Castaway Cay Challenge: Final Thoughts

In my last post, you may have noticed that I said Matthew and I might do the Castaway Cay Challenge again. However, after some further thought, I don't think we'll be signing up for it anytime soon. 

While getting on a cruise ship they day after a marathon is probably the best way to celebrate running 26.2 miles, there were some definite drawbacks to this particular cruise. 

The beautiful Disney Dream.

In short, there were too many damn adults on this cruise. 😊

I think Disney Cruise Line has established a perfect adult to kid ratio on its "normal" cruises. There are several adult-only spaces that are frequented by enough people to feel active but not overwhelmingly busy. This cruise had a ton more adults so the adult-only areas were packed! The pools, the bars, and the rainforest (our absolute favorite place on the Dream) were truly not as enjoyable because there were simply too many people.

THIS is how the adult pool should look the majority of the time. 

In fact, things were so crowded in the rainforest, this one woman actually went to get the spa manager to get them to "regulate" the heated beds as you are only supposed to relax on them for 30 minutes at a time if there are people waiting. Let me tell you, it was quite difficult to relax while this woman loudly complained and decided to be everyone's "countdown clock" to when they had to get off the beds. Not fun. 

In addition to the crowds, people's behavior was also a bit un-Disney like. One of the reasons we love cruising with Disney is that we've never seen someone intoxicated to the point they were acting like a fool. Well, while watching a fun game "Match Your Mate" in the nightclub, there was a group of people who appeared to be pretty drunk. So drunk, in fact, that one woman actually slammed her wine glass down on the table and broke the stem of the glass. She. broke. her. wine. glass. WHAT?! We left soon after because they were being so obnoxious and loud. 

And really, with $12 martinis, how does one even get that drunk with DCL?!
This one was pretty yummy though :-) 

I don't know if this cruise was irregular because it was the Castaway Cay Challenge cruise or if it was simply a fluke. We've now cruised on all four ships, a total of seven separate cruises, and have never experienced anything like this before. It definitely wasn't all bad; however there were a few things that will make us reconsider doing this particular cruise again. 

That being said, it was cool to be able to meet so many other Disney runners and talk "shop" with them about WDW Marathon Weekend. And the Castaway Cay Challenge 5k race itself was super fun.

But really, we don't need to do this cruise again. We much prefer our regular cruising routine: less crowded adult spaces and less drunk people. And besides, the Castaway Cay 5k happens every time they dock at Disney's private island in the Bahamas so we can run that race whenever we cruise to the island. 😄 

Disney Dream fans for life.