27th September - Castaway Cay

Just in case any of you are unaware of this, but Disney owns an island in the Bahamas. They have called it Castaway Cay, and it is their own special place - no other cruise lines visit it.Read more...

If you were to ask me what Castaway Cay was like, I would ask you to imagine what you think Disney would do if they wanted to create a "perfect, fantasy tropical island". Whatever you just thought of, I bet they have it!

It's a great place. A really great place. I didn't see more than a quarter of the actual square footage, though I saw most of the attractions except the adult beach. I loved it.

I don't know how much money Disney spent on this place, but it must have been a lot. There is a fabulous deep water harbour (enabling the ship to dock right on the island), as well as man-made breakwaters and various well marked out lagoon areas. The pathways are concrete (making it, in conjunction with the funkiest jumbo-tyre wheelchairs that you will ever see, the most accessible beach that I have ever come across on a cruise) as well as making it efficient and easy to walk, and allowing the use of a "tram" to take people back and forth... There is a "village" in the middle - and some really beautiful white-sand beaches, divided up for different purposes. There is the family beach and the adult beach, the snorkelling lagoon, the family lagoon and the boating lagoon, Castaway Ray's stingray encounnters and a teen beach.

The restaurant in the village is INCLUDED! - it's as if they moved a restaurant off the ship. They even have the free drink stations there too. So once you are off the ship you do not have to go back on, or shell out extra for food.

The move the kids club off the ship too, to a fantastic play area in called Scuttles cove. Gabriella went there straight after we got off the ship, for a treasure hunt. Kiara stayed with us and wanted to go straight into the sea. After an hour we collected Gabriella who played in the sea too, for a bit, until it was time for our paid shore excursion (this was not included...) at Castaway Rays. The rays in question are Southern stingrays. They have an area of the lagoon to themselves, and have been trained and had their barbs removed, so are harmless to us (thankfully). The Crocodile Hunter's untimely demise at the barb of a stingray had a few people worried, but we were reassured that we were perfectly safe. Gabriella, meanwhile had decided that she didn't want to do the stingray thing after all, and I almost had to drag her there. Of course, it turned out to be great, a close encounter experience that you probably can't get anywhere else (though the price, at $35 and $29 per adult and child respectively) is really gouging for less than an hour in the water. Gabriella, who also had insisted that she didn't want her snorkel stuff either, loved touching the stingrays, and having them swim around her legs, and then snorkeled with them for at least 30 minutes!

We had a great lunch at Cookies BarBQ.

We had planned to rent bikes (at $6 per hour) for part of the afternoon but in the end just enjoyed the beaches some more before heading back to boat for the last time... boo-hoo...

The kids both participated in "Celebrate the Journey" - a graduation of sorts which took place in the main theater - a treat for the kids just to come in "the back way" and see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. Each child in the kids program received a t-shirt and graduation Mickey ears, and they played a little "memory reel" of video and still images from the cruise. It was very nice.

The main farewell show was a comedy juggling act that were actually really funny, followed by an understandably sentimental "remember the cruise"-type Disney finale. A very nice end to the entertainment.

We said goodbye to the kids counsellors (who we wont see tomorrow) and had another great meal before heading back to finish packing - all bags had to be outside the cabin door by 11 PM.

We have a very early start, and I am very late to bed, posting this final post - I am on the top deck, while typing this, and I can already see the lights of Florida in the distance, so I really must sign off.

I will not be attempting to blog for the next couple of days at Walt Disney World, so this is it for me, for now! Thanks for sticking with me!!!

 

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[Back to... Some questions that you may have about the Disney Cruise...]

 

Some questions that you may have about the Disney Cruise...

As promised, here are some of my thoughts on the following issues not yet mentioned in any detail in the course of the blog so far... there are no pretty pictures in this post!

Show times and dining:
There are two main shows each evening, at 6.15 PM and 8.30 PM (6.30 and 8.30 on shore days), rather than the more usual industry practice of shows at 8.00 and 10.00 (after each respective dinner seating). The way that Disney does it is much more appropriate for their typical clientele, allowing those on late seating to see their show BEFORE their meal. It works very well. There is sufficient time after the show to wander the ship, meet with characters (of course), see the daily photographs shot by the ever-present ship's photography team before the meal. If you are on early dining, then you have more of a rush to get back, into your evening clothes and into the meal for 5.30, 5.45 or 6.00 PM, but after the meal, you again only have a short while before the show.

Are there any advantages of late dining if traveling with small children?
None that I have found yet...except, maybe, it would be difficult to get back to the ship, shower and dress all by 5.30. Apart from that, I would thoroughly recommend trying to get on first sitting - which usually requires booking WELL in advance - i.e. more than 9-12 months, Canadians! There were a lot of children (ours included) that just couldn't deal too well with waiting so long to eat (and then staying up even later before going to bed). Some of the other parents seemed to have had less success than we did with finding some coping strategies - one child near us pretty much spent every evening meal in tears, which couldn't have enhanced his parent's vacation much. Our coping strategies were trying to insist on a nap sometime during the day - worked most days. Also, letting our kids eat with the kids club at 5 PM worked pretty well. They often didn't have much room left at 8 PM for their "main" meal, but they could still pick at their food and have something (usually desert!), but they would not be cranky while waiting. There are always activity sheets with colouring and quizzes offered at every meal, usually some other distractions (the serving staff usually have some talents, shows, characters, TVs, even the room itself at Animators Palette). Kids are even allowed to draw with crayons on the tablecloths! - don't try that at home! - so this worked fairly well with us. It took us a while to work these out, of course, and those of you on a shorter cruise may need to be forewarned.

