On Sunday, November 27, 2016, I ran the Space Coast Half Marathon in Cocoa Village, Florida for the fourth time in as many years. This was the fourth of five years running this race for the Big Bang Series. The Big Bang Series, is a five year plan, in which they will offer a finisher medal of one of the space shuttles each year, with a three year Milky Way Challenge medal, and a five year Intergalactic Challenge medal if you complete all five years.
This year, the medal recognized the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Endeavour was NASA’s fifth shuttle orbiter was built to replace Challenger, and had its first launch on May 7, 1992 as STS-49. It flew 25 missions.
In a continuing recap of our cruise on the Disney Dream, the 3rd day put us in port at Disney’s private island of Castaway Cay. This is such an awesome place with lots to do, and eat!!!
It was a running day for me, and I did not want to run on the deck of the ship again, so we agreed I would get off the ship first and do the Castaway Cay 5k. Here is a separate post on that run.
After the run it was a very relaxing day at Castaway Cay. We went to the adult beach, called Serenity Bay and spent most of the day there just hanging out with friends and meeting other new people on the cruise.
Upon returning to the ship, we just relaxed on our balcony until it was time for dinner. This night’s dinner with in the Royal Palace.
This is the more elegant of the restaurants. It was yet again another awesome meal, centered around a pirate theme. This night of the cruise is also know as Pirate Night! You can dress up as a pirate if you like, we had costumes but did not dress up.
After diner, that have a Pirate party on the deck of the ship, and shoot fireworks off from the ship. Currently Disney Cruise Lines is the only cruise line with the rights to do such a show, and it is fantastic! Here are a couple of videos of the show and fireworks.
I could not get my videos to upload to YouTube from my phone, so here is a popular one that Attractions Magazine posted from the Disney Fantasy. It is the same show for both ships.
After the fireworks, they had the late night pirate dessert buffet, which of course we attended and it was awesome. The we called it a night for the 3rd day of the cruise.
In writing this post, I realized I did not take as many pictures on this day of the cruise, so I am going to include on this post the events of our 4th day, which was our Day At Sea. This is probably our favorite day(s) of the cruise, as we find these most relaxing. We slept late, and just hung out around the ship on this day. We took in a few trivia games with friends, laid out in the sun, and ate! In fact I found the perfect shirt (which I bought) to describe the cruise.
That evening we had reservations for PALO, which is an adult only restaurant on the ship. We did this on the Disney Fantasy last year, and had to do it again. One of the best meals we have ever had. It is a five course meal, and takes about 2 hours for the entire meal. With my difficulty in sitting still for this long, this was a true test for me, but it was awesome!
They even wishes me an early Happy Birthday!
After dinner, we met our friends for one last trivia game. After attending so many trivia games, the host, Robyn, came to know us as “Team Awesome Six-Some”! After the game, we all said our goodbyes as two of the group had to get off the ship really early when we arrived the next morning to catch a plane.
Also with this being the final night of the cruise, The Pumpkin Tree was in full bloom and all the pumpkins were lit.
The last event of the Halloween on the High Seas was a time of Haunted Stories of the Seas. It was at 11pm on the pool deck. They played an one sea captain on the big FunnelVision screen. He told about 4 ghost stories that were really good.
The final morning, we woke up and had our last “See You Real Soon” Breakfast, and then we disembarked the ship until next time!
It was a really great relaxing cruise. We have already booked our next Disney cruise while on board, so we will be back in 2014.
This is a continuation recap of our cruise on the Disney Dream on Sept. 22-26, 2013. Here is a link to Day 1’s recap. On Day 2, we arrived in Nassau, The Bahamas around 9 AM. Since we had been to Nassau before, we decided that we were not going to go ashore, and just stayed on board the ship all day and took in all the shipboard amenities, with less people.
I started the morning out with a 3 mile run on the deck of the ship while we were still pulling into Nassau. As we were pulling in, there was a Carnival ship already in port. It was the Fantasy out of Charleston. When in Charleston, this ship looks so big in our port; however, next to the Disney Dream, it’s quite small.
Once done, I went back to the stateroom and we got cleaned up for breakfast. Another scrumptious buffet!!! After breakfast, we walked through the lobby atrium to see that the Pumpkin Tree had blossomed over night.
We then went out on the pool deck, laid out in the sunshine, and rode the AquaDuck since a lot of the passengers were ashore in Nassau.
Here are some shots of Atlantis from our balcony.
Around 1pm, we went for some lunch, because we had not eaten in like 2 hours. The waiter there was from Jamaica and talked with us for a while about his home country, as it is a future cruise destination we are considering. He also did some works of art with the ketchup on my plate.
In continuing with the Halloween on the High Seas theme, this was costume night. This is what we had been planning for! For weeks after hearing about the Halloween theme, we started putting together costume ideas, and this was where we get to show our hard work. We decided to go as Bert & Mary Poppins. At the party, we had so many compliments on our costumes. Many wanted their picture with us, and though we were actually cast in one of Disney’s shows on board.
After the party, we went to dinner in Enchanted Gardens, where we had lunch on Day 1. Another great meal!
After dinner, we had had enough with our costumes, and went back to the room to change. To complete the evening we went to the Villains Tonight show.
We left the Bahamas about 2am. Trust me I was already counting sheep…. Next stop Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay.
