Friday, January 10, 2020 - Castaway Cay...or thereabouts
Peter was excited to be running in the 5K that morning, so we were up bright and early for our Cabanas breakfast and to watch the Fantasy's approach into Disney's beautiful private beautiful island. Well, the captain came on the overhead speakers to announce that the attempt to dock at Castaway Cay had failed due to dangerous underwater currents; it was unsafe to bring the ship into the island at this time, but there was a promise to make another attempt a little late in the morning.
This news was so disappointing and also a little surprising. I mean, it wasn't the prettiest weather we had ever seen, but it also wasn't so terrible. A little breezy maybe? But warm, not ridiculously windy. A few rain drops spritzing down here or there, but no downpours. Mostly cloudy with some breaks of...not quite sun, but lets say...thinner clouds. No white caps could be seen on the sea! The water had seemed MUCH rougher on ALL the OTHER days of this cruise! I understand that it was about what was happening UNDER the water that we couldn't see or feel, but still...BOO! If you haven't already surmised, a second attempt to dock failed later in the morning. So, like Moses at the border of the Promised Land, we gazed longingly at the island for as long as it remained in view.
If you look closely, you can see the elusive Castaway Cay in the distance in the center of this photo:
In retrospect, and in a very certain way, not being able to get in to Castaway Cay was...maybe a good thing? Well, later that day, we would stop by the Future Cruise Desk to purchase a Placeholder, and I'm not sure if that would have happened if we had made it to CC?
At some point that morning, Peter was able to complete the 5K by running many times around the Promenade on deck 4. He felt quite good about it, and I was super impressed with his power and speed! He got a medal as a souvenir and returned to the stateroom quite a sweaty and oh so studly mess, and after cooing over his beautiful medal and breathtaking stamina, I promised that if we ever actually made it to CC, I would join him in the 5K (and if I don't intend to walk it, I really have my work cut out for me).
So, on the bright side of things...we had an unexpected Sea Day!! We might as well make the most of it! We started with shuffle board as we waited for the revised Navigator to come out, so we could pick some activities and plan our day. Neither of us had ever played shuffle board, so it was lucky that the rules were clearly posted. I hate to brag but...I'll admit I'm a natural haha.
It took an alarmingly long time for the revised Navigator to be posted. In real time it was only a few hours, but on ship time it felt like half a day (haha). Don't they have a plan A and a plan B, and all kinds of contingencies built in for just this sort of thing? From what I hear, it's not all that uncommon to have to skip CC for this exact reason. And the seas this cruise were ROUGH. The whole cruise. They had to be thinking that CC was a 50/50 shot at that point, no? If I had to find one thing "wrong" with the cruise, I would say it was this morning. The disappointment of no CC followed by seeming disorganization for what to do next.
We didn't do any activities before lunch that I can remember. We may have gone back to the stateroom for a short nap, and then decided to try the snack bars up on deck 11 for a different kind of "buffet" lunch. I'm talking about Luigi's and Tow Mater's and Fillmore's Favorites, which we had yet to try since embarking. There was plenty to try and we were quite satisfied with small sandwiches, fries and pizza. I didn't take many pics because deck 11 was so crowded that afternoon, but here are the ones I did take:
I like the GF pizza on request sign. Always thinking about our celiac daughter.
We went to O'Gill's at 2:30 for a Pub Quiz (didn't win), and at 4:30 to the Buena Vista Theater for the Final Jackpot Bingo (didn't win)... good thing we are not competitive! I think this was where we stopped by the Future Cruise Desk, which was quicker and easier than expected. And before you know it, it was 6:15 and time for our showing of Believe, which was our least favorite show of the cruise but was sentimental and made me cry nonetheless. Heck, I'm sure I would have cried at anything, it was our last night of vacation, of this amazing cruise.
But we still had one more special thing to do...dinner at Remy's!
What a gorgeous space and elegant setting. And the service!! We felt so warmly greeted, definite VIP treatment here.
We were escorted past some very expensive bottles of wines, the host mentioned there was one worth around $23K in here:
If you know which one it is, please enlighten me, so I don't order it by accident!
Our place setting. So lovely. It was truly elegance like you'd expect to see at a really expensive and highly rated land restaurant or on a luxury yacht, not your typical cruise line, not even in specialty dining areas.
Much much, more on Remy to come...but would the food meet our expectations? Stay tuned.
We are looking forward to trying for a Palo brunch on our postponed 15th anniversary cruise, scheduled to sail next year in June. The dinner certainly looks lovely, too, especially dessert--yum!!
I'm thinking I would've just sucked it up and found a spot to enjoy as much of the beach as I possibly could. Not sure how often, if ever, we'd make it back to Jamaica, so I think I'd likely make the best of it, too. Though, what a picture imagining how on-top of one another you must've been with your newfound beach friends!
almost immediately!
) (JK we're members now 
) and then the early show of the featured movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and the way the ship was pitching and rocking at that point, we felt like we were really immersed in some of the scenes. Some guests in the theater thought that was a bad thing, but we loved it! Even better than Star Tours!
)
Bad enough you weren't able to dock, but to literally be so close and then unable, BOOOOO!
