Disney Cruise Day 5: Castaway Cay

I had heard great things about Castaway Cay, but I wasn't prepared for how fantastic it would be.

We ate breakfast on board, but wanted to make sure we could meet Daisy on the island. She was located right near the post office.

Our ship!

We took the tram to the main beaches, but stopped to check out some scenery along the way.

 Mt. Rustmore

There are two family beaches and one adults-only beach on Castaway Cay. We headed to the 2nd family beach near the water slides.

When we got back on the ship, we wanted to take the chance to meet some of the characters (namely Chip and Dale and Daisy) for the last time. First up was Minnie.

Then Daisy!

We went up to Deck 10 to take some pictures of the island.

Then back inside to meet Chip and Dale.

That Elsa purse was part of Tannah's souvenir. She lost it later that night, and we never found it:(.

The girls got fancy for our last night:).

And Belle was randomly walking around.

The show that night was Dreams, which was amazing. I really enjoyed it. We had dinner in Parrot Cay, then we went to the farewell party. I wasn't prepared with my camera, but a bunch of the characters came out and there was some time for people to interact with them. Tannah met Stitch, which was hilarious, but Harper was scared. Mickey said "see ya real soon," and then it was time to put our bags out in the hall to be taken off the boat in the morning.

We had so much fun on the cruise, I would highly recommend it. People recognized the girls in the airport as the ones dressed as Dale and Daisy. So many great memories!

Disney Cruise Day 3: Cozumel

We booked a Dolphin Encounter excursion for the day that we were in Cozumel. The encounter was at an Ecopark. It was so cool to be able to interact with the dolphin (ours was named Ramses, but after reading more about swimming with dolphins, I don't think we'd do it again.

The water was a little chilly, and Tannah didn't like it when Ramses jumped and splashed salt water in her mouth, but they loved being able to touch a dolphin.

We paid way too much money for the pictures, but we were able to negotiate them down from their starting point. We watched a sea lion show, but it began to rain just as it was ending, so we went back to the boat. Harper fell asleep on the taxi ride back.

We grabbed lunch at Triton's right as they were closing.

That night was pirate night. Harper really wanted to meet Chip and Dale again, so we also hit up Goofy. The characters were in pirate attire.

Dale checking out Harper's chipmunk tail.

Shaking their tails.

While the girls and Wei-Yand met Chip and Dale, I went to a Mojito and Caipirinha class. I got to taste five different drinks, and they were all delicious.

After the class, I met Wei-Yand and the girls at the movie theater to watch Zootopia in 3D. I missed the beginning, but really enjoyed it. When we got back to our room, we found this towel art.

Harper was so tired, that we decided to let her sleep rather than go to the Pirate deck party. I was bummed she missed it, but she needed her sleep!

Tannah and I went up to the Pirates in the Caribbean party. It was super windy, but very cute. Mickey Mouse saved the ship from Captain Hook, and it culminated with fireworks.

Harper was still sleeping when it was time for dinner, so our Assistant Server made her a bed out of two chairs, and she happily snoozed through dinner. Tannah ate and then requested a bed of her own. They were both asleep before the end of dinner. We had wanted to meet Tinkerbell that night in their fairy costumes, but we decided to wait until the next morning so the girls could go straight to bed.

Disney Cruise Day 1

Four our 2016 winter vacation, we decided to do a 5-night Western Caribbean cruise on the Disney Wonder. We had a blast at Disney last year, but we came back exhausted. We were hopeful that a cruise would be slightly more relaxing. It was, but only slightly:).

The cruise departed Miami on Sunday, so we flew down on Saturday. Tannah was not feeling well for the entire trip, but luckily she perked up when we arrived in Miami, and she had no other issues throughout the week.

We walked to an outdoor mall for dinner and to attempt to find Disney sunglasses since we left the girls' at home. We located a Disney store and procured Frozen sunglasses. Dinner was delicious. The girls spotted ponies on our way to dinner, and I promised them a ride if the ponies were still out Unfortunately, the ponies had retired for the night, so the girls were super disappointed.

We woke up Sunday morning, grabbed some Starbucks for breakfast, and went back to the mall to see if the ponies were out. No luck, and I was getting antsy to head for the port. We traveled with another family, so we met up with them and took an Uber to the Port of Miami.

Looking at our cruise ship from our window

Ready to go!

When we got on the boat, I was on a mission to make sure we got tickets to the Princess meet and greet, and most importantly, the Frozen meet and greet. Those were the only two character meetings that required tickets on our cruise. I may have had a dream leading up the our cruise where I forgot to get tickets to meet Anna and Elsa and they were all gone. I was not going to let that happen. I sent Wei-Yand and the girls to lunch at Parrot Cay, one of the three main dining restaurants.

To my delight, the there was no line to get tickets, and I secured tickets to meet Anna, Elsa, and Olaf at 9:45 am on Monday and to meet the Princesses at 9:00 am on Wednesday. I met everyone for the buffet lunch, and we were ready to start our vacation!

The girls were really excited to swim, so they went swimming in the Mickey pool.

There were three pools on our boat, the Mickey pool, the Goofy pool, and an adults-only pool. The Micky pool was three shallow circles with a water slide near it. The Goofy pool was a deeper rectangle near the outdoor movie screen. Both were generally packed with kids.

The porthole in our room

We stopped by the kids club to register the girls. They were given bracelets similar to our magic bands at Disney World, which the club used to scan kids in and out of the club. The kids club had lots of activities scheduled throughout the cruise and a decent sized play structure with a slide.

The sail away party was scheduled for 4 pm. We had great weather for most of our cruise, but it was very windy (which equates to very wavy). We danced with Mickey and the gang while the boat set sail.

After the sail away party, we cleaned up for our first character meetings. We spent a lot of time meeting characters over the week, and the handlers came to recognize us.

Ariel in the atrium outside of Triton's Restaurant

Our first character meeting was Minnie Mouse. The girls were so excited to meet her and show her their new Minnie dolls.

Next up was Mickey Mouse. Harper wanted nothing to do with him, so Tannah met him alone. Since we already have a book with autographs from our trip last year, we brought to photo mattes for the characters to sign. It turned out really well, and I think it makes a great souvenir.

We were in the second dining rotation, so we went to the first of our nightly shows at 6:15. It was basically an introduction to what we were going to see for the next 4 nights as well as a short magic act. It was very cute. We ate dinner at Parrot Cay our first night. One of our friends who was travelling with us was suffering badly from sea sickness, and there was a lot of ups and downs, so dinner lasted a long time. Harper also appears to have been affected by the movement of the boat, as she lost her entire dinner at the table during dessert. Our wait staff was amazing, and calmly helped us clean up and deal with the situation. Januar and Vikas were great!

Harper had really wanted to meet Chip and Dale that night, but after getting sick, we decided it was best to wait until the morning and just head to bed. Our room had one queen size bed, a couch that converted into a twin bed, and a bunk bed that came down from the ceiling. The girls loved that bed and switched on an off as to who slept there each night. Harper said that her stomach was still bothering her that night, but we had no further issues.