There may be a few pics here that were taken just over the course of the trip, but I wanted to squeeze them all in!
On Sunday morning we woke up on our last day at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay!
Here's Charlie just living his best life...
TIP: The interior rooms are the cheapest and have the "magic porthole" , which I think is amazing and knew my kids would love BUT the "Oceanview" (aka a room with the view below) was just $200 more and yes, that's $200 but in the grand scheme of us making payments on the trip (over the course of 1.5 years when using a travel agent. Easy peezy!) I knew I wanted to upgrade and do it. Selfishly to 1. have more natural light when getting ready, etc... and also 2. for fear that I would get a tad claustrophobic without it . (We had an oceanview room on our Carnival cruise back in June too)
I will say it was WORTH EVERY BIT of upgrading. THAT VIEW? Amazing. The kids loved laying there and looking out at the ocean, watching for dolphins and watching the boat pull in and out of the ports. The sunsets were magical and since the windows are so large , they really provided so much natural light throughout the entire room.
So us four and Courtney's fam had adjoining rooms , which was also nice because the kids were able to play together. We could swap over whatever we needed to borrow, etc... but our mom and Charles splurged on a "Verandah" room (aka one with a balcony).
They had a balcony that was right at the flag at the back of the ship and the ships all "back into" the ports so they had the absolute BEST views. We would sneak down to their room (just down the hall) to sip coffee out on their balcony and take in all the views...
Seriously, amazing. All of the rooms are so spacious and the crew would have the beds pulled down for the kids , chocolates and "towel animals" laid out while we were at dinner!
This face made it ALL worth it. He asks almost everyday "mama, when we going back on da COOOOZE?"
Another fun treat is the cheese plate you can have delivered (again, for free!) to your room. Since you can also bring on one bottle of wine per adult, we had our wine in the mini fridge and would have a glass with the cheese tray while getting ready.
("We" = my sis and I because the men are not wine drinkers at all...)
We would order cookies, Mickey ice cream bars, all kinds of snacks for the kids too! The rule of thumb is you just tip $1-$2 per item ordered.
so much preciousness with these two. sweet when they wanna be :)
and this baby too!
Seeing this bed reminds me, the beds were SO COMFY. Legit. We slept so well!
Ok so back to getting ready for Castaway Cay...
You got off the boat and there was Santa's sleigh, a huge Christmas tree adorned with star fish, sea creatures and seashells and guys...it was "SNOWING!". The kids were in awe...
We had to get a pic of the post office :)
we found a spot near the beach and the Sand bar and the kids hopped right into the (frigid) ocean...
it didn't seem to bother them a bit...
then after lunch (they have an all-you-can-eat buffet of burgers, grilled bbq chicken, hot dogs, anything and everything you could think of at a backyard bbq basically - again, all included!) we went over to a splash pad section of the island that was within walking distance.
There's also shops , water sports/snorkling gear to rent, private cabanas and even an "adult only" beach on the island too!
oh and EVERYWHERE you could find Disney's all-you-can-eat soft serve ice cream!
There's even a huge slide / water obstacle course out in the ocean you swim to (it's not far or anything, you just get waist deep) and the kids made us ALL (well, Chad Mack me and Courtney) slide down. Charlie even did it! I was FREEZING but #YOLO.
So glad we did it. Cade will definitely never forget that!
we got back on the boat after a fun filled day at the beach...
more ice cream and movies by the pool!
and naps for the littlest...
then me Chad and the boys went up to the top deck to play a round of mini golf before getting ready for dinner!
it was our last night and we had dinner at The Enchanted Gardens.
again, just look at these views!
after dinner we got to see our favorites one last time...
then back our room...
after we put the kiddos to bed, mom and Charles came down to our rooms with the adjoining doors open so they could watch all four at once just for an hour or so for us four to explore!
We wanted to check out PINK: a wine and champagne bar...
and we walked around to a few other "adult fun spots" too! There's just so much to do. Seriously, even if you don't have kids it would still be an amazing cruise to take. Disney thinks of everything!!
The next morning we were sad to say goodbye...
but it wasn't really goodbye, it was really just a
"SEE YA REAL SOON" ;)
We will definitely be back...one day!
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