Celebrating Our Babymoon! - 7 night Eastern Caribbean Out of Port Canaveral

Haley R

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 3, 2017
Hi everyone! This cruise was Dh and I's first cruise and our main reason for going was to celebrate our babymoon. Our baby is due in April so we wanted to go before it was too late for me to travel. I'm trying to remember everything we did each day, but there was so much that it'll be hard to get it all. I'm going to try and touch on most everything, but might forget a few things here and there.

I'll be posting some pictures on here, but we also have an Instagram that we post pictures on if anyone is interested. The account name is "wuztravelin". I've been slowly putting up pictures from each day and we also have some from our Japan trip earlier this year.

Day 1-Embarkation Day
Day 2-Day at Sea (Formal Night)
Day 3-Day at Sea
Day 4-Tortola (Pirate Night)
Day 5-St. Thomas
Day 6-Day at Sea
Day 7-Castaway Cay
Day 8-Debarkation Day
Overall Thoughts
 
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Day 1
  • We got to the port around noon. Our arrival time was 1:30-1:45, but we wanted to see if we could get on the ship earlier. Going through security and check in was pretty fast. There were lots of people arriving at the same time as us. We were in boarding group 26 so had a while to wait. We decided to wait in line to meet Pluto, but it changed to Mickey while we were in line. The interaction was great and we didn’t have to wait too long in line. We ended up getting called around 1 pm so we had about an hour to wait before boarding, but it was still earlier than our intended arrival time.
  • The first thing we did when we got on the ship was went to Enchanted Garden to try and get a reservation for Palo. We were able to get a dinner one before getting on the ship, but we really wanted brunch. They still had 12 and 12:30 times for the next day so we took one of those and cancelled our dinner. We also went to Guest Services to get celebrating buttons because the cruise was our “babymoon”. We went straight up to our room after that to drop our backpacks off. We stayed in a Verandah room and it was booked with a last minute Florida rate. We were on deck 9 close to the front of the ship. After dropping off our bags we decided to go to deck 11 for something to eat. We ate at Cabanas and overall we thought the buffet was pretty good during the entire cruise. It was difficult to get seats and there was only 2 of us.
  • Our next thing was to start on a floor and try to get through each deck of the ship since this was our first Disney cruise (also first cruise ever). We really liked the adult only areas on Deck 4 and ended up spending a lot of time there during the cruise. We watched the sailing off party on the pool deck then headed to our room around 5:30 pm to relax before the show in the theater. We liked sitting on the verandah whenever we had time so we could watch the water and be in the sun.
  • The show in the theater was really good. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was a good way to start the trip and for us to get used to being in the theater at that 6:15 pm time. We had the second seating for dinner and ate at 8:15 pm. Our first night was at the Royal Court and we got sat with two other couples close to our age. They were both extremely nice couples and we did a lot of things with them during the cruise (trivia, dancing, excursions, watching a movie).
 

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Day 2-Day at Sea (Formal Night)
  • We slept in this morning and Dh grabbed us some light breakfast stuff from Cabanas and brought it back to our room. We had our Palo brunch at 12 so we didn’t want to eat too much before. This worked out nicely having Palo on this day because it was formal night. We put our nice clothes on for the brunch, changed out of them for the afternoon, and then back into them for the show and dinner that night.
  • I’m positive we’ll either get shunned or receive negative responses, but we were not blown away by Palo. Having an adult only area was really nice and we did have a table right by the window. The problem (which really isn’t a problem) is our dinners in the MDR were so good that Palo didn’t feel like anything special and we were paying extra for it. My favorite thing was the parmesan cheese from the buffet. Dh liked getting the free glass of champagne (I had sparkling apple cider). Our server was kind of slow, but very friendly. We wouldn’t do the brunch again even though it was nice to try it once.
  • We did TONS of classes, trivia, and other activities and I can’t remember which day was which so I’m just going to make a separate post of the ones I can remember and what we thought. This was a day at sea so we did a lot of those types of things on this day.
  • It was super cute seeing all of the families in their formal wear. I didn’t realize how seriously people took it. The characters were also fun to see with their formal outfits. My favorites were Chip and Dale with their tuxedos.
  • I believe our show for that night was the Aladdin musical and it was fantastic! It was actually my favorite show out of all the ones we saw. We showed up about 10-15 minutes before the show and were able to get seats down near the front and right in the center. We had a funny little girl in front of us that kept turning around and chatting. She had all kinds of things to tell us. We ate dinner at Animator’s Palate that night and I think that was my favorite of the 3 dining rooms. The theming is super cute and on that night we had Crush swimming around to talk to us. It just felt very Disney to me.
 

