Day Ten - Saturday, October 4th - Castaway Cay
I woke up Saturday morning in time to open the curtains and see that we were in the process of docking at Disney's private island in the Bahamas - Castawy Cay. This would have been a lot more exciting, had the view not included grey cloudy skies and a slight drizzle. Craning my neck, I could see that there was indeed a great deal of blue sky off in the distance and there was a chance that the day wouldn't be a total wash out.
Scott and I showered and dressed for the beach fairly quickly. I packed a few supplies into a tote bag, and we were ready for our day at the beach! Before disembarking, we stopped at Triton's and had breakfast. It was an EXCELLENT breakfast (I'm a sucker for good Eggs Benedict) and the servers were much cuter than the ones we had regularly at dinner (not that our guys weren't great, but the two cute French guys were kind of adorable).
After breakfast we headed down to disembark and walked off the boat . . . to a beautiful sunny day. The clouds were gone, no drizzle, perfect weather. We breathed a sigh of relief and headed over to the shuttle stop.
Here we are, fresh off the boat, ready for a day of fun in the sun:
And with one of the "locals""
Can you tell that Scott and I rarely every wear flip-flops?
What little tan we've managed to get while living in Florida stops right at the sock-line.
As we made our way to the "adult beach" (called "Serenity Bay") we stopped and bought a small collapsible cooler with ice and six bottles of water. This was a very smart idea, and kept us from dehydrating.
We caught the second shuttle that takes you down the island's landing strip to the adult beach. It was fairly busy, but not packed (yet). We made our way about half way down the beach before finding a space under and umbrella in an uncrowded area of the beach. We played around in the water for a while, and soon our uncrowded area of the beach was teeming with people. Serenity Bay my sweet patootie! You remember all those
DCL ads, with one couple walking hand-in-hand along a deserted shoreline? Yeah. I'm thinking those two work for DCL and are the people who stay on the island when the boat's not there. Otherwise, I can't figure out how they got any alone time on that beach. Sure, there were no kids around, but romantic it wasn't. I will say one thing though. All those other people made me feel MUCH more comfortable. I was afraid that I'd look like a beached white whale lying on the sand. I needn't have worried. By comparison, I was buff, young, and tan. That fact (and a couple of Conch Coolers - the signature cocktail of Castaway Cay) helped me to relax and just have fun.
Scott and I split our morning between playing in the water, and relaxing on the sand. At one point we struck up a conversation with a couple from Upstate New York that were sitting in the chairs right next to us. Nice folks. Don't remember their names. More gushing congratulations on our recent commitment, so I started to think that I'd been completely wrong to worry that people would have a problem with gay guys on their honeymoon. And in fact, we didn't run into anyone who had an issue at all. One clueless guy, I'll talk aobut in a bit. But no out and out homophobes at all. Which is one of the reasons we'll recommend DCL to our friends and will do it again ourselves.
We decided to head over to have lunch before they stopped serving so that we didn't miss lunch. As we were rinsing off the sand at the little outdoor shower thingy, we ran into Randy and Mary Kay. It was nice to see them, and I saw that Randy was wearing the same shirt I'd worn the night before at dinner (one of the Disney Hawaiian prints). I joked that I was glad we hadn't shown up at the table wearing the same thing, then we were off to the lunch buffet. The food was pretty good, and we were surprised to find out how hungry we'd gotten "doing nothing."
After lunch, the sky started looking ominous again, so we picked up a few "Castawy Cay" souvenirs at the store on the island before heading back to the boat. We timed it perfectly. Just as we got under cover at the gangway, it started to rain.
We headed up to our cabin for a quick shower and change of clothes, and then up the adult pool for a drink. We got out onto deck, and had to stick to the covered areas. The skies had opened up and it was pouring. There were times that we couldn't see the far side of the bay where we were docked.
We stopped and got frozen coffees at the coffee shop, and then sat on the deck and watched the rain.
At this point, a crew member came over and asked if we wanted another set of drinks. We said we didn't and he spotted the honeymoon buttons. He pointed at the buttons and asked "So, are your wives at the spa?" We laughed and said, "Nope. No wives." At which point he points to the island (that we couldn't see due to the downpour) and says "Oh, they're still on the island, shopping." To which, I said. "Um, no. We're together. It's our honeymoon." Which caught him by surprise. Then, trying to fix his faux pas he said "Oh! Well, that's okay, too!"
He was the exception to the rule. In complete contrast to our experience with the "Just Married" buttons in the parks, the crew of the Wonder and even most of the guests, saw the buttons, figured it out, and congratulated us heartily. A couple crew members let us know that they'd recently had their first Disney Fairy Tale Commitment Ceremony on the Wonder and were very glad we were joining them for our honeymoon. I'm not sure why we didn't get that kind of reaction at WDW (where we were expecting it) but were sure glad that the folks on the boat made us feel so special.
And next time, we'll talk about dinner that night at Animator's Palate.
I CAN remember what I had that night (of the ceremony). 
. My parents went off and did their thing while my brother and I took a shuttle to Atlantis and then walked around the port area. This random old man came up to us and gave us each a gumdrop from the package he was eating from. I said thanks and waked quicky away, tossing the candy in an empty lot. My brother, who was 13, ate the candy, and I gave him a talking to about eating things from strangers (do they never learn???). The look on his face was SO funny, though; he looked as though he thought he had been poisoned!
I won't go into the full theatrical critique of what Scott and I thought. The kids seemed to like it, so I guess it served its primary purpose.
