attire since it seems like bandanas are no longer being given out in the staterooms on pirate night.
If you previously watched the video of Pirates Rockin’ Parlay Party from the Christening Cruise, it turns out that performance was an abbreviated version of show. The full cast is now assembled, and the show is longer with a more in-depth storyline and more music that gets flagged by YouTube. If you choose to watch, here is the full, complete version of the Pirates Rockin’ Parlay Party from the Disney Wish Maiden Voyage.
I am a huge fan of the revised show, and as long as I can stay awake on Pirate Night, I will continue to attend the concert and firework show.
To cap off the evening Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was shown on Funnel Vision starting at 11:30PM. Pro-tip, get a pizza from Festival of Foods before it shuts down at midnight if you want a late night snack to enjoy with the late night movie. There were a number of people looking for food at this time. I bet if I tried, I probably could have sold a slice of our pizza to someone.
It was a long day, so didn’t get too far into the movie before deciding to call it a night. The stateroom host folded a bear out of the blanket along with a delivery of a box of chocolates.
They don’t have the night buffet after fireworks anymore?
It was not offered on pirate night.
Thank you for your posts – they are informative to a newbie like myself (Silver). We were on the Fantasy on the June 4, 2022 sailing, and ABC was not available in the stateroom either. However, we were able to watch the NBA and NHL playoffs while getting ready for late dinner.
Scott – Do you know if there is fruit available at the Festival of Food locations at all? Or is it only available at Marceline Marketplace? Trying to make sure we know when to get fruit if we want to keep some in our room (other than calling room service). Thanks.
Unless it gets added to Festival of Foods based on guest feedback, you will need to get fruit from Marceline Market.