This is the final part of the Disney Cruise review. It may be long when it’s all said and done, but I need to get it all out and move on with my life. I present to you, days 3-5.
Day 3: Nassau, Bahamas
Jeni and I had just taken a trip to the Bahamas with our husbands, but this time was obviously a completely different experience.
The Atlantis
This was our only paid for, organized excursion. We were told to meet at 9 am outside the ship and we would be transported to the Atlantis. I have always wanted to check this place out and this was a great low commitment way to do it.
After waiting in a sweaty line, following that line for quite some time and waiting in another sweatier line it was time to get on the large van, or maybe it was more of a small bus.
We hit the bus driver jackpot and Kylie and I got to sit shotgun. He had a silly script, laughed at all his own jokes like this, “hahhahaburrrmeow” It got weird. What started out as funny was soon like, are you really going to laugh like that every single time? Ok yes you are.
He liked to pretend that we were all celebrities and he called out a few of us that he thought looked like famous people. The first one he called out was an asian woman sitting right behind him. He was all, “oooohhhh we have Michelle Chan here, Jackie Chan’s sister!” I thought, how odd and honestly awkwardly racist. He went on and on about Jackie Chan’s sister which seemed super strange until we realized he was going to start calling out many of us.
Out of all the people on the vanbus, he called Zach Tom Cruise, me Jennifer Aniston, Tiffany Katie Perry and then some other dude Jerry Jones.
We drove for about 20 minutes taking in the Bahamian T’ings and listening to our driver’s canned commentary and hahhahaburrrmeows.
Pulling up to the Atlantis was pretty exciting. We didn’t get to go through a main entrance or see much of the inside. They shuffled us in through a cigar smokey sports bar back door, right on past the casino and out again to the water park area. My take on the Atlantis so far, it’s huge, it’s pretty crowded and lots of buses get dropped off here.
The guides just set you free and tell you to that there will be shuttles running back and forth every ten minutes so you can leave whenever you would like.
The Waterpark
We wanted to go find some chairs by one of the pools and get set up. Well this was easier said than done. Even though there were thousands of chairs, there were none available. My kids (particularly the 10 year old) were in full on whining mode and the heat and frustration made me about snap. While at this waterpark I heard several parents snapping. One mom told her kid something about how she had made the past week difficult and terrible and I secretly wanted to give her a running chest bump to let her know I’m on her team, I get it and we moms are all in the same annoying ass boat with our unappreciative grumpy kids. Family vacations are fun y’all, but the amount of redirecting, arguing, whining and melt downs can make us nuts. The highs and lows of way more togetherness than usual.
Mousketip: Find an employee, give him $20 and ask if he can bring you out some chairs. We did this and had a dude rolling out chairs in no time. We were willing to shell out some serious dough to get a cabana, but even those were all booked up. We were kind of stumped on what to do after wandering around in the heat and this worked like a charm!
We swam for a while in one of the shallow pools and it was so nice to not be in ocean water! There were some small slides nearby that all of my kids loved and it got Blake pumped up to go on the big serpent slide that winds around and ends with floating through a clear tube in the shark aquarium. Blake wanted to do it again and again!
Our excursion was supposed to include lunch, but none of us could even figure out where to get that so we went to whatever the closest restaurant was and got some nachos and drinks.
My hilarious oldest kid Blake really took a liking to these frozen concoctions.
Kylie talked my mom into going down the shark slide with her and she ended up hating it and crying. So ride at your own risk.
We were getting pretty tired, so we decided we would go on a river ride before we headed back to the ship. Tiffany stayed behind at the chairs and Zach and Griffin were doing the small slide 99 more times.
It took a while to find it, but when we found the entrance to this ride we waited in the long double tube line. Blake and Kylie were together and I was with Aven. My mom got a single tube and we were off!
The Current is a mix of a lazy river and wave pool. It has rapids and is a mile long river. I looked at Kylie and said, “If we get separated, I will wait for you and if y’all get ahead, wait for us.” Seemed simple.
We got caught in one of those annoying whirlpool things where it feels like every single person that got in the river minutes after you is flying past you and you are stuck next to a rock wall like WTH. When we busted out of that I never could have anticipated the absolute pandemonium that would ensue.
Kylie, I’m sure thinking she would become separated and never see me again, FREAKED OUT! She was trembling and screaming my name obnoxiously and loudly. It was so irrational because at that point it was a simple lazy river. People were staring, I was trying to get her to calm down, it was useless. Blake, unable to just let it go, joined in the frenzy. We exited at the first stop, approximately 1 minute into the ride, and got the heck out of there. We just aren’t fully ready for big kid rides yet.