Movement of the ship
We were blessed with unusually good weather. Our own Caribbean experience tells us this, particularly as is hurricane season, but staff and other passengers remarked on it too. So it has been hard to comment on this, apart from the following. You CAN feel movement on this ship (it is not big enough to blast through the waves, it still rides with them). You can feel more movement at night when the Captain puts the pedal to the metal and picks up speed significantly over the daytime cruising speed. We had one sailing day of moderate swells and some of the passengers and crew that we questioned about it, felt that it was quite uncomfortable. For me (and my family) the motion was never even slightly objectionable, and was easy to deal with. But, you should expect that you will know that you are on a ship. It does move.

Full description and photos of the cabins.
I don't have time to do this here, today. I did take multiple photographs of our cabin the first day (before we messed it up) and I will post them soon. The only difference between our cabin and cabins on higher floors are the size of the portholes. Once you get to the balcony cabins, the room is still essentially the same, though there is more space provided by the balcony. Watch this space for my full description.

Smoking policy
At present, the Disney Cruise ships are not smoke-free. Most of the ship is non-smoking, and there are designated smoking areas (the open decks on the port side only). While this sounds like quite a lot, it actually isn't all that much, as the area around the Mickey pool and the Goofy pool are "covered" not open, as are the outside restaurants, so generally speaking the smoke barely affects anyone (except the smoker, of course).

What is actually free (well, included) and what is extra.
Included - with no extra charge
Meals - 15 a day if you want - even breakfast delivered to your cabin and room service. The only exception is Palos (the adults-only, super-fancy restaurant) where there is a $10 per person supplement.
Drinks (except alcohol, and speciality coffees) - Unusually for the industry, Disney have a 24 hour, free soda/water/tea/coffee station on deck 9. (Apparently this costs Disney $1,000,000 a year!) All soft drinks and regular teas and coffees at mealtimes are included too.
Entertainment. This is extensive, as it covers many, many things that we personally did not discover at all, not just the dazzling production show each night. There are the deck parties, nightly music at 4 locations around the ship, bingo, lessons, lectures, port talks etc.
Kids programming (though not baby-sitting for the under 3s)
As mentioned this programming runs from 7.30 AM most days, to 12 midnight or 1 AM. And it is free! Well, included. It is awesome value!

Not included:
Photographs. Some of the nicest photographers that you will ever meet follow you around the ship/meet at set pieces etc. and document your every move. The photographs are really nice - very Disney in their presentation - and quite pricey, though the price goes down the more you buy.
Shore excursions. Whatever you want to do off-the-ship (except the free stuff on Castaway Cay, will cost you something, whether organised by Disney or not.
Booze.
Gratuities. Gratuities are a fact of life on cruises, and really are part of the cost of your vacation. There are suggested amounts given by Disney, which are internationally agreed-upon daily amounts. Gratuities are not optional. Many of the staff are on very low salaries, and need the gratuities in order to make a living.
Gifts and souvenirs. This is obvious. I just want to mention it, because Disney has such nice souvenirs! You are bound to buy some!

This list is not exhaustive. I think I will need to revisit it in the days to come, and will re-post it, if I come up with things that I feel I should tell you about.

Watch out for my final post of the cruise, coming right up...

 

On to... 27th September - Castaway Cay

[Back to... 26th Sept - Another Day at Sea]

 

26th Sept - Another Day at Sea

- this picture taken by Gabriella, showing Martitala's new shorter hairstyle.

Today it's my day to blog... It's Maritala ... I am going to give you a bit of the "wife" & "mother" side of things here on the Disney Wonder. I probably wont be as long as you have been used to with Alex's descriptions...

Today was our second day at sea on our return voyage... I decided late last night after both our kids had terrible fits because they had not napped during the day and were over-tired that we were having breakfast delivered to our room.
So... the day started with a sleep in until 8:15...playing and watching TV in bed and then a leisurely continental breakfast in our room.

I did some packing with Gabriella and Alex took Kiara to the Oceaneer's Club to participate in her talent show... which she didn't participate in... Gabriella by this time has had enough of the kids club and just wants to spend time with me... we put in a quick laundry and I took the girls to lunch while Alex went to the disembarkation talk. We met with Alex at lunch and had a really nice seafood buffet...

I took the girls to the pool while Alex ran around the ship taking pictures of everything Mr. Anal could find... Two hours later... oh, he did come back twice to get the girls to pose and get autographs of Daisy and Donald Duck. The girls and I went to our cabin and had a quick shower and a bit of down time. I had an appointment at the Spa to do a Body Composition Analysis... to find out how much fat I need to get rid of... I'm getting paranoid looking around the ship wondering..." is that going to be me in the next 5 to 10 years.".. While I was doing this I had dropped the girls off at the restaurant where the kids club were having their meal.

By the time I left the spa and got back to our cabin I had found two princesses and a prince ready to greet me.




Once I got glamoured up we went to the big show "Disney Dreams" which was fantastic!!!

We then had a lovely meal in Tritons... which included Cinderella's (chocolate) slipper for dessert. By this point it was nearly 10:00 PM again and we decided to call it quits for the night!!


Alex here, again. I will try to twist Maritala's arm to blog again soon to give a bit more of her insight. No promises, though...

Tomorrow is a busy day on Disney's own island, Castaway Cay. Hopefully I will get the chance to get the final couple of blogs done while still on board...

 

On to... Some questions that you may have about the Disney Cruise...

[Back to... Day at sea - 25th September]

 

Day at sea - 25th September

OK - I was not able to connect to the internet yesterday when I wanted to post yesterday's blog. So now I am further behind... So I will try to make this short, in order to deal with some of the as yet unanswered questions that I want to talk about.