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Day 3-Day at Sea
  • Since this was another day on the ship, we took the time to finish seeing everything we hadn’t already seen. We slept in and then went to the gym for the first time. I had brought some equipment with me and Dh ran on the treadmill. We both agreed it’s kind of funny to get on the treadmill because you kind of sway forward and back. It felt like my incline kept changing. We went around noon and there were quite a few people in there at the same time, but still enough machines to use.
  • After working out we went to the sports deck to try mini golf. We would’ve played basketball, but it was always pretty busy with lots of kids. We ended up giving up on mini golf because it was really windy and the balls kept rolling around. They’re made of a light wood material so the wind kept moving them. We still got through almost all of it and had fun doing it. We weren’t able to do the Goofy sports simulators because it was all full way before our cruise even started.
  • We mostly just did a lot of trivia and relaxing this day. We took some time on Deck 4 where the track is and sat on some chairs. We both brought books so we sat and read and almost fell asleep. These chairs have nice padding on them so they were comfortable to sit in.
  • My days are mixed up, but I think our entertainment was a musician/comedian and his name was John Charles. He did a pretty good job and it was fun listening to him play songs people requested. He also remade some Disney songs into funny versions and those were good, too. We ate dinner at the Enchanted Garden and it was my second favorite of the three dining rooms. The Royal Court was my least favorite, not because of the food, but because of the overall theme.
  • After dinner we went to The Tube with one of the couples from dinner. We regularly went straight there after dinner because we always got done close to 10 and that’s usually when things happened that we were interested in. They had a guy named Marcus Monroe who we actually saw on the first night. He did a preview during the welcome show in the theater so we knew we liked him already. It was only a 30 minute show, but he was still very funny.
  • The last thing we did that night was the silent DJ in The Tube and this was one of my favorite things on the ship. Dh and I probably wouldn’t have stayed as long if it weren’t for the other couple being with us, but it was so fun! We danced from 11 pm until after midnight and the four of us were the last ones on the dance floor. It was really funny to take your headphones off at random times to hear people singing lol. The leader in charge of the adult activities led us in a conga line through the Skyline bar which was pretty funny. I highly suggest doing the silent DJ, but only the adult version. We tried the kid friendly one and it definitely wasn’t as fun for us.
 

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Great trip report so far! I'm following along and can't wait to hear about your port days. I pretty sure that John Charles was on our cruise in Alaska and we really enjoyed his shows.
 
Great trip report so far! I'm following along and can't wait to hear about your port days. I pretty sure that John Charles was on our cruise in Alaska and we really enjoyed his shows.
Thanks! The next day will be our day at Tortola and I’ll work on that one tomorrow. John Charles has been around for a long time. I think he told us he sang in the choir for opening day at wdw (if I’m remembering correctly). He was funny and we enjoyed him. I liked his family show more than the adult only one
 