The Skirmish
As we are having the time of our life on the river, Tiffany is getting in a huge altercation with some feisty New Jersey folks #GTL. They were completely convinced that we had taken over all of their chairs and thrown their stuff on one chair. No. No we did not do that irate sir. It didn’t just stop there, they went to get security to try and throw her out. When we got back to the chairs and she told us what had happened, we were like peace out Atlantis!
We made it back to the bus stop after taking a wrong turn and ending up in some underground aquarium. It really is an enormous place!
Tiffany’s final instagram story sums up her opinion.
Final Atlantis Thoughts
I thought it was overall a really awesome place. It would be highly irritating to have spent big bucks to stay there only to find out that busloads of people are dropped off all day long. Getting to experience it in a fun size way was enough for me to see that I probably wouldn’t plan a big full vacation there. We did only get to see a teeny tiny bit of what the Atlantis experience is all about though so it’s hard to fairly judge.
Back on the ship! Some room service (no extra charge!) and chill time was just what we needed before another great show and another fine feast!
But first, a meeting with the man, the mouse, the legend.
Believe
The Golden Mickeys Show was so impressive that I wasn’t about to miss any of the others! Believe started off a bit odd. A dad who is busy with work and his child daughter, played by a full grown adult, who wants him to believe in magic so badly. I got annoyed right off the bat because his nickname for her is “baby mine” which was too heavy on the cheese. A genie appears, wishes are involved and 12 scenes of Disney favorites are performed.
The show is under an hour and you know that’s already plenty long for me. It moves along fast and I only rolled my eyes maybe 6 times. My favorite scenes were Mary Poppins and The Louisiana Bayou. Entertaining and although pretty goofy in parts, I would definitely recommend seeing it!
Royal Palace
The Royal Palace restaurant is inspired by Disney classics, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. My least favorite of the restaurant decor, but still very well done.
The Food
The only times I have had escargot is on cruise ships. I don’t like it really, I just try it because it’s strange and fun. The bread was Brioche with an olive spread, for an appetizer I had Iced Lobster and Jumbo Shrimp and we shared the snails. By then I was full, but Marko doesn’t play around. Eat as much as you can or he legit feels offended. Maybe that’s how they do up in Montenegro. A farmhouse salad and filet and I was basically in pain. Saying no to dessert isn’t my vibe, so I got the creme brûlée and hoped I could stand up and act natural after eating all of this.
The way I nailed the Aurora impression is frankly inspiring. Try and beat my head tilt, smile, eyes and hand positioning.
Helping Griffin decide what he wanted for dinner looks like it takes a team. This picture is highly misleading because every night…
…he would take a risk and order off the menu. Banana. The snails are the top left picture and the waiters made Blake’s napkin into a princess bow. This is the one and only time you will see her in a bow.
After dinner we went straight back to the room to pass out. Let it be known that no alarms needed to be set.
Day 4: Castaway Cay
We arrived back at Disney’s Private Island, Castaway Cay. This place is cool and all, but we unanimously decided we would hang around on the ship and see what all there was to do. That way if we ran out of stuff to keep us busy, we could still go to the beach later in the day and avoid the cluster that we got caught up in the first go round.
Mousketip: DO. THIS. It turned out to be our best day and with two trips to Castaway Cay, we didn’t feel like we missed out on anything.
We got some breakfast and Blake took her daily pic with this bird. The ship was an absolute ghost town. Amazing!
We knew there were all sorts of places we hadn’t seen yet and we had the whole thing to ourselves. It was unreal! Our first mission was finding out what this scavenger hunt game was all about that we had seen people doing.
Midship Detective Agency
This mystery solving interactive game sent us all over the ship looking for clues. Zach and I had just as much fun as the kids, this is a must do for all ages! You start at a kiosk on deck 5 where you get a badge and casebook. The badge has a barcode that works with the stations that are disguised as art. Scan the badge and it comes to life and helps you know what move to make next. You take notes and mark out suspects in your casebook as you narrow it down and solve the crime! With multiple possible endings, you can play again and again. And that we did. The girls loved this so much they wanted to take Ommy and Tiffany to play later that day.
