I Only Go on Cruises That Stop at Disney's Private Island Castaway Cay

Table Of Content

• Star student with 100 GPA denied admission to dream school because of NYC's 'subjective' lottery system
• Included restaurants on Disney Magic
• Disney Cruise Line prices
• Disney offers legitimately good liquor and tastings
• What is the best Disney Cruise Line ship?
• See if cabin upgrades are available when you arrive at the port.
• Disney's fleet of cruise ships
• Disney Fantasy Dining

Disney Wish has, by far, the highest number of annual sailings, with 105 three- and four-night cruises departing from Port Canaveral to the Bahamas. These sailings all go to Disney's private island, Castaway Cay; some also stop in Nassau, Bahamas. Some other cruise line's private islands, like Norwegian's Great Stirrup Cay, don't have a dock, so cruisers must take tender ships (small boats) from the cruise ship to the island. Disney's Castaway Cay, or simply Castaway Cay, is a private island in the Bahamas which serves as an exclusive port for the Disney Cruise Line ships. It is located near Great Abaco Island and was formerly known as Gorda Cay. In 1997, The Walt Disney Company purchased a 99-year land lease (through 2096) for the cay from the Bahamian government, giving the company substantial control over the island.

Star student with 100 GPA denied admission to dream school because of NYC's 'subjective' lottery system

There's plenty that sets Disney Cruise Line apart from its competitors — and not just the endless soft-serve ice cream, family-friendly staterooms, or being able to hug Mickey Mouse on your way to a Disney princess-themed restaurant. All five Disney cruise ships are elegantly designed and provide high-end services. With the best activities to keep kids entertained throughout the day, along with relaxing escapes for adults, Disney cruises offer plenty for the entire family. Most people will head straight to lunch, and if you’re hungry, that’s a great idea.

Included restaurants on Disney Magic

Once a bottle of wine is opened, Disney must serve it (in its entirety) that day. Because of this, Disney ships have a sommelier bin, with opened bottles of wine served by the glass at highly discounted rates. This is your chance to sip on otherwise pricey pours at a bargain price. Disney uses a dynamic pricing system, meaning the earlier you book, the more you’ll save. Disney Cruise Line ships have an assortment of pools and themed water play areas, with most offering a large signature waterslide.

Disney Cruise Line prices

Disney Cruise Line doesn’t offer the standard drink package other cruise lines offer. Drink packages allow you to pay a flat-rate price and drink as much alcohol as you’d like. The cheapest cost for two guests to Alaska from Vancouver is $2,983 in mid-September, while the same cruise will cost you $4,607 if you sail over the Fourth of July holiday. You can watch Disney films on the large-scale “Funnel Vision” screen at the Goofy Pool or Donald Pool during the day or night. Disney ships even play Disney, Star Wars and Marvel films the same day they’re released in theaters, broadcasting the newest films inside the Buena Vista movie theater. You'll certainly pay more for the privilege of sailing with Mickey and Minnie than with some other family-friendly lines.

The onboard gift shops are only open while the ship is at sea, and the popular items sell out (and generally don't get restocked while you're on board). You don’t want to sour a wonderful vacation with a never-ending line simply to exit the ship. Instead of leaving your luggage out the night before, carry it off the ship yourself and arrive at your final destination without having to wait in lengthy port queues. Cruise vacations are a great way to unwind and relax in some of the most beautiful locales in the world, and a Disney cruise takes the traditional experience up a notch with unique, familiar touches and a little bit of magic. With so much to know before you set sail with Disney Cruise Line, it's easy to miss out on the most interesting facts and features.

What is the best Disney Cruise Line ship?

They eat lunch fairly early, and are taken back to the ship before the beach closes. It’s worth noting that asking your server to bring you something from another restaurant is not a trivial undertaking. They will almost certainly do it, because they really want guests to be happy, but don’t spring a request on them unless you really can’t find anything else for your kids to eat. And if possible, let the service staff know early if your child has specific food issues. If they know in advance that your child will only eat french fries and chicken fingers, they can have those ready each night. There are kid’s menu options at all the table-service meals, but children are not limited to eating from those menus.

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There are often discounts for buying Wi-Fi access for the length of the cruise. Having a passport is always a good idea, but it's not technically required on all Disney cruises. For example, round-trip cruises originating in Port Canaveral, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Galveston, San Diego, New Orleans, New York and San Juan, Puerto Rico, often do not require a passport. All five Disney ships have amazing spaces for kids in the 3-to-12-year-old range in the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab.

Disney's fleet of cruise ships

The soft-serve ice cream is not very creamy, but it makes a nice snack on a hot day, and they usually rotate in some unusual flavors like mango or strawberry over the course of the cruise. Make sure you turn off the cellular service on your phone while you’re at sea, so you don’t end up paying through the nose for “cellular at sea” service. There is a Disney Cruise Navigator app that you can use on most iPhones and Android phones without needing to pay for internet access. The Navigator app includes activity schedules and menus, and has a kind of text message feature that seems to work much better these days. We found that notifications were showing up quickly when people messaged using the app (our experience was with iPhone, we don’t know how well Android works).

Disney Fantasy Dining

If you have a lot of bags, or they’re unwieldy, you probably are going to want to have the bags moved for you, but if you can handle your own bags in one trip, that makes things immensely less complicated. These days we always choose to handle our own bags, but there are times we wonder whether it’d be easier to have Disney do it, usually when we’re wrestling our big roller bags down the gangplank. It’s worth trying it both ways if you go on multiple cruises, because you never can tell which one will feel easiest for you.

Coast Guard for its ships' lifeboats to be yellow instead of regulation orange, to tie into the colors of Mickey himself — black, red, white and yellow. The US Coast Guard has released dramatic footage of the moment a pregnant woman was airlifted from a Disney cruise ship after suffering "health complications". Stowers wrote that during a deeper examination, they found more child sexual abuse videos, including those depicting multiple girls, aged as young as 9, as well as a video of a boy, aged 10 to 12.

Instead of spending each night in a formal dining room, Disney Cruise Line has rotational dining, wherein guests switch between three different restaurants. Disney cruise ships offer many other dining options beyond the three included themed restaurants — most included, some not. Just like you don't need kids to have a great time at Disney World or Disneyland, you can happily cruise as adults without offspring on Disney Cruise Line. Disney Wish especially invested in its adult offerings with an infinity pool, along with more bars spread around the ship instead of being clustered into one main area. Having sailed four of Disney Cruise Line's five ships, I can say the experience is indeed special — especially if you have kids. But Disney's not a one-trick cruise line that's only good for one age group.

The smallest available room with this service is the Concierge Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah, which isn't all that different from the Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah, other than the included concierge service. You can connect many of the cabins on the ship, which is often a much more economical solution for a family looking for more sleeping space (and bathrooms) than upgrading to a multibedroom suite. Roughly speaking, a family of four will pay about 50% more for two cabins than they will for everyone to stay in one cabin of the same size. These two ships are 984 feet long and 11 decks high, and each has the capacity for 2,713 passengers across 875 staterooms. On these two smaller ships, 70% of passenger cabins have ocean views or verandahs. With the addition of Disney Wish to the fleet, Disney Dream now spends its summer across the Atlantic, offering European cruises from May to September, then spending much of the rest of the year based out of Fort Lauderdale.

There aren’t any true attractions on board, but this is still definitely Disney. An 18% gratuity is added to onboard spa, bar, beverage, wine and deck service tabs. You can always add an additional gratuity for any of your services or servers. To give an idea of the cost, a four-person family on a four-night cruise would pay $232 in recommended tips.