On September 22-26, 2013, my wife and I took a 4-Night Bahamian cruise on the Disney Dream. This was our 2nd time on the Disney Dream, as we did a trip on it during the Inaugural Year of 2011. This time we went by ourselves, where in the past we have gone with other couples.
We drove down to Port Canaveral on Saturday, Sept. 21st. Like the past 2 years, we stayed at the Country Inn and Suites – Port Canaveral. We like to stay here, because it is close to the port, and they have a package where you can have breakfast before going to the ship, you can leave your vehicle there during the cruise, and they have a shuttle to drop you off and pick you up at the cruise terminal. From the hotel, we could see all the cruise ships in port.
On Sunday morning (9/22) we got to the Disney Cruise Line terminal around 11:45. The check-in went relatively quick, as we had done all the prior check-in arrangements online. Since we had requested to board the ship around 11:30, as soon as we checked in, we were allowed to immediately board the ship to let the fun begin.
Disney always welcomes your family to the ship in grand fashion. When you enter, they ask you last name, and then announce your entering of the ship over the speakers of the ship.
Once on board, a member of the crew welcomes you, and gives you directions on where you can go for some lunch, and the events of the day. On the past 2 Disney cruises, upon boarding, we would be directed to the large buffet, Cabanas for lunch. However, for some reason we were guided to the Enchanted Gardens dining room for a less crowded buffet. The food was awesome, but this Pumpkin Pie was the best I had had in many years (aka Grandma’s!).
After lunch, around 1:30, we were allowed to go to our staterooms. This was our first time getting a room with a balcony (#6574, on Deck 6). Let’s just say this spoiled us, and we will have to have a balcony on all the future cruises! It was awesome. So much more freedom that lower decks with just a porthole window.
We had our special gifts for being a repeat member of the Castaway Club (2 more to GOLD Status!)
It is always fun to decorate your stateroom door in Disney fashion on the cruise. Many do it, and it is fun to walk down the halls and see ideas for future cruises. Here is our stateroom door decorated.
We changed and walked around the ship. Our first stop was a Disney Vacation Club Member (DVC) Meetup. This typically means “free stuff”!
After the meetup, it was time for the life boat drill at 4:30. After this, we went back to the room for the sail away. Typically on the past cruises, we have gone up to the pool deck for the sail away party. However, on this cruise, since we had the balcony, we thought we would try it out from our room instead, with no crowds and a glass of iced tea!!! Awesome!!!!
After the sail away, it was time to get ready for dinner, since we had the main seating at 5:45pm. Our first night’s dinner rotation was in Animator’s Palate. This is a neat restaurant as it has many different screens in there, and Crush and others from Finding Nemo, rotate through the room and visit tables, interacting with guests. Since we did not go with another couple this year, we figured we would probably get paired with at least one other couple for dinner. We were a little nervous about dinner, and as to whom we would be dining with for the remainder of the week. We we arrived there were two other couples seated at the table. We seemed to hit it off really well with all of them the first night. It was difficult to hear in the restaurant, so we couldn’t carry on a great conversation, but we got to know the others. One couple had reservations at Palo (I will tell of this restaurant in Day 3’s review, as that is the night we went there). Just to spoil the later posts, but we really liked the other couples from our table. They were really awesome, and we all hung out about the ship for the remainder of the week. We later found out the one of the couples, was actually in the stateroom next to ours! We all liked each other so much, we met at Disney World on the Saturday after we got off the ship!
I almost forgot. We received word from Disney Cruise Line, that for the first time ever, that the 4-night cruise, starting with ours, until Halloween, was going to be a Halloween themed cruise, called “Halloween on the High Seas”. So there were Halloween decorations everywhere, and Halloween themed shows and events throughout the cruise.
Upon boarding the ship, we saw this unusual tree in the lobby atrium. It was a ghostly tree, that had branches but no leaves, looking really eery.
Well, after dinner, the first Halloween themed event was to gather at “The Pumpkin Tree” as we learned of it’s name and purpose. They had an older lady come out and tell the story of the pumpkin tree.
At the conclusion of the story, we were given cards with tear away pumpkin seeds on it, where we would put our names on the seed, and place them in a bucket at the foot of the tree. Strange but ok.
The next day the Pumpkin Tree began to grow pumpkins on its branches. This continued throughout the cruise, and you will see the progression of the tree in future cruise posts. It turned out to be really neat.
After this, I hit MAN HEAVEN! They were playing the Sunday Night Football game on the huge Funnel Vision screen out on the pool deck. I experienced this last year on the Disney Fantasy, and it is truly awesome, to watch NFL football at sea, on one of the biggest screens ever! We sat on the pool deck chairs and watched some of the game until it was time for our next event of the evening.
We did not go to the show on the first night, as we had seen it before on prior cruises. So we held out for another Halloween themed event with a late night showing of the “Nightmare Before Christmas” in 4-D in the Walt Disney Theater. It was called the “Nightmare Before Christmas – Sing & Scream”. That sounded interesting. I am not one for 3-D movies, but this was really neat. I had never seen the movie before, so that added to the excitement. As the movie progressed, if there was a song, the put the subtitles at the bottom to sing along. Throughout the movie, they used special effects, sounds, and lighting elements in the theater to add to the movie experience. At the conclusion of the movie, Jack Skellington & Sally came out for a meet and greet.
This concluded our first night of Halloween on the High Seas on the Disney Dream.
Tomorrow I will do a post on Day 2 when we were at Nassau, Bahamas.
“….let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1
MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.