So... What we did on our first day back at sea:
Slept in 'til 9 AM.
Buffet breakfast at Beach Blanket buffet
Dropped the kids off at the kids clubs - Gabriella was a junior chef and made chocolate chip cookies, Kiara played on the slide and in the Captain's closet - dress up, reading, colouring etc.


Alex went to a Q and A session with broadway singer/TV and film actress Susan Egan, the original Belle in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and the voice of Meg in Hercules - Disney Cruises offer a number of these types of "Disney Behind-the scenes" talks from Disney insiders. This is the first one that I attended and it was very interesting, a glimpse into a different world!

Maritala started to tackle her favourite task - laundry! yay! There are three coin-operated laundrettes for passenger use on board ship (as well as the regular laundry service) which is good for longer cruises, allowing you to pack a bit lighter, and/or rescue a favourite item that get something spilled on it, for example...

Both children stayed for lunch and part of the afternoon sessions - Kiara had some quiet play and Gabriella rehearsed for tomorrow's talent show - looking forward to that. I then pulled Gabriella out for an event on deck called Mouse2O - while Maritala went to a presentation at the spa on losing body fat fast... really necessary for many of the cruisers, ha ha.




Mouse2O was a family-friendly afternoon fun-fest, with family water-relays, arts and crafts, music and dancing with Disney characters, and more. Gabriella was so excited "I danced on the stage with the characters!" She also got an airbrushed tattoo.
Alex finished the laundry (well, I just picked it up and folded some of it)
Kiara wouldn't leave the club when we went for her, so Gabriella signed in to the 3-4s group for the afternoon
We started packing - we know how many day's worth of clothes we still need, and want to avoid too much of a rush at the last minute. Yes, boring.
We split up again for the early part of the evening. Maritala chose to get a hair cut (she doesn't have time at home, you see) - no picture yet.

The girls went back to the club to play and make art and craft picture frames, and I went to the show.



The show was "Susan Egan - Belle of Broadway", which was a low-key but enjoyable one-woman show with the talented singer.
We pulled the girls out to go eat, and I finally had a bad meal. The cool thing about cruising, and the inclusive nature of the dining, is that all I had to do was pull our waiter aside and ask for a different meal, and 3 minutes later there it was. No embarrassing scenes with the maitre' d etc. and no having to chomp through an inedible "Indian style" vegetable biryani.
The girls hadn't napped this evening and therefore were not able to hold it together any later (who could blame them). Maritala and I had hoped to go and see the crew member's talent show. But there was no way the kids could stay any longer in the kids club, even though they had little mattresses out for kids to sleep on.
I ended up going to this show alone, which was a shame for Maritala. The staff played to an absolutely packed house, and while some of the acts were borderline, the audience response was wonderful. Indeed, some of the performers were extremely good - practically good enough to be in the actual Disney shows - and the finale was absolutely hilarious.

I know this was short on text - though heavy on pictures. The next one may be the other way round...

What to expect from my next post...

Show times and dining - how does that work?
Advantages of late dining?
Movement and noise levels on the ship...
More descriptions and photos of the cabins and other parts of the ship.
What is "free" (well, included in your price) and what is extra?
Smoking?

Speak to you later...

 

On to... 26th Sept - Another Day at Sea

[Back to... St Kitts - and Pirates in the Caribbean]

 

St Kitts - and Pirates in the Caribbean

Please note that this post is referring to the 24th Septmber.

Today we headed to St Kitts, a beautiful little island, never-before visited by Disney Cruises. It is an island that my wife and I had visited numerous times before, and it was one of our favourites. In the past we had rented a car to get around, as it is reasonably inexpensive, and the island is small enough and the roads simple enough, that you can self-drive without too much difficulty. The one additional thing about this option is that you have to buy a temporary drivers licence (around $25US) which for one day is a bit silly. I was still favouring this option, as the prices for Disney's tours seemed quite a bit higher than I thought we should pay. But we decided to wait until we got there to see if the locals were offering anything that sounded better.

Side note: thank you travel insurance. I have been nursing a sore throat which got bad enough by today that I wanted to get it looked at. So I sent Maritala off the the ship to find a phone to call RBC insurance to find out whether I should see a doctor on the island or onboard, while I lay groaning in my sick bed... Minutes later she was back. As they had no contracts with anyone on the island, I was told I could visit the ship's doctor and they would open a claim for me. Very simple. Just as well that we had the coverage, as the doctor's bill was $100 US and the prescription of anti-biotics another $83. Yikes! So, be smart and make sure you have medical insurance!

Anyway, back to St Kitts. Having done 3 beach trips in 3 days, I really thought we should see some of the other attractions of the island and take the girls to the Brimstone Hill fort, and perhaps the gardens at Romney Manor. We compromised by saying that we would try to spend some time on a beach afterwards (where the girls were really hoping to see some of the thousands of monkeys that populate the South-East end of the island). To make a long story short, we found a local (legitimate) tour company (operating right out of the cruise terminal) that would put both attractions together for us, plus the trip to a scenic lookout, and drop us at a beach for $25 US each adult and kids would go for free. The trip back from the beach when ready, would be an additional $16. Deal! (Actually we had to pay admission to the fort too ($8 per adult, $4 for Gabriella and Kiara was free) $20 total.

Having said in an earlier post that we had found some of Disney's tours fairly reasonably priced, their tour offering only the Brimstone Hill fortress and Romney Manor went for a staggering $45 US per adult and $35 US per child - more than twice the price that we paid. So it is hard to know exactly how to suggest that you proceed when it comes to shore excursions... some are way better value than others.

Romney Manor has beautiful gardens and is home to Caribelle Batiks, one of the best-known batik makers in the Caribbean. Both their batiks and the grounds were stunning to look at. On the way there, we did in fact see a monkey. It was a pet, and the girls were mightily amused to see that it was wearing an infant diaper. A very memorable monkey... they didn't stop remarking about it all day!