Day 4-Tortola (Pirate Night)
  • This was one of the times I loved having a balcony. Being able to wake up and see the port was pretty awesome. The water was so blue and it made for a very pretty picture.
  • We booked our excursion through Disney since this was our first cruise and our first time to Tortola. We booked the A Day at the Baths excursion. We didn’t have to meet until 12:30 pm on the ship so that was nice to have a slow morning before leaving. Our group was a really big one and I wasn’t expecting that at all. Since we’ve never done them before we just assumed it would be a smaller group.
  • We started by taking a ferry for about 40 minutes. It was a rough ride and they even handed out sick bags. We then had to load onto buses to get to the top of The Baths. There were bathrooms here to use before we headed to our first stop which was Devil’s Bay. Dh and I actually liked this area better than The Baths themselves. The beach was really nice and the area to swim in was great, too. We had about 45 or so minutes here before leaving with the group to go through the “caves”. This part would’ve been really neat except we had such a big group that we had to stop multiple times waiting for people to continue walking. They mentioned people being in good health before going through the area, but people kept going extremely slow through every part of it. There were times we were stopped for 5-10 minutes waiting for someone. After the caves we arrived at the main Baths beach. We thought this area was cool to look at, but not a great beach to swim and hang out on. It’s very rocky so walking into the water and swimming wasn’t as nice as the other beach we visited. I would say we had about 45 minutes to 1 hour here as well. There was a little stall with food and drinks. They only took cash and we didn’t think ahead so we weren’t able to get anything (we only had cards with us). After this we loaded back on the buses at the top and rode back to the ferry that took us back to the ship.
  • By the time we got back to our room there were two bandanas waiting for us since it was Pirate Night. We didn’t go all out or anything because we don’t really like dressing up, but I absolutely loved seeing the costumes people wore! The baby costumes were some of the best and we saw one kid dressed as Captain Hook getting eaten by the crocodile. We went up to Deck 11 and grabbed a spot up top for the Mickey pirate show. It was cute and I’m glad we watched it.
  • Our entertainment that night was Marcus Monroe who was the juggler and comedian that we had seen already. He was absolutely hilarious.His humor was very sarcastic and dry which we appreciated.
  • To finish off the night, we watched the final pirate show on Deck 11 and the fireworks. The show was just okay, but it was really cool to see fireworks while on a cruise. You could see other ships in the distance watching from far away. We went to Cabanas right after to try the pirate feast they made. I was most excited for the turkey leg, but it was really dry so I didn’t eat much of it. We liked some of the other offerings better.
 

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Day 5-St. Thomas
  • On day 5 we arrived in St. Thomas. We booked another excursion for this port because I was told St. John was better. Our excursion started early at 8 am so we were up pretty early. We ate breakfast at Cabanas first and that was actually the first time I physically went there for breakfast. This was another huge group. They did split us into 4 different groups, but our group was still pretty large.
  • We booked the St. John Trunk Bay Beach & Snorkeling Tour. We had to take a ferry again for about 45 minutes to get over to St. John. This ride was a lot better than our Tortola ride and they offered drinks/snacks to purchase. We sat on top on the way there and it rained for about 5-10 minutes so we went under a tiny overhang until it stopped so I would recommend sitting inside downstairs unless you don’t mind. We didn’t want our bag to get wet because it had all of our stuff in it. Once we got to St. John we boarded jeeps and took a 15 minute drive to get to Trunk Bay. Our guide stopped along the way at the top and let us take pictures. We thought that was nice of him and we got some really good pictures up there. After getting to Trunk Bay we listened to a snorkeling safety speech. The guy was pretty rude and yelling at people during the talk so not a great way to start our time at the beach. We brought our own snorkeling gear, but they had lots to choose from including fins you could borrow. There was also a little shop and a stand with drinks/food.The snorkeling itself was really bad. We actually snorkeled a couple times during the cruise and they were all not great experiences. I’m not sure if it was from the hurricane, but there just weren’t a lot of fish to see. A lot of people ended up sitting on the beach and some families bought footballs to throw around. We were there for over an hour. Dh and I were more than ready to go by that time. They did have showers and bathrooms to use before leaving the beach. This was the only place I noticed mosquitoes so I got out of the shower quickly to spray myself down. Since I’m pregnant I was being overly cautious about mosquitoes. We took the jeep and ferry back to St. Thomas.
  • Dh wanted to walk around St. Thomas a little bit so we did, but I was dragging by that point. The heat, swimming, and being pregnant were really getting to me. We went in some shops and got a magnet because we collect one every time we go somewhere new. A large majority of the shops were jewelry stores so we really didn’t find much we wanted to buy. I was glad we did the excursion instead of just walking around St. Thomas on our own.
  • Our show that night was the Frozen musical. It was still new to the Fantasy. I think they said we were the third group to see it on that ship. It was fantastic and everyone loved it. We got there 45 minutes early with the couple from dinner so we could have good seats. I actually liked Aladdin more, but Dh said he liked Frozen better. They were both awesome, though.
  • After the musical we met by the shops for pin trading with the officers. Dh and I are new to pin trading and we didn’t see a lot of other people trading on the ship. We did have one stateroom on our floor with a bulletin board that we traded on each day. There were SO MANY people that came to trade with the officers and I loved it! It was definitely chaotic, but we got some great pins and for the most part everyone waited their turn. There weren’t clear cut lines so you kind of had to squeeze your way in and wait for a couple of people to trade before you.
  • Our dinner that night was at Animator’s Palate and we got to draw stick figures that were put up on the screens. I thought this was super immersive and a really cool idea. Only one of the couples showed up that night, but we all got really into our drawings and had a lot of fun.
  • The last thing we did was watch the new Maleficent movie in the theater. We brought prepackaged popcorn, candy, and filled our thermoses with pop before the movie (as suggested by a fellow DISer). It was in 3D and I liked it better than the first movie! We went with one of the girls from dinner. The theater was pretty much full which we didn’t expect for a late movie.
 