The Oceaneers Club
You always hear of people’s kids begging to be dropped off at the kid’s club. Why do my kids not ever want to do this?! They had an open house this day, so parents and kids could go in and hang out together. Zach and I just must be so dang cool because they wanted to be with us at all times. I wanted to snoop around in there anyway, so this worked out perfectly!
Andy’s room!!! When I was a kid I wanted to go to “Honey I shrunk the Kids” playground so bad. I’m hoping they got to live out some sort of shrunken human fantasy with this and don’t grow up feeling deprived.
Star Wars: Millenium Falcon.
Is that good enough for a synopsis on this room? I don’t know one single thing about Star Wars. It reminded me of Flight of the Navigator if you remember that 80s movie.
The Infinity Game Room had endless games and game consoles to play on.
Pixie Hollow was adorable!
Alrighty, enough of that. Do you want to know what my kids talk about most from the entire Oceaneer’s club and maybe even the whole Disney Cruise?
The hand washing station. Hand washing. Thrilling. It is pretty year 3000 though. You put your hands in there and they are washed and dried for you in a spinning, air blowing crazy machine. Meet George Jetson.
His boy Elroy. (had to, couldn’t stop at George)
Nemo’s Reef
Nemo’s Reef splash pad was a huge hit! Griffin would have taken up permanent residence there. The girls had fun watching over him and we could eat or sit right outside the glass wall and keep an eye on him going down the same slide over and over for an hour. Very easy 3 year old activity.
Once Kylie and Aven realized this yellow slide was not terrifying and was actually perfect for them, they spent a ton of time doing that. I still had to watch them and stand at the bottom of the slide so not to disrupt their comfort level.
Blake was ready to go back to the room and being 12 years old, I try and give her some freedom and independence. She is not very good with directions so we were all semi concerned she would be moseying around the ship for an hour and have to get an employee to help her. She made it easily to the room and when we arrived we saw this clipped on the door.
The kids loved these elevators and there were different characters and scenes in each one.
Pirate Night
Here is my first time Disney Cruiser Pirate Night check list.
Dress up. There will be people that belong in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. There will be people that buy a bandana in the gift shop and tie it on their head and call it a day. Most people are buccaneered out and our level of piracy seemed to be just right.
Take pictures with pirate characters.
Hit the bar and get the drink of the day and people pirate watch before dinner!
Dinner was back at the Animator’s Palette. Crab cakes, wedge salad and shrimp pasta. This is the Jack Sparrow fireworks show and party night. I opted to take Griffin back to the room. He was sleepy and I didn’t really care to mess with a party. Our waiter gave us great advice if you are wanting a front row seat for the fireworks!
Mousketip: On deck 12, right above the yellow twisty slide, is the best spot to see the fireworks. They are shot off on one side of the ship. Rumor has it that Disney is the only cruise line that can do fireworks at sea because their firework shells are not only biodegradable, they become fish food when they hit the ocean.
Truth be told, my people said the fireworks were cool, but didn’t blow their mind. It’s an instagram vs. reality situation.
The top two pictures are the reality. The bottom was taken from the website and may make it look a bit more epic than it is.
Pirate night was a ton of fun. We swashed. We buckled. Time to crash.
Day 5: At Sea
This is the one and only day at sea aboard the Disney Dream. So if you didn’t take advantage of all the onboard fun like we did prior to this, you will be fighting the crowds to do it on day 5.
Aquaduck
We got up whenever we felt like it and decided to go to the pool so we could ride the Aquaduck! Zach and I tried it out first.
It’s a water coaster with a 4 deck drop. You zoom along in a transparent tube and can see the ship in a whole different way. We tried to take our phones on there to video, but they said no.
It was so fun that I immediately went on it again with Blake. She loved it so much that she rode it over and over solo until it was time to leave the pool.
Mixology Seminar
Zach, Tiffany and I had made reservations to take a mixology class at 2:00. We reported to the Skyline Bar eager to learn some new bartending tips!
The Skyline Bar had “windows” that looked out onto famous skylines. The images would change every few minutes revealing a new city.
We made 5 different popular cocktails. I was thinking how fun it will be to get a little buzz and then go back and do the water slide some more.
Howard was our teacher and we began with the tasty Bahama Mama! Down the hatch.
Moving right along to the Blue Margarita. When I say I can feel it in my veins, watch out. My wacky level is about to go up multiple wacky notches.
Up next, the mango mojito!
A 10 count of rum huh?
At this point it become less of a seminar, more of a bachelorette party.
This mysterious ingredient Castaway Sunset, was followed up by a layered shot. All this in an hour. I normally don’t consume this much alcohol in 3 months.
