(click on pics to enlarge)

Welcome to day 2, the first full day of our cruise! This was our Castaway Cay day at Disney’s private island in the Bahamas! This is always our favorite port stop. Think of the most stereotypically gorgeous Bahamian beach with clean white fine sand and crystal clear water and this is it!

We love watching the ship pull in and dock too. 

Once you get off the ship at Castaway Cay, you’ll be greeted by characters all along the path to the beach. I didn’t stay to get pics of all of them, but many of the typical cast of characters will take turns coming out throughout the morning in their beach wear.

At the beach area, there are many water activities that you can sign up for such as jet skiing, water bicycling, snorkeling, tubing, feeding stingrays, etc. Some of the more popular ones will sell out, so make sure to sign up for those as soon as your window opens to sign up for excursions. That’s usually 90+ days before the cruise, depending on your Castaway Club level. There’s also a big water slide play area in the middle and lots of chairs and hammocks to just relax.

We didn’t feel like getting wet this time, plus the water was a tad chilly when we dipped our toes in, so we went biking around the island instead. There are plenty of bikes available to rent, so you don’t have to worry about signing up for them beforehand. There’s a cool 5K trail that goes around a good portion of the island and along an old airplane runway. Along the way, there are lots of cool foliage and also a watchtower that you can climb up to get an overview of the island, including seeing the ship in the distance. You can see how far we went into the island from the ship in the pic below.

They are not formally doing the 5K Run for now, but you can still run/walk it on your own, then go to the bike rental kiosk or Guest Services back on the ship afterwards to claim your medal. There is no signup, race bib/number, or time tracking. Just on honor system.

The bike trail goes by the adult beach, Serenity Bay, which has its own BBQ for lunch, so we stopped to hang out there a bit. They have grill-to-order steak there, along with the usual delicious bbq offerings. It’s all done by the chefs and serving staff from the ship, so you’ll probably see familiar faces. They bring everything from there to cook on the beach. Pretty awesome!

After spending some time at the adult beach, you can take the tram or bike back to the family beach. The family beach is where most of the activities are, whereas the adult beach is meant for more quiet lounging. We hung out in the family beach area for a little bit as well, checking out some of the shops and activities. Of course, we also had to get an ice cream cone from the bbq hut there. They bring the soft serve machines from the ship onto the island so you don’t miss out on your ice cream cones!

Alas, it was time to head back to the ship. Castaway Cay is always a very fun, relaxing, and beautiful day.

After we freshened up, we went back up to the top deck to take one last look at the island before we sailed away.

Soon after, we were literally sailing off into the sunset! What an apropos ending to a gorgeous day at Castaway Cay!

I love sunrises and sunsets at sea! We tried to catch them as often as we could during the cruise. Many more sun pics to come! 😁

Back on ship, we attended our first theater show, Aladdin, that night. It was awesome! The performers were so talented, the staging & set design were ingenious, and the theater itself was gorgeous! The theater shows are always Broadway caliber and one of our favorite parts of the Disney cruises! Make sure to catch them!

With recent changes for distancing, they were doing each of the 3 main shows over 2 different nights each during our seven night sailing, so we could have gone to see Aladdin the night before as well, but we wanted to be up on deck for the sail away out of Port Canaveral. We kind of like the flexibility of the new format where you have the option to go on either night of each show. The variety shows that used to play in between show nights were just held in other venues on the ship, so there were still plenty of other options for things to do.

After the show, we had about an hour before dinner, so we usually like to roam around the top deck to get some drinks (or maybe another ice cream cone) and see what’s playing on the FunnelVision.

This is also the time when most of the photographers will be out in the atrium. They usually have some different backdrops out each night, so you can take different pictures everyday. If you bought a photo package, you might as well do them all!

Soon, it was time for dinner! That night, it was at Enchanted Garden, themed to a beautiful French outdoor garden. If you look closely, the “sky” turns from day to night and the “flower” lights will bloom throughout the meal.

The food was delicious, as always! We had way more food and desserts than this, but I must’ve been too busy eating and forgot to take pics of them. Sorry! You’ll have to take my word for it that they were all fantastic!

This time, the characters came by to say Hi too. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, and Goofy. That was fun!

Before heading back to the cabin, we roamed the ship some more, checking out the stores, nighttime activities (karaoke is always fun…or funny), and outdoor decks. It’s really neat to look out into the total darkness of the ocean when we’re out at sea. There are no lights all around, except maybe an occasional ship in the distance. I don’t know why, but I think it’s cool.

On this sailing, there happened to be a full moon, so, it made for great reflections on the water! It was both spooky and mesmerizing! I think I took over 100 pics those few days of just the moon. LoL!

Ok, time for bed. We usually don’t make it back to the cabin til around midnight. There was just so much to do! Tomorrow will be a sea day!