Three Spinning Teacups: Day 10--Castaway Cay

Morning broke, and we looked outside to see lots of little islands and signs of traffic at sea (including another cruise ship on the horizon). Yep, welcome to the high-traffic areas of the Bahamas.

We dressed for the run and headed up to Cabanas. The place was packed with early morning eaters (I guess everyone wanted to hit Castaway Cay as soon as we docked), so we ate outside, but thankfully under cover. There was a brief bit of rain (5 minutes or so), and then we saw lots of cast members coming outside to stand on the deck. There was an island approaching, and one of them mentioned that it was Castaway Cay. Time to get Lily down to the nursery for the last time.

Once she got settled in, we went and checked in at O’Gill’s pub for the 5K. The day was already quite warm and humid, so we figured we’d do an “aggressive walk” instead of a run. That was probably one of the best decisions we made in a while. If it was humid on board the ship and hot near the beach, the area where the 5K was done (through mangrove forest where the bike paths are) was incredibly toasty and sticky. To add insult to injury, in order to get to the start of the 5K, you had to walk about a mile or so there. It was fun to do at a fast walk, but I had a lot of sympathy for runners. By the time we got to the finish line (about 42 minutes, so not horribly long all things considered), the cast members had left, but we were told our “finisher medals” would be in our room later that day. (We ended up actually running in to the gal delivering them when we went back to the room to change.) We bought some t-shirts and then figured out the island’s internal tram service to get back to the ship.

We changed into swimwear and then went to pick Lily up. She was sad to go, but we mentioned that we’d be going to make sand castles. For several days, ever since she saw the beach in St. Maarten, she has been obsessed with the idea of making a sand castle. We briefly thought about a nap first for her, but she would have none of it. We did stop at Cabanas to grab lunch before we went to the island, much to her complaints. (We could have eaten on the island, but although a BBQ lunch would have been great for us, we weren’t sure what she’d want to eat, so went the Cabanas option.)

All in all, we spent about an hour out on the beach, and yes, Lily did get to make her sand castle. The water was comfortable, but a little cool, and so we just did some wading. Even though we didn’t go deeper than about a foot, there were actually fish swimming in that close. That was a huge surprise!

After making sand castles, we took the very sleepy girl, grabbed a drink (water for her and my first time trying a Konk Cooler—a little too strong for me, but I can see why there’s fans of it), and headed back to the ship for a nap.

At 4:30, we met down in The Tube nightclub area for the final AllEars meeting. Lots of great giveaways and some noshes. Although we didn’t win anything, it was great to see everyone one last time and thank Deb and Beci and everyone else from MEI for such a wonderful time. Everyone on the cruise was great, and we certainly enjoyed all the little gifts that ended up at our stateroom over the week (and hope that people enjoyed ours, too). By far, the one gift that had everyone talking was from a couple of Canadians on board who brought “Chipnuts”. This is the snack food that I can’t believe Americans don’t have. Take a peanut, dip it in a potato chip batter, and fry it. Oh my goodness, they are so good. Why can’t we get them in the U.S.???

We went back to the room, changed, and headed to the Enchanted Garden one last time. I think that is my favorite of the restaurants, to be honest. Once you get over the fact that cruise ship restaurants are crowded, this one is just a real pretty place. The restaurant goes through a “time change” while you eat, with flowers on the ceiling actually blooming while you eat. It is something to behold. The menu for the farewell meal was also a favorite of mine, and I finally got to try Baked Alaska. It lives up to the hype. I could have easily eaten an extra serving of that!

The final show of the trip wasn’t available on the internal TV system, but we were pretty busy packing bags anyhow. (We did put on Disney cartoon shorts for Lily, who is now a huge fan of Donald Duck and Chip and Dale cartoons.) You have to have your luggage outside your stateroom before you go to bed so it can be taken off the ship for you (aside from bags that you will carry with you to breakfast and off the ship). We also got the customs form filled out and got our satisfaction survey complete. I don’t think any of us wanted to go to bed, because we knew this was going to be it for this trip. But once we got the bags set outside, there wasn’t much to do aside from call it a night. Once again I was feeling a little bit blah (this time having the sinus stuff go into a pretty horrible cough), so I finally did call it a night. Tomorrow morning, back to the real world—or actually a trip to Disney World.