My fun idea of getting a bit tipsy and enjoying the rest of my day was no longer an option. I was shit faced. I vaguely remember going back to find my mom and tell her the class was over. I sent Jeni this selfie and it explains a lot. Get out of public and go to bed with that maniac expression lady.
So I did. And I emerged somehow normal and ready to go see the last show of the cruise. This was really out of character for me so no one shamed me. Thank you for that.
Beauty and the Beast
I was honestly worried that this would be too slow moving for me. The other shows changed songs and characters so quickly and that really kept my interest.
Beauty and the Beast was so very good! They saved the best for last. If I could have cut out two or three songs it would have been absolutely perfect. I got antsy when slow ballad type songs would come on that I hadn’t heard before. It was seriously impressive and broadway caliber. The costumes and sets were awesome and this is a must see!
As usual, we left the show and went out on the deck to take a pic.
This time before dinner, we hit up the silent disco!
Here is a minute or so of how strange these things are. Silence in the room. People dancing, you can hear random people singing. See if you can guess what song we were gettin’ our boogie on to. Dancing in an off the shoulder body suit is not recommended.
We got to eat one last time at my favorite restaurant!
Griffin may have been eating a Mickey bar, but Marko and Sanford were eating Griffin up all week. He’s a charmer!
We had to hurry back to the room to make sure all of our stuff was packed and outside ready to be picked up. A family of 6 makes this not fun. Don’t forget to leave out what you need for the next day because once the luggage is gone, it’s gone.
Mousketip: 100% take advantage of this luggage pick up service. Otherwise you are stuck hauling it around yourself. Just remember to leave some shoes out. Barefoot at the airport is just awkward, ask Blake. Have your luggage out by the exact time they say. They aren’t messing around with their punctuality.
The time has come to say goodbye, one more sleep, a quick breakfast and we had a magical express to catch!
Checkout was smooth and easy. All I really had to do was pick up my USB of pictures I purchased on our way off the ship. Disney employees directed us to the right bus and that was it!
I’d say a cliche little thing like M-I-C, see you real soon, but this kind of vacation is too expensive to see you real soon, maybe again someday. We had the time of our lives and cruiser or not, Disney Cruise Line knows how to do it. We hit this at just the right ages and I have no doubt that my kids will look back on this as one of the best vacations of their childhood. I highly recommend this cruise and hopefully you got a good honest account of our time together. The great highs and the bad lows because after all, that’s what family vacations are made of.
omg. I think We had that same driver! We had gone in January. Hahaha. He also claimed it was his birthday, who knows if that was true. Every now and then my hubby will go and do that guys weird laugh. We always thought it was more like hahhahaburrrmeow. So weird.
100% the same guy!!! hahaha! He for sure claimed it was his birthday and that was for sure his laugh. I could not remember the actual weirdness of it and now I am changing it in the post. Tell your hubby thanks for remembering lol!!!
I just lauged the entire way THROUGH this. I would like to say that of PWP says a show is good-it must have been incredible.
It helped so much that they were an hour or less. Otherwise it would have been a fail.
This made me laugh so many times! I had already forgotten some of this happened. Amazing trip and memories made.
The best! So glad we did this!!!
I’m always honest, even if it sucks. Thank you!
This is the most accurate family trip recap i have Read! Thank for keeping it real and not Pretending it was the “best. Trip. Ever.” I have been on two disney cruises and we never did thr atlantis for the same reasons you hated it. It just seemed awful to fight over chairs with the other hotel guests and other cruise sHip vIsitors. And too bad your travel agenY didn’t advise you on whEre the lUnch was! That stinks!!
Anyway- your honesty is what keeps me coming back to your blog! Well done!
Thanks!! I’ll keep the honesty flowing!
Once again, i’m laughing out loud!! You have a gift of making this seem like you are telling me this story out at a happy hour!! MY absolute favorite was the Moment the Mixology seminar turned into a BACHELORETTE party- sooo funny! Your honesty and details in the recap are great!
Thank you!! I write how I would be telling it to friends so that is a huge compliment!!!
we went on a Disney cruise this summer and this all sums it up perfectly! The highs and the lows. the crowds at excursions and the joy of having the boat to yourself. it was fun to check it off the list, but we aren’t one of those who will be booking one every summer. Hats off to those that we met that do. Thanks for being real!
Yes! Definitely not a frequent cruiser, but loved experiencing it!!