Equally memorable are the breathtaking views from the Brimstone Hill fort. The girls thought that this place was really cool - as they got to explore the rooms inside, the small museum and pose for photos sitting on real cannons.

We actually all felt that we didn't really need to go to the beach, so planned to go straight back to the ship after the photo-stop on Timothy Hill.

From here you can see two seas - the Atlantic on one side of the island, and a mere few hundred feet away at its narrowest point, the Caribbean. A unique vantage point. It was at this end of the island that Maritala and I noticed the biggest difference since we last visited 8 or 9 years ago. It has really started developing. The hotels in the area are new, large and very attractive. There are a whole lot of rich-looking houses springing up, and they are extending the airport to be able to accept larger jets. 10 years ago St Kitts was one of the very small number of Caribbean nations still making more money from sugar than tourism. As we found out from our guide, only two years ago the sugar business was shut down for good, as it had been running at a bigger and bigger loss each year. St Kitts is now relying on tourism as its main industry. The cruise terminal will be quite attractive when completed (it is perhaps 75% complete now...)

We shared our tour with a couple on their 11th Disney cruise, and it was interesting to speak with them about their experiences. They, like a lot of die-hard Disney cruisers, book way in advance, and are always on the look out for new or unusual Disney cruises. For example, when Disney moved one of their ships to sail from California for the summer last year, there were two Panama Canal re-positioning cruises. Both sold out within 2 days, such is the interest from the true Disney Cruise fans. This couple were on one of those cruises and they had a lot of interesting stories to tell us. They had booked the cruise that we are sailing on now, more than a year back... as we tell our clients, for many reasons, it is a very good idea to book your Disney Cruise well in advance.

This evening was one of the most fun of the cruise as it was Pirates in the Caribbean Night. Future cruisers should be aware that there will be a Pirate Night on every 7 night Caribbean cruise, (maybe the 3 and 4 nights too) and you would be well advised to pack some pirate gear. There is lots of Disney pirate paraphernalia available on the ship of course, at a cost. We did a bit of improvising. Mine mostly consisted of ridiculous amounts of smudgy black make-up (as if a cannon just blew up in my face), bizarre facial hair and some comedy scars. Maritala had the bandana, braids and blouse, and Gabriella had spent some time in the kids club getting prepared - and getting her face painted with a mustache and eye patch. Kiara sensibly refused the face paint and stuck with just her Goofy bandana...

The meals were pirate-themed, all the waiters were in costume, we even got souvenir pirate menus and extra bandanas if needed... impressive.

As you may have gathered by now, lots of people on this cruise take their Disney very seriously. I have never seen so many pirates on one ship's deck (even including the Pirates of the Caribbean movies). The deck party was a lot of fun, lots of music and dancing - a "battle" (a dance-off of sorts) between the bad pirates and Mickey and the good pirates. Mickey even came flying into the action on a zip-wire strung between the funnels on the ship. It was impressive.

The show ended with a full-on fireworks show - unheard of on a cruise ship as far as I know. Disney had to get special permission from the coast-guard, as usually flaming thingies being flung high into the air at sea is invariably a sign of distress. Anyway, the fireworks were also impressive.

Two days at sea are next, after which, our last day (already?!) is on Disney's own island, Castaway Cay, which we are looking forward to greatly.

I am aware that I am a day behind. I hope to catch up tomorrow. This may or may not be possible - sea days require more organisation of who will be where when, and so I seem to have even less time... I am also still feeling pretty ill, which doesn't help much. I'll do my best.

 

On to... Day at sea - 25th September

[Back to... Antigua - island of 365 beaches and we saw every one of them, except 364...]

 

Antigua - island of 365 beaches and we saw every one of them, except 364...

Antigua ended up a fairly lazy stop, and the money we saved on taxis (by going to one of the closest of the 365 beaches on the island) and shore excursions (by not going on one at all!) we spent on some little gifts and souvenirs. To avoid the children experiencing the crushing boredom and life-sucking experience of wasting a day in the Caribbean IN SHOPS!, we checked the girls into their respective kids club activities. This morning it was some simple sports and songs outside (which got a little too hot 'cos of the beautiful weather that remains to travel with us forcing the kids back inside) and then making Clarabel's Moo Juice. This rather interesting and educational activity had the kids turning cream into butter with nothing but the force of their own little muscles. Bless 'em. They got to eat their product too - not raw of course, that would be gross - but on some crackers. Fun.

The adults' shopping trip went on a bit longer than we had expected, so we left the children to stay for lunch. We were just about to start our lunch when we got our first "page" from the kids councellors. (Just to explain, when you register your children you are also issued a pager, which you carry with you while your kids are in the program. If there are any problems - accidents, the child is weepy or disruptive etc - the staff will page you. A really nice addition to the program, adding a lot of extra peace-of-mind for the parents.) Anyway we were asked to come and get Kiara due to a "potty accident". Oops. We hurried down, rather embarrassed for our little daughter, only to find that they had found that she was "mysteriously damp all over" and couldn't find out the cause, therefore assuming her to be wet. A bit odd really as she certainly wasn't "wet" and just seemed a bit sweaty due to running about in the heat. Her dignity restored, she joined us for lunch...

An aside: I have wanted to include my children's actual words or descriptions of the things that they have done in these blogs, without much success, due to the fact that I am writing usually a number of hours later, and my memory isn't good enough to remember exactly what they said. Also, their attention spans are short enough that they don't necessarily remember the detail of what they did and how they felt about it if asked later in the day. However, many things still stick in their minds, and we have had more "wide-eyed" moments describing the cool things that they just did that we can count. I may not have made it clear, but there are 4 distinct age-groups in the kids clubs, 3-4, 5-7. 8-10 and 11-12. So astute readers will realise that our two daughters are in separate clubs. Yes they are. Gabriella is used to leaving us all for a few hours at a time, as she is at school already. Kiara is less used to the concept, but it is a testament to the fun that she is having that she usually doesn't want to leave when we come to get her!

