The Chambers

On Thursday we checked out of the Polynesian Resort and headed off on our Disney Cruise. Disney make the process of transferring from the resort to the chip very easy. We’d packed up our bags the night before and had them tagged and inside our room by 8am – went off for breakfast and when we came back they had taken them off to transfer them to the ship. We did not have to haul them to reception, or over to Port Canaveral – they looked after all of this for us,

We travelled by bus from the Polynesian Resort to Port Canaveral, which is the port of departure for Disney Cruises. The bus trip took about an hour and a half and Jackson fell asleep literally as we rolled into the port area. After clearing through security, customs and checking in, we were on board the ship and in our cabin by 1:45pm. I could see one challenge in front of us already….. How would we fit all our bags in our cabin?! Our cabin is much nicer than the last cabin we were in on a cruise boat (the Fairstar 14 or so years ago). The cabin has a balcony / verandah which is nice to sit out on and watch the waves go by – or the US Naval ship which is “parked” beside us in Nassau, the Bahamas. The cabin is roomy (for a cruise ship cabin) and has a Queen sized bed and a fold out sofa bed for Jackson.

After everyone was on board, there was a mandatory evacuation drill and then a “sail away” party. After the main part of the party, we were able to find a quiet spot on one of the decks and watch the port slip away.

Returning to our cabin we were confronted by a mountain of fat lime green suitcases blocking our doorway and part of our next door neighbours. Oops. First we hauled all the bags in to the cabin and then we looked for places where we could hide the luggage. The first place I always hide excess stuff in my bedroom is under the bed!! Unfortunately, the bags wouldn’t fit here, so the next spot is the cupboard and basically all the bags were able to fit in there!

We watched the waves slip by for a while and then went off to dinner. For each dinner meal we moved trough each of the ship’s three main restaurants and were seated with the same people on each night. We shared a table with a family of three from Pennsylvania, they are probably a couple of years older than Kylie and I and have a son named Zach who is 6. The two boys hit it off and they are a nice couple, thankfully.

Our second day on board the ship was spent docked in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. We planned on spending most of the day on the ship and taking in a movie and relaxing after a busy week of theme parks. There wasn’t much which interested us on the list of tours you can do from Nassau and in the research we did before the cruise, Nassau itself didn’t appeal all that much.

As you can imagine, on a Disney cruise they are well equipped to look after kids. There is a kids club, which Jackson basically spent all Friday in – mostly by his own choice. Kylie and I had a nice lunch, which was enjoyed at our own pace and not Jackson’s and we watched a movie ‘Evan Almighty’ and relaxed. We did go for a walk through Nassau. I bought myself a few Cuban cigars – real Cubans (apparently)! Nassau is apparently famous for its diamonds, but the shops we looked in mostly looked like they opened last week and were run by “dodgy brothers inc”, so no more diamonds for kylie…

Dinner Friday night was in a restaurant called Animator’s Palate, where the walls start as black and white cartoon outlines and end the meal very colourfully illustrated images from Disney cartoons and movies.

Castaway Cay is a Disney owned island which is available exclusively for Disney cruise guests. We spent Saturday docked here. It is a great set up and we enjoyed our morning here immensely! We had a tip to get off the ship as early as possible today and to go and enjoy the island before the throngs arrived and it turned out to be a great tip. We were amongst the first off the ship and onto the beach. Arriving at the beach there were thousands of deck chairs lined out on the beach, but we were one of only a few dozen people there, so we had our pick of the chairs and took up a prime position on a couple of hammocks nestled under some palm trees. It was great to lie there and listen to the wind rustle through the palm trees (with a little bit of Jackson screeching in the back ground).

We had a swim, we had a cocktail, we had a rest in a hammock and got to relax for a few hours and then we looked up and the place was crowded with people from the ship. It was hard to see it as the same place, there were people EVERYWHERE! Most of them were vacationing Americans (who’d have thought that on a cruise out of America?), so you can imagine the din and what had happened to the peace and tranquility and the wind rustling through the palm fronds… ( hi to all my American readers, I’m sure you know what I mean ). At this point we elected for lunch and to head back to the ship.

We decided to take Jackson to his first cinema movie experience. Ratatouile (or however you damn well spell it) was showing. The ship has a 300 seat cinema in which they play recently released Disney movies. Jackson has seen this movie advertised, but not seen it, so was keen to go along and watch. It was an interesting experience. At times he was almost begging to leave as he was a bit frightened – but (being the kind and loving parents we are) told him we couldn’t leave as the doors to the cinema were locked (or something like that) and we were able to make it through the movie. Afterwards Jackson was very proud of himself for having sat through the movie and he told us he loved the movie, except for a few mildly frightening bits.

After dinner we retreated to the cabin to pack our bags and prepare to travel to Vegas….

The cruise was fantastic – we met some nice people on board and Jackson LOVED the on board child care and being able to play with kids. Kylie and I think he is missing playing with kids (no comments about my maturity please) and he enjoyed the child care a lot, while we enjoyed no being pestered and had a nice peaceful lunch. The entertainment on board was good and the staff were all very helpful and geared to looking after kids – an example of this is Galina (our dining room server) would cut up Jackson’s dinner for him and fed him his breakfast pancakes on the last morning of the cruise! I think 4 days of cruising was enough for us and we could have skipped Nassau, but then we would have just cruised from Port Canaveral to Castaway Cay and there would not have been much cruising going on.