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Day 6-Day at Sea
  • This was our third and last day at sea. I took hardly any pictures this day so there won’t be much to see. We were pretty pooped from the night before so we slept in late and then ordered room service for the first time. We turned on Wall-E and laid in bed until it got to our room. I think it only took like 30 minutes so not too bad. I ordered a grilled cheese, Caesar salad, a fruit bowl, and orange juice. Dh ordered wings, a pepperoni pizza, and something else that I can’t remember. Overall, it was decent, but I’m glad we only did this once. My grilled cheese was lukewarm so the cheese inside had hardened some. The pepperoni pizza and wings were both good, as were the salad and fruit bowl. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but nice to have since we wanted to stay in bed.
  • At close to 11:30 am they had the Diaper Dash. I had been waiting all week to watch this because of how hyped up it is. We didn’t go until 10 minutes or so before it started and most of the spots were filled up on the balconies. I was able to get a decent spot leaning over the railing some, but my advice would be to get there early if you want a good view. It was super adorable and some of those babies really moved! One even stood up and started walking.
  • The rest of the day was spent doing activities around the ship that we hadn’t done already. One of them was an “Anyone Can Cook” seminar about apple strudel. We didn’t actually cook, but they had a chef show us how to make the dish and they gave us samples that were delicious. They had two or three of these events during the other sea days, but they were seafood so we skipped them (I don’t eat seafood).
  • Our show that night was a hypnotist and he was our least favorite out of all of the shows. All of the other ones were fantastic and we liked them a lot. The hypnotist talked for about half of the show explaining what he was doing and how he wasn’t really making them do anything. Okay ...but we were all there to watch the show, not learn the step by step process of hypnotizing someone. I’m not sure if he’s normally on the ships, but I wouldn’t watch him again.
  • We went to bed kind of early that night because we were going to Castaway Cay the next day and running in the 5k so we wanted a good night’s rest. It was a pretty relaxing day and we enjoyed all of the activities during the day.
 