Yes, I know, I am digressing again...

Once the children were back in our possession we popped off the ship and hailed a taxi. We chose the official taxis as suggested by the staff and literature on the ship. For a number of reasons I would recommend that you do too. Not least, an official licensed taxi is almost always part of a consortium with a number of drivers, keeping you well covered if the driver doesn't turn up for your return trip.

We chose to go to Dickenson Bay because it is close, very nice, and is the beach that the Sandals Antigua resort is built on, and I wanted to see how the construction of their massive new addition is going on. It's quite impressive, actually, in scale certainly, and should really add another jewel in its crown when it opens next year.

The beach is no good for snorkelling - nothing to see, and the water is cloudy due to the (very fine, white) sand being churned up by the small but significant waves and swell. We spent nearly three hours at the beach, nearly all of it in the sea (except Kiara who spent the first hour fast asleep on a beach chair, having conked out on the taxi-ride). The children are feeling very confident in the water, which is great. We have all been slathered in factor 50 sunscreen since we got here, and I am pleased to report that my sunburned shoulders are almost better now, thanks to magic after-sun cream containing Lanocaine (yeah!), the passage of time, and wearing a t-shirt on the beach for most of the time since. My kids have inherited their darker skin colour and ability to tan instantaneously, even wearing factor 50, from their mother and already look a lovely shade of mocha. I, meanwhile, still look like a raw pork sausage apart from my burnt bits!

Today was the first chance I got to photograph the whole ship (including the bow) from the shore, and the weather in the late afternoon cooperated with my portrait session, offering up some awe-inspiring backdrops of towering thunderclouds, while not actually dropping any rain on me! Thanks! I include the best pic here...

The show tonight was one that we had been looking forward from the very beginning, as it was a special show for our sailing only, featuring "The Muppets". While it was a good show, with some really wonderful moments, and fascinating to see some of the puppet operators practicing their craft live on stage, it was the only show so far that didn't quite live up to our expectations. For those of you traveling with Disney in the days and months to come, this will not affect you, as it is not a regularly scheduled show, so it is OK to still come. You should not feel that you should cancel your trip!

I am leaving out most of the detail of the meals, these days, as we continue to rotate around the 3 main restaurants, but I can tell you that I have tried a lot of new, interesting and mostly excellent dishes on this cruise. Tonight was no exception. Oysters (Rockefeller style) and venison - what? they serve up Bambi? - were two of my courses tonight. I have been impressed.

St Kitts is tomorrow. This one is an early start, whatever we chose to do - we still haven't decided - so I am going to sign off now and go to bed.

Hoping, as always, that these posts are helping you to forget, if just for a moment, your drab, wretched lives... (It's a quote from Tom Lehrer... no offence intended!!!)

 

On to... St Kitts - and Pirates in the Caribbean

[Back to... Bonus post - A detailed look at a day on the ship.]

 

Bonus post - A detailed look at a day on the ship.

Yesterday I photographed all four pages of our daily "Personal Navigator" (the daily publication delivered to our cabin each evening to help us plan the next day). I am including links to each high-resolution picture here (each one is pretty large - it needs to be to be able to read the text) so that you can imagine a bit more clearly all of the options available to you on this particular day. This may also prove useful for those of you not traveling with small children, who wish I would focus a bit more on the adult entertainment, or the programming for older kids and teens. (Unfortunately, if I spend any more time each day working on the blog I won't have any vacation to report on! I exaggerate, of course, but I am sure you understand - some days I have spent more than 2 hours at my computer, which is too long...!)

Incidentally, I hope that you have realised by now that if you click on any picture in this blog it takes you to a higher resolution version of that same picture. These have a lot more detail than the pictures inline with the blogging... For this post the links are just text.

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4

 

On to... Antigua - island of 365 beaches and we saw every one of them, except 364...

[Back to... Beautiful Barbados, and a note about comments to this blog...]

 

Beautiful Barbados, and a note about comments to this blog...

Yes, I know I am a day late... I'm on vacation. Sue me...

Thank you, those of you that have posted comments. A couple of notes on that. After EACH day's post there is a line in small print saying who posted it and at what time (by the way the time is messed up a little, I certainly wasn't up at 5 AM yesterday...), along with the number of comments and a little yellow pencil icon. You can post your comment, by clicking on the yellow pencil, after the relevant day, rather than having to scroll right to the bottom of the page. In fact the internet cost by the minute is so expensive on the ship that I hadn't checked back to the beginning of the blog (where some of you have posted your comments) until today, so had missed them at the time. FYI, I actually work off-line for almost everything short of uploading pictures and the text, but have been building in an extra session during each day to check the comments... it's a lot of fun to read them. I will be able to reply to some comments directly. I will do this in the "comments" section for that particular day. But as I don't have time to reply to each comment directly, I will also try to address the questions that you have asked in future posts. I guess you'll have to keep reading and I'll have to keep writing!

We arrived in Barbados on the 51st anniversary of the day that Hurricane Janet hit; the last hurricane to ravish this island. Travel-fans should therefore be able to work out that Barbados is a fairly safe bet for travel during the hurricane season...

