Princesses, Private Islands and Saying Goodbye! - Days 6 and Day 7

Day 6: Day at Sea

Today was a sea day as we traveled back to the Bahamas area from Jamaica. We had a great, lazy day and thoroughly enjoyed it after the business of the last 3 port days.

We started with a nice breakfast and then Katie, mom and I decided to attack the "Princess Gathering" in the Atrium. All 6 princess (and some surprise guests) would be meeting and greeting. There were lines and lots of little girls dressed up, but overall it was a fun experience. Not chaotic at all, and on a sea day with nothing else to do, there was no stress as we waited to get pics with all of them.

Ariel

Belle

Jasmine

Prince Ali (Aladdin) was out and about mingling with the people as they waited in line.

Cinderella

Rapunzel (we'd never met her before)

Princess Tiana (another new one for us)

Carleigh wasn't interested in the princesses, and spent the morning in The Vibe.

After princesses, we met Don up on Deck 11 to watch part of another World Cup U.S. game - we at lunch and watched on the Funnel Vision.

Carleigh did meet us after lunch to watch Maleficent in the theater. It was a great movie. I was pleasantly surprised, and again...happy to see it at sea with no additional charges.

After the movie, Don and Katie did another Midship Detective Agency mystery and I headed back to start thinking about packing and sorting. Tomorrow (our last day) would be a full day at Castaway Cay - Disney's private Bahama island, so I wanted to get a head start today so that I could enjoy tomorrow more.

Dinner was semi-formal night, so we dressed up for our last set of pics and enjoyed the Atrium again.

 These last pics turned out to be some of my favorites. I'm glad we decided to do another round of family pictures.

We also found a pretty sunset as we were waiting for dinner.

Dinner was great, I had started packing, the girls were headed back to the clubs till the wee hours, and we were looking forward to our last adventure...Castaway Cay!

Day 7: Castaway Cay

We woke up on our last full day to a beautiful rainbow as we were approaching Castaway Cay. This is Disney's private island in the Bahamas - fully run by Disney. The servers get off the ship and run the 2 restaurants on the island for the day - photographers roam the beach and take pics - you can sit in your beach chair and they will bring drinks to you.....

I don't have a lot of pics from that day because we did a lot of walking around and then the rain looked like it was coming in, so our day was cut short. Mom stayed on the ship today, she'd already seen Castaway, and enjoyed the ship's adult only pool area - Satelite Falls.

We started with Don, Carleigh and Katie doing a  big snorkeling trip in the lagoon..

Carleigh then found the teen section of the beach and played volleyball for a while and hung out there -

Don was playing also (in the yellow shirt on the right)

We ate lunch, Don did a bit more snorkeling and found this guy:

Then the rain clouds started moving in, and we collected everyone and headed back to the ship.

Once back on the ship, we decided to watch the "Till We Meet Again" show in the Atrium before getting ready for dinner. This is the show on the last evening where all the characters come down and visit/sing songs and say goodbye to everyone...

 After the characters come down the stairs, they then take about 15 minutes and will pose for "one last picture" before they leave. :)

I like this one - it looks like a real conversation is happening. :)

Our last dinner was in Animator's Palate again and it was Animation Night. Each person got a placemat  and you had to draw a figure. You then gave it to your server and they took it to the back room and each picture became animated and part of the big show on the screens in the restaurant towards the end of the meal....VERY COOL!!

Katie's on far left, and then my curly head next to Katie's

Mom's on the far left, then Carleigh's Ninja drawings

we sign our name and at the end they roll the credits - you'll see Don, Laura, Kathie, Carleigh on this screen

Here's a clip of the animation show. The beginning is all the characters dancing and moving by themselves and in small groups. Then they start interacting with Disney charcters. In the video above, you'll see mom's character dancing with Mickey Mouse and mine is marching out with Jiminy Cricket.  Just another way that Disney makes everything magical and caters to all ages. :)

We then had our final photo shoot with Ninja and Mahadi, our servers. They were fantastic and treated us so well all week!!

After dinner, the girls made their way to the last night in the clubs. We finished packing and were up the next morning for our final breakfast and then off the ship and the bus ride back to the airport.

Once at the airport, we had about 4 hours before our flight - it was nap time...

 I'll end with a video Katie made of all of our pics put to music.....(about 4 minutes long)

Back home to reality and to start planning our next Disney Adventure - summer of 2016...Anyone?

 

Stay tuned for our annual family beach trip to Emerald Isle  - year #11!