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Day 7-Castaway Cay
  • This was our final day on the ship and we went to Castaway Cay. Our view from our verandah was awesome! They told everyone previously that they would let us off the ship at 9:30 am so that’s what we planned for. We had to be by the bike rentals at 9:50 am for the 5K. We ended up leaving the ship a little later than planned (not Disney’s fault) and didn’t realize how far the bike rentals actually were. We walked the whole way, but probably should’ve tried taking the tram. It was fine because we weren’t the only ones. They just held our group for a few minutes before walking us up to the starting line. Our group was the third group to go so it was a small group and I actually preferred that. They had water coolers and an unlocked bin to put our stuff in (we were a little worried about it being unlocked, but it ended up not being an issue). The route had changed from previous cruises, but this was our first time so I’m not sure what the old route was. It was REALLY hot that day and we got lucky because a big cloud covered the sun the entire time we were running, otherwise we would’ve probably died. I loved that this was a free event for anyone to sign up for and the medals are actually really cool! We have them hanging on our bulletin board at home. I was just happy I could run the whole thing. I wasn’t sure how I would do being 4 months pregnant and I haven’t been able to run for years because of knee issues.
  • After we finished the race we got our bags and walked over to Serenity Bay. There weren’t very many chairs to sit in since we got there late, but we were able to find two small chairs (not loungers) that we used to set our stuff down in the shade. The water here was really clear and the sand was pushed up towards the beach so we were able to walk all the way out to the buoys with the water only getting to knee height. We aren’t huge beach people so we only swam for like 30 minutes. We saw one of the couples from our dinner group so we decided to have lunch with them at the restaurant right there for adults. All of the food was pretty good. My favorite was the ribeye and I put it on a bun to make a sandwich. The burgers and hot dogs were much better than what they had on the ship.
  • We then took the tram over to the family beach and looked in some of the stores. We bought a Castaway Cay pin with Olaf on it to put on our bulletin board at home. We were going to get a Bahamas magnet, but they didn’t have any we liked. We put our stuff down on some chairs in the shade, got our vests for snorkeling, and went into the water. The water here was really murky and you had to swim out pretty far to see any fish. We were able to see a puffer fish and one stingray, but that was about it. We didn’t go as far out as we could have because we were tired from the 5K.
  • We headed back to the ship at 2 pm and got to see some Christmas decorations outside the ship! This was a nice surprise since our cruise wasn’t themed. There was a Christmas tree and two “sandmen” (a man and woman snowman made out of sand). We decided to go to the adult area on the ship hoping it wouldn’t be crowded and we were right. We grabbed a couple chairs and sat in the pool with 2-4 other people. I wasn’t able to get into the hot tub, but did stick my feet in for a short time. We also tried the Aquaduck for the first time. I was hesitant because it says expectant mothers shouldn’t ride, but the other couple we were with said it’s slow and doesn’t stop suddenly at the end. They were right and I wasn’t worried at all after getting on it. I only rode it once just in case.
  • Our show that night was Believe. Dh and I both really enjoyed this one. It hit us right in the feels lol. The story is a good one and it was fun to wait and see which character would come out next. My favorite was the Mary Poppins scene. We ate our final dinner at the Royal Court. After, we went to The Tube for the last time with both couples from dinner. They had the gingerbread house up for everyone to see and it was really cool! We went to bed kind of early so we could wake up early and drive home. We don’t live far from the port, but we still wanted to get home at a decent time.
 

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Day 8-Debarkation Day
  • There isn’t much for me to say about this day. We ended up skipping breakfast in the dining room because the other couples weren’t going and we were ready to get home. We got to the luggage area around 8 am. The whole luggage/customs process went pretty quickly considering how many people were in there. We had parked in the parking garage and I’m very glad we did. We were debating doing an offsite lot with a shuttle and I’m so glad we paid the extra $ to park onsite. It was awesome having our car right there and not worrying about catching a shuttle. We only had to drive 30 minutes home so it was a pretty easy drive.
 
Great update! I really liked our time at Serenity Bay, and I agree that the snorkeling isn't that great at Castaway Cay. Glad you liked the show, too. I'm impressed that you could run in the heat!
 
Overall Thoughts

Dining
  • Dh said make sure you don’t miss the main dinners. He thought it was some of the only good food you could get on the ship. He thought everything else was adequate. I thought Cabanas was actually very good for a buffet and I always had something to eat there. The quick service were not very good and we only ate there in between meals. I’m a picky eater so I was a little worried about the main dining meals, but they were very willing to modify things for me. I don’t eat seafood, but I always felt like there was an entree for me to choose from. There were a couple times I just ordered a main salad for my appetizer instead of what was offered and for my entrees I occasionally asked for things on the side or not included in my meal.
  • I thought our two servers did a fantastic job and I loved having the same servers every night. I also thought they did a great job pairing us up with the two couples around our age. We all got along really well and did things together on the ship which was fun. I think we had more fun by sharing experiences with others then doing everything on our own.
  • We would skip Palo brunch if we had the choice in the future. It wasn’t a bad meal, but we weren’t sure it was worth the extra cost when our main dining meals were so good. We’re open to trying dinner there sometime, though.

Entertainment
  • Dh said the entertainment was great! His favorites were the musicals and the juggler/comedian Marcus Monroe. My favorites were Marcus Monroe and the Aladdin musical. I liked all of the shows except for the hypnotist, though. We were worried about the extra cost of doing a Disney cruise, but they by far make up for it with the entertainment. We looked forward to going to our show every single night and didn’t miss any of them.