Today we chose an organised shore excursion - we booked it onboard - called "Wild Feathers and Swim". Having worked on cruise ships in the past, we knew that you will always pay more to be on an organised tour, but there are certain advantages (no organising to do on your own, no chance of getting ripped off by taxi-drivers, no chance of getting left behind etc) which make people feel comfortable taking them. We found that quite a lot of the tours offered much more than we really wanted to do (with small kids) so wouldn't have made good sense for us. However, once we had done a little bit of comparison-shopping on the other islands and had found that Disney's markup wasn't as much as we assumed, and because we couldn't think of any way to do the tour that they offered by ourselves anyway, we booked. Too much detail? Maybe, but there is subtle thinking going on, and the cruise itself costs at least a few dollars, so I think it is OK to try to economise a little here and there if possible without selling ourselves short. This will be the subject of another special post - "Top 10 ways to avoid blowing your life savings while on the Disney Wonder without being a cheapskate" - which will come as soon as I work out which are the best 10...

But I digress...

The "Wild Feathers" part of the tour was trip to to a new attraction on Barbados called the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, located in the only area of mangrove swamp on the island, near St Lawrence Gap on the South Coast of the island. The sanctuary has attractive grounds with boardwalks leading down through the mangrove trees in the "wild" part, as well as some large and attractive walk-through aviaries in the "sanctuary" part of the park. The highlights were seeing the flamingos, which here were orange, rather than their more usual pink colour. The guide was very interesting, and children and adults alike enjoyed this visit. We spent about an hour at the sanctuary, which wasn't too rushed, as it is not a huge property. It would be well worth visiting for anyone staying on the island, especially for the many hotels and apartments in that part of the island.

The "Swim" part of the tour was at the nearby Rockley Beach (or Accra Beach, as the Accra Beach Hotel is located on the same beach). This was a spectacular stretch of white sand beach, again on the South coast. There is a continual surf here, which can get quite high at times, though not today. The kids enjoyed jumping in an out of the waves, something they have not done yet so far on this cruise. Gabriella, and one of her friends from the kids club, particularly had a great time, and she made her first attempts at body-surfing. She was quite impressive! We had about 90 mins on the beach, which was not quite long enough, but what can you do... Our driver was informative and kept up a running commentary for the entire trip, which filled in quite a few details for me.

Once we were back on board, and had eaten our late lunch, our children wanted to join the kids activities again, and so spent the next 2 and a half hours there happily involved with an on-deck scavenger hunt (each of the age-groups 3-4 and 5-7 did their own age-appropriate hunt), detective school for Gabriella (where they took fingerprints, looked through microscopes and followed clues to find out who had stolen the goo - always with the goo!!), and a visit to Wonderland with Alice for Kiara. And that is just a small sampling of the activities that would go on for 16-18 hours of every day. We picked the kids up just as they were going for dinner, so stayed with them while they had a partial meal to tide them over to the main meal, which as you will know by now is at 8 PM.



I took the chance to speak with one of the kids counsellors about her job and how many kids they normally deal with. She explained that on this special sailing there are actually less than half the number of children (360 registered in the kids club) as on a "regular" 7-night sailing (700-1000 registered!!), so often they are dealing with three times the numbers that they have right now. Far from being a problem, the system is so good, and there are so many staff, that I can see that it would all work just as well with the normal number of kids on board. In fact, she said that it had sometimes been more of a challenge to pull off some of the activities with fewer kids, so you can rest assured and know that the staff really know what they are doing, and your kids will have a great experience, no matter how busy a time of year you are going...

In our time away from the children, Maritala and I went to the gym. Yes, that is not a mis-print. We both spent a harrowing 30 minutes on the elliptical trainers. I think I lost about 3 lbs in sweat, and maybe an ounce or two in fat as well. Actually it wasn't harrowing, it felt pretty good, and I am thinking of going today as well. As someone who bikes to work year-round, I have not been getting as much exercise as normal (though there is lots of walking to do and lots of stairs, plus all that swimming) and I have been eating more than usual (though not too much more), so having the gym here is pretty useful. It's a nice gym too, by the way, lots of equipment, TVs built-in (ah, technology,,,) and a great view. It is right at the front of the ship overlooking the bridge i.e you can see the officers driving the boat (sic), the radar screens etc. Cool.

After tonight's show, "The Art of the Story" (a new one for the ship, which was a big deal for the repeat guests - there are hundreds on this special sailing - and was also very good, though scary in places) I got to take part in a music trivia "game-show" - I didn't win - which was also pretty good fun.

As for repeat guests...
I was remarking to Maritala, as our evening meal was interrupted by Chip'n'Dale and their side-kick Conchita Banana, which was an oh-so-typical, oh-so-Disney, wonderful diversion during a late meal with small children, "where else could we get the same kind of vacation experience apart from with the Disney Cruise line?" Disney really does this better than anyone else. It is rather hard to imagine going on a Royal Caribbean or Norwegian cruise (for example, great as both are) with children, after having done this one, without it being a disappointment for the kids. Which is great in some ways (Disney have a fabulous product here, unlike any other, one that I can unhesitatingly recommend - which is great for my clients, and especially good for Disney!) but is sad in another - as nothing else will quite measure up. Hence so many repeaters... OK, if you are a casual Disney fan, you may not need all of the razzmatazz all of the time, but still, imagine keeping two small children awake and interested through a 90-minute evening meal on a regular ship... As I type this, Maritala is saying "let's go on the 2007 Mediterranean cruise next year - it would be so cool..." That is Maritala, a reluctant Disney vacationer speaking, not me!!

Antigua is calling us tomorrow, and I still have to download today's 100 pictures from my camera and work out which pictures to upload... Bye for now...

 

On to... Bonus post - A detailed look at a day on the ship.

[Back to... St Lucia - and kids club comments...]

 

St Lucia - and kids club comments...

The kids slept in! Till nearly 9 AM! Which meant that we didn't have to get up as early either. And as we are not in port until 12 noon, we let them sleep...

