This is a guest trip report written by Sara, who sailed with her husband and 7 month old daughter on the Disney Dream on September 7, 2018. You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here. You can see all of the Daily Navigators by clicking here. In addition, you can see all of my previous trip reports and guest trip reports by clicking here.
Day 3: Castaway Cay
We woke up on Castaway Cay day and saw some dark clouds in the distance:
Originally, we planned to get a quick breakfast and go straight to the beach. A few minutes later, we looked out and saw this:
We went to breakfast at Royal Palace and passed another bride in the corridor. I gathered that her wedding was relocated somewhere onboard due to the weather. As breakfast progressed the rain steadily cleared. By this time our daughter was ready for a nap, so we went back to the room and let her sleep while we finished watching Inside Out.
Around 11:00 we grabbed an ice cream cone and disembarked. The weather was perfect: not too hot (although humid) and breezy.
As we walked to the beach we passed a third bride, but later discovered that she was on her honeymoon. Apparently, they took some pictures in her dress at Castaway Cay.
We spent about an hour on the beach before heading back to the ship for our 1:00pm nursery reservation. After a bath, we dropped our girl at the nursery, and went to Cabanas for lunch. We realized that Castaway Cay day is a great time to stay on the ship (if you’ve been before!) or head back early, as the Dream was practically empty.
The line for the AquaDuck was very short, so we dropped our stuff on some deck chairs and got in line. Afterwards we wondered if the speed or water level had been adjusted because it was more fast paced than we remembered.
Next we went to the top deck to try Satellite Falls. We found the wind to be chilly and went down to enjoy the hot tub and pool. Ultimately, we snagged one of the cozy lounge chairs and enjoyed the view for a while.
At some point, we went to get smoothies from Frozone’s Treats. My husband got a Dole Whip which was very good, and I got a smoothie called the Gazer Beam, and it was just ok. The flavor was bland. While we were in line I overheard the conversation of a couple in front of us. One person was holding an infant in a swim diaper, and said the lifeguard told him that the baby was not permitted on the sun deck without proper swimwear. My impression was that they were sitting near the pool, letting the baby nap on one of the loungers. It seemed that this was an attempt to prevent overexposure to the sun, and may be something to note for future trips.
With our smoothies in hand, we went back to our lounger and enjoyed the view a little while longer. Eventually we decided to get showers so we would be ready for dinner before we had to pick up the baby. We walked past the nursery to check on her and she had just woken up from a nap and was drinking a bottle.
After we got cleaned up we thought we had time for a quick nap. Just as we laid down, the phone chirped, telling us that the nursery had not been able to soothe our girl. This time I decided to call and find out what was happening, but I could hear her crying in the background and decided to go ahead and pick her up. She took a quick nap and before long we were out to Animator’s Palate for dinner.
I had hoped that she would be able to participate in the meal since Animator’s Palate is such a fun and interactive restaurant, but the combination of being overly tired and having to sit still proved too much. On our next trip, I may book late dining and coordinate her nursery time during dinner.
Unfortunately, I found myself entertaining the little one throughout the meal and taking pictures fell to the wayside. Between the two of us we ordered: Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes (excellent), Butternut Squash Soup (excellent), Baked Potato and Cheddar Cheese Soup (very good), Grilled Tuna Steak (just ok), and the Angus Beef Tenderloin (I don’t remember tasting this, but didn’t hear any complaints). For dessert, we had the Crunchy Walnut Cake (excellent) and the Cookies and Cream Sundae (excellent). Overall this dinner was underwhelming, but it was majorly impacted by our tiny, impatient tablemate. Animator’s Palate is definitely a favorite of ours and we probably would have felt differently had we been able to take our time and enjoy the meal.
After dinner, we waited in the (very long) line to take a picture with Minnie in her formal wear. Our girl has a few Minnie Mouse toys that she likes, and we wanted to see her react to the life size version. The experience did not disappoint. Standing in line for character pictures is not something we typically do, but it was worthwhile since Minnie spent a good amount of time with us. She even tickled and played peek-a-boo with our girl, who seemed to recognize her friend. She smiled and giggled throughout the interaction.
Next we went to Vista Café to get an espresso. My husband used the DCL app to put us in the digital queue for the future cruise sales desk. When they notified us it was our turn, we went straight to an agent and didn’t have to wait in line.
We went to Shutters to see if we had any good pictures, and found that no pictures had been linked with our account. We searched for them and found a few but ultimately decided not to purchase any. As we were looking through, our daughter fell asleep in her stroller. We made the most of this opportunity and went to explore parts of the ship we hadn’t seen yet.
Our first stop was Vanellope’s Sweets and Treats. We chose the gelato, but they had so many great choices. The cast member told us that most of the treats were made onboard, and they certainly were beautiful to look at! There were tons of toppings available for the gelato (included in the price), and the medium cup we ordered was $4.95 which I thought was reasonable.
After searching a while we finally came across Outlook Lounge. It was very quiet (except for the music coming from Vibe one deck below) and there we enjoyed the rest of our gelato. The motion of the ship was really noticeable up there, which I found relaxing. I also wondered if the fireworks would be visible from here.
We headed back to our room and combined some of our suitcases (made possible by the absence of our daughter’s diapers) and called it a night.
.
Day 4: Disembarkation
On the final morning of our trip we chose to do express walk off. After one last espresso and a lot of discussion about how “three days isn’t long enough”, we waved goodbye to the Disney Dream. We can’t wait to go back!
.
Thank you so much Sara for sharing your cruise with us! If you want to read my trip reports or previous guest trip reports, you can do that here.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.