Activities
  • Here are some of the activities we did while on the ship: Anyone Can Cook, Match Your Mate, Majority Rules, Disney trivia games, DVC info meeting, Silent DJ, Diaper Dash, mini-golf, and Family Feud type game. I was surprised how many activities there were and how many we enjoyed. We had busy days every time we were at sea and that was really nice. We aren’t the type to sit around by the pool so it was awesome that Disney provided so many activities that were interesting for adults. There were quite a few we had to skip because of time, but there always seemed to be something fun for us to do. Dh’s favorite was the Diaper Dash. He enjoyed the DVC info also since it was no pressure and they gave us the $50 stateroom credit. My favorites were the Silent DJ and all of the game shows they did in The Tube at night.

Stateroom
  • Our stateroom number was 9516. Dh said the stateroom was small, but understood it was a cruise so it wasn’t too big of a deal. He said it was always well cleaned by the staff. I actually thought the room was a good size. I was expecting a tiny room, but I thought there was tons of storage and the two bathrooms was really nice. I also liked having a tub even though we didn’t have kids. Dh used it to soak his workout clothes. The staff and stateroom host were great! We loved the towel animals and chocolates every night. You don’t see that anymore at WDW.
  • Another thing I really liked about our room was the On Demand movies. We watched parts of movies every day. I don’t think we actually finished any of them, but it was nice to have the option.
  • We had a verandah room and I really liked having the option to step outside every now and then. I’m not sure if I would get one again for a Caribbean cruise just because you see water for the most part. I bet a verandah is much better on a scenic cruise.
  • We did have one major issue with our stateroom. One night we received a letter saying they would be doing routine maintenance in our room. They must’ve come in when we were out of the room and everything seemed to be fine. The next day we woke up and were trying to get ready for our excursion and this is when the issue started. The sinks weren’t draining properly and when Dh went to take a shower the drains in the floor started spurting water. Both of our bathroom floors flooded so the floors were covered with about an inch of water. I wasn’t able to take a shower or go to the bathroom that morning before our excursion so it was a big inconvenience. Luckily it was a port day and we had an excursion. We went down to guest services and the issue was fixed by the time we got back. We didn’t ask for any compensation since they fixed it so quickly, but it was definitely an inconvenience.

Ship and Staff
  • Dh said everyone was over the top nice. He said the ship was always clean. He did think the main deck (11) was crowded most of the time. I agree with him on all of those things. The staff were fantastic. We didn’t encounter any staff member that was unfriendly. The whole ship was spotless and they were constantly repainting or touching things up. Deck 11 was always pretty busy and the adult area was especially busy. We were only able to get chairs on our Castaway Cay day and the pool was always super packed.
  • We didn’t use the spa, but we did use the gym. It was busy sometimes, but there were always enough treadmills for people to use. I thought the ship had enough activities that it didn’t need all of the extras like a bowling alley, casino, or skating rink.
  • It was pretty easy to navigate the ship and find out where we were going. I never felt like the ship was too big so I’m curious what the two smaller ships are like.

Overall Itinerary
  • I think this is a big thing to talk about. I mentioned it earlier, but we aren’t beach people. The main reason for choosing the Caribbean itinerary was because it was a Florida rate and we were booking a last minute trip. Would we do a Disney cruise again? Yes, if the price was right and when our kids are older (we thought maybe like 8 or so). Would we do a Caribbean cruise again? No, most likely not. Part of the problem was I was pregnant so I wasn’t able to do some of the things I normally would do like zip lining, jet skiing, or tubing. We also like to see the history and architecture or a place and the ports we visited were mostly sit on the beach or shop type of places. We are planning our next trip and it’s between Norway or the British Isles. We haven’t fully decided if we will cruise (if we choose Norway), but Dh has already mentioned he would rather fly and tour ourselves. It will really depend on our baby’s temperament, but I’m not upset we did this cruise. Disney did a fantastic job and I had a lot of fun. Dh felt we wasted a lot of time by being on the ship and that’s why he would rather fly and stay somewhere instead.
 
Great update! I really liked our time at Serenity Bay, and I agree that the snorkeling isn't that great at Castaway Cay. Glad you liked the show, too. I'm impressed that you could run in the heat!
Thanks! I was surprised I was able to run the entire race. I think we would've struggled a lot more had it not been for the cloud covering the sun. When we finished the race and went to Serenity Bay the cloud moved and it was SO hot.
 

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