A nice lazy morning followed for us (well mostly). We went back to Tritons for a sit-dwon breakfast, as opposed to breakfast buffet. It's mostly the same food, but a bit lazier for us, and rather more attractively presented. My wife and I were talking about the food quality, and we were agreed that we both think the food is actually pretty good. I think I will take a while later to enlarge on this, as it is a topic that is always worth remarking on, when thinking about a cruise, as you are a "captive audience" to a large degree.

The girls both wanted to go to the kids club for activities this morning, and getting there was our one moment of business in the morning as both Captain Hook and Captain Jack Sparrow were posing for pictures and signing autographs AT THE SAME TIME... how to see both?... so with a bit of divide and conquer, Kiara met Captain Hook (and gave him a hug!! - he must have hated that...) and Gabriella and I met up with Cap'n Jack.

From there both kids happily joined with their new friends as we signed them in, and we got to go on deck and watch the approach to St Lucia. All ages of kids clubs will take the kids to lunch/dinner (or bring food in, for the littlest ones) at the appropriate time - included as part of what they do - if you want that. Kiara wanted to eat with her friends today, and Gabriella wanted to come and eat with us,

While we are on that topic, the staff of Oceaneers Club and Oceaneers Lab are totally wonderful and as parents you are under no pressure to make sure that the kids come exactly at the start of a particular session and you are equally free to take them out early if you wish. You really could leave your kids with them there for a whole day. Activities really are planned non-stop from 7.30 AM through 1 AM each day, something that sounds like brochure-speak, but is really true!

There are plenty of staff, and the system for signing kids in and out is so well thought-through, computerised (of course) that the staff actually playing/working with the children can concentrate on that and not be worried about the logistic of who is supposed to be there at any given time, and the parents are secure knowing that their kids can't escape, wander off, or be signed out by anyone else, and that the kids clubs work around them and not the other way round. I think that this is something else that I had to see in action to really "get it".

It is also tip 1 in my "How to have a relaxing vacation, even if you are not naturally a very relaxed person" - use the kids club! The counsellors are excellent, the games interesting, and the hours couldn't be more open and flexible. The kids love it. Parents should love it too, as long as they don't mind being away from their little dears every so often. If is truly going to be a family vacation, Mom and Dad need some of that vacation to be for them too...

Anyway, back to St Lucia...

We took a taxi, again, to Rodney Bay, the closest nice public beach. No good for snorkeling, but the water is gently shelving, warm, with a very gentle surf, which is very suitable for little ones, actually providing a lot of the "soft action" that our kids needed. The taxi fare - again fixed - of $20US per car each way was pretty reasonable. We got a bit hassled by a couple of beach traders - I hate the way that they can make you feel guilty for only paying twice what the trinket it is that you just bought (probably imported from China or the Philippines) was actually worth. They have the spiel down to a fine art. I was taking notes and when I get back I am going to try to be a Caribbean Beach hustler when selling Disney Cruises. "Well, this cruise is usually going for $4000 per person, but because I understand what it is like to have kids and need to find the money for everything, I'll give it to you for $3000. Respect. One love. Here, little girl, look at this brochure, here are my pictures from the cruise, think how much you are going to enjoy the cruise that you Mommy and Daddy are booking with me right now. Look, if you book right now, I'll take off another $500... Respect... a man is just tying to make a livin' you know what I mean? One love..."

It has potential I think.

But I digress...

We stayed all of the way to 5 PM, and though we were in no danger of missing the ship (which was leaving at 7.30 PM), we did want to be back in time to see the Hercules show at 6.30. Unfortunately, 5 PM is a terrible to try to drive back to Castries as the main road is backed up for miles and miles with heavy traffic every day. After sitting in this traffic for at least 30 minutes (the entire trip to the beach had taken less than 20), our taxi driver was able to turn off the main - flat, but unbearably busy - road and treat us to a cross-country short-cut like no other! Narrow, winding, incredibly hilly roads thorough little villages (some built on stilts due to regular flash floods down the mountains), with stunning views of the lush hillsides that make up St Lucia's breathtaking landscape. It was a little nerve-wracking at times. Thankfully, the girls were both asleep for the whole journey! We finally got back an hour after we left the beach. I gave the driver an extra few dollars for getting us back on time, giving us an unexpected scenic tour, and to help pay for the extra gas, and new brakes and shocks!

Really. Quick. Shower.

The Hercules show was fantastic. A lot of fun. Humour sophisticated to keep the adults laughing, while in no way being inappropriate. Lots of slapstick, costumes, lights, pyrotechnics. Very entertaining for everyone.

The meal at Animators Palette was Tropical-theme, and again, the choice was large (except the kids menus, but getting our kids to eat anything other than the "safest" choices - fries, chicken nuggets, pizza has been a real challenge, even though they eat lots of veggies at home). I think both adults had four courses...

The evening finished with a tropical deck party, which was fun too. The cruise staff have a lot of energy, and the band as usual were very good. A highlight was a great song-and-dance number from the Disney characters, who are surprisingly nifty dancers.

We have a shore excursion scheduled for tomorrow, so I may need to get to bed, rather than post this tonight... That is what happened, hence the "wrong" date on the post... another one will still follow...

On to... Beautiful Barbados, and a note about comments to this blog...

[Back to... St Thomas - US Virgin Islands]

St Thomas - US Virgin Islands

Thank you for all your comments yesterday. I spent a while answering, earlier, and you should be able to see my reply under the comments for yesterday's post. Please, if you are posting anonymously, do please at least "sign" the post, so I know who's following along...

Today should not take so long to write, so maybe I will throw in a couple of extra pictures, as I took so many beautiful ones of this gorgeous island today.

I say it will not take too long to write, mainly because we decided to take it pretty easy and not try to do too much. Essentially, the one thing that we did do took a good part of the day and was perfect in every way (except for the fact that we didn't re-apply sunscreen so got a bit sunburnt - yes, all of us). So what did we do?

Well, after breakfast of tropical fruit and Mickey-head-shaped waffles (I have never understood why Disney encourages people to eat its star...) we got off the ship by around 9.30, only an hour after our aim point - which is pretty good for us, especially as we are on vacation...

Unfortunately, no-one had pointed out to us that beach towels were only available up on deck 9, instead of at the gangplank as we expected, and it was only half way towards the port shopping complex that we noticed that we didn't have any towels. Uh-oh... So while Maritala took the girls in search of some postage stamps and a phone card (carrying our giant backpack stuffed with snorkel gear and beach toys) I had an excellent unexpected workout of a run to and from the ship in 35 degree heat. Two security checks, one x-ray and 1 additional security check later, I was running back to the post office WITH towels and ready to go.

We had decided to head back to one of our old haunting grounds, a wonderful little beach on the far side of the island, at Coki point. This was a favourite of the crew (especially divers) back in our cruise-staff days. We were very happy to see that it was essentially unchanged in the 10 years since we had last been there. The reason we chose this is because of the beach's suitability for little kids. It is small, and extremely pretty, with gorgeous aqua-coloured water, but more than that it is calm, shelves gently, and it has masses of tropical fish that you can see only 8-10 feet from shore in places. In every way it was a perfect location for our family, and I would heartily recommend it to families with young children especially. It is not offered on any organised tours from the Disney cruise, so entails hailing a taxi, waiting for a while while the taxi-driver attempts to find another 8 people to go in his cab, (hoping to make his trip more worthwhile!), paying $9 a head each-way (the rates are fixed, not metered), and saying "take me to Coki beach please". We arranged with our driver Emanuel to meet us about an hour and forty-five minutes before "all-abord" time, which we felt would give us plenty of time to get a different taxi if Emanuel failed to show, but he was there for us - early, in fact - and this has always been our experience in St Thomas. When we arranged a return trip with a taxi-driver in the "olden days", he/she always arrived for us. No guarantees - hence building in the extra time - but it is a fairly safe bet, especially as there were at least 10 more taxis at the beach when we needed to leave.

While $76 for the taxi may sound a little steep, bear in mind that Coki beach is a full 25-30 minute trip on winding, hilly terrain, roads that take their toll of the vehicles and the gas mileage, and that there are really no beaches in St Thomas that you can walk to. So you have to pay to get anywhere, and most of the organised tours were MUCH more than 76 bucks! Once at the beach you get to pay for your chair and umbrella if you want one, but from there on in, it is all pleasure. The water is totally inviting, both in colour and temperature, and the sand is a soft and white as any I have ever seen. We browbeat Gabriella into actually wearing the child-size mask and snorkel that we had bought in Ottawa for her, and once she had tried it, successfully, once - "Mummy, I snorkeled - by myself!" - she didn't take it off for the next hour. She really took to it well, and Gabriella and I snorkeled together for a long time, out really deep at times (she had her floaties on for buoyancy so I wasn't worried about that) and in amongst the fish that swarmed around as we fed them bits of dog biscuits... She did really well, and loved every minute. If you snorkel yourself and are not intimidated by the concept, I would recommend trying to teach your 5 year old too. There is so much going on below the surface that you miss without a swim-mask...

For Kiara, we had bought a gadget, also at our local dive-shop, which was a kind of viewing window enclosed in a blow-up flotation device. With this you can swim along, and look very clearly into the water below, without any need for mask or snorkel. It worked really well and Kiara, who LOVES being in the water (any water) just had a great time using it. I took a number of pictures underwater, of both girls (and Maritala) using their gadgets, but obviously I wasn't going to take my fancy digital camera under the sea in a Ziploc bag, so used a cheap and cheerful FILM (remember that! ha ha...) underwater camera. So I don't have those pictures to share with you at this time.

When you are snorkeling, your back and shoulders are very vulnerable to the hot Caribbean sun, and if you don't re-apply sunscreen, even if you use a high-factor, you will burn. We did. I have a hot and burny sensation in my shoulders as I sit here in an ice-filled bath with my laptop... the trouble is what I really need is an ice filled bathtub with my head and shoulders in it, and that makes it hard to type (and breathe...)

But I digress...

Once we were back on the ship, we enjoyed some live music from the house band "Ntwine", a group of Ntimidatingly talented youngsters from the Philippines who seem to be able to play from memory every popular song written in the last four decades. The girls got autographs from and photos with, not one but two princesses - Aurora (that's Sleeping Beauty to you and I) and Cinderella. To my count there may only be three more to collect - Jasmine, Ariel, and Snow White... come on Disney-fans, did I miss any?

One hour-only in the kids club today, just before dinner, had Kiara making green slime this time, and Gabriella outsmarting Captain Hook and stealing his treasure - good wholesome family values!!! My wife and I had enough time for a cappuccino and a Kahlua (guess who had what), while we decided whether or not to sign up for shore excursions in St Lucia and Barbados. The verdict - no for St Lucia, "Feathers and Swim" for Barbados. Watch this space...

We were back in Tritons - the undersea-themed restaurant - this evening and were treated some some quite excellent French cuisine this evening - 4 courses no less - as well as a couple of delightful song and dance numbers from Sebastian the Crab and Ariel, the Little Mermaid... as the pictures didn't come out too well, I am leaving you with a shot from near the bow as we left St Thomas.

The girls are now in the land of nod, and I hope to join them as soon as I have uploaded this and added a few pictures.

'Til tomorrow. Parting is such sweet sorrow....

 

On to... St Lucia - and kids club comments...

[Back to... Another beautiful day at sea]