Island Paradise

The ultimate destination for any Disney Cruise Line Caribbean itinerary is Disney's private island, Castaway Cay (pronounced "Key"). Disney purchased the island, once known as Gorda Cay, and transformed it into a tropical paradise for cruise Guests. Best of all, a full-size pier was built, allowing the ships to pull right up to the island. No lining up for tenders to take you back and forth here!

Step off the ship, and step onto Castaway Cay, where you can immediately tell this is a Disney destination. Of course, there are the friendly Cast Members and top-quality amenities, but there are also doses of storytelling.

The Castaway Cay Post Office is a functioning facility, where postcards and letters may be mailed with a special postmark. Look closely, and you'll see that office manager May B. Tamara specializes in Mail by Sea. She even has plenty of message-carrying bottles in her incoming and outgoing mail boxes. Just don't ask when your message might get delivered. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Things run on Bahamian time around here.

Nearby you'll spot some other island businesses. Some are legitimate third-party operators offering excursions for Disney Cruise Line Guests, but others are pure fiction. Take, for example, Big Al Weiss Shrimp Distributors. It's the Castaway Cay equivalent of a window on Main Street. Al Weiss (who happens to be fairly tall) was President of Walt Disney World when Disney Cruise Line was launched. Today, Al is head of worldwide operations for Disney Parks & Resorts.

What most Guests look forward to on Castaway Cay is the beaches. From the family beach to Serenity Bay, the adults-only beach, they really are spectacular, with white sand and clear blue water.

There are lots of other fun sites to discover, though, as you wander the island. Most folks like to stop for a photo at Mount Rustmore, a pile of marine scrap metal turned cartoon pop art.

There's also an old airstrip on the island, complete with a couple of World War II vintage planes. Labeled "Castaway Air," the planes sport Disney character insignia actually designed by the Studio for the military back in the 1940s.

Just off the airstrip is a biking and hiking path that leads to an observation tower. The tower offers great views of the entire island, the Caribbean Sea and the Disney ship in the distance. There's another little surprise for those who make the trip out to the tower: these wacky vignettes, featuring a cast of comical pelicans.

Back closer to the pier, pirates have approached the island. Lurking just off shore is Davy Jones's ship, Flying Dutchman, from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The ship is a near-full-scale prop actually used in the production of the film, parts of which were shot nearby. If the top of the ship looks odd, it's because it wasn't built with full rigging. Instead, poles stick out from the masts to hold the ropes in the right places, as if the ship were complete. Shots of the whole ship at sea were produced as digital effects.

Inevitably, the day at Castaway Cay must come to an end. It's not the end of the pirate fun, though. The swashbuckling continues on board that evening with the Pirates in the Caribbean deck party, fireworks at sea, and a visit from the one and only Captain Jack Sparrow.

It's the perfect conclusion to a fabulous day of Disney adventure on Castaway Cay.

A Cruise for Kids

Disney Cruise Line popularized the concept of family cruising when they launched their first ship in 1998. Many Guests who sail with Disney are surprised, however, to discover that the ship isn't exactly overrun with children as they might expect. Apart from adult-only areas like the Quiet Cove Pool and Palo, the Disney ships also feature areas exclusively for the kids.

Since there's no casino on board (Disney feels strongly that gambling doesn't jive with the family atmosphere), all the space on Deck 5 is allocated for Flounder's Reef Nursery and the Oceaneer Club (primarily for younger Guests) and Oceaneer Lab (for the older kids).

My boys especially loved Oceaneer Club. The entire room is designed to look like you're on a pirate ship straight out of Peter Pan. There are cannons and barrels and nets. Hook's cabin is filled with games, computer activities and dress-up accessories. The Disney Characters even stopped by periodically. Stitch taught the kids how to surf. Cinderella told her story, and Peter Pan himself flew in specifically to deliver a message to my boys (courtesy of their grandparents).

The children's activities are closely supervised and coordinated by a team of dedicated Disney Crew Members. Each child is given an electronic wristband to wear for the duration of the cruise, and parents are given pagers and a personal password. Once children are signed in to the Club, they're in a completely secure environment that's so much fun, many of them never want to leave. As soon as they do, though, Mom and Dad are just a page away.

Kids' activities even extend to Disney's private island, Castaway Cay, where Scuttle's Cove is an outdoor play area exclusively for children. Operated much like the Club and Lab on the ship, Scuttle's Cove gives kids a chance to play beach volleyball, dig in the sand, have a dance party with the Characters or just hang out while their parents take in a massage or a jet ski excursion.

On the final day of the cruise, all the kids who have participated in Oceaneer Lab and Oceaneer Club have a chance to come together and put on a little show for their families. "FriendShip Rocks!" is presented in the Walt Disney Theater, where the children all file on stage and get to perform a little dance routine with none other than Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

It's a fun finale to a great cruise packed with activities the kids will be talking about for a long time to come.

Adventures Away!

Once on board a Disney Cruise Line ship, there are certain formalities that must be handled: finding your stateroom, making a reservation for dining at Palo, the mandatory safety drill and of course, consuming enormous quantities of shrimp at Beach Blanket Buffet (Topsiders on Disney Magic). Once all those important things are out of the way, it's time to party!

To kick off the cruise, everyone packs onto Decks 9 and 10 for the "Adventures Away!" Sail-Away Celebration. It's a huge party, hosted by Disney Crew Members and complete with streamers and Disney Characters. The action takes place on stage, in the crowd and on the giant Ariel-Vision screen attached to the forward funnel (at other times, the screen shows Disney movies and TV shows). They even pull a floor covering over the Goofy Pool at Midship, creating even more room for all the revelers.

Once the party's done, it's time to relax and let the Captain take the wheel as you enjoy one of the best vacations of your life. Take a stroll, participate in a class, enjoy the spa, watch a movie... there's so much to do on board. If swimming is your thing, and you just can't wait for Castaway Cay, dive into one of the three main pools on the ship.

The Quiet Cove Pool is set aside exclusively for adults. At Midship is the Goofy Pool for families, and then there's the Mickey Pool for the little ones. The Mickey Pool even has a water slide for the adventurous and a shallow splash area for infants and toddlers.

What many Guests don't realize is there's actually a fourth pool on the ship. On Deck 5 Forward is a pool reserved exclusively for Disney Crew Members. The crew on the ship work contracts which are typically several months long, followed by a period of shore leave lasting several weeks. The crew is also incredibly diverse, with representatives from more than 50 countries on board, and the service they provide their Guests is incredible even by Disney's high standards.

Admittedly, a Disney Cruise Line vacation is a favorite getaway for me and my family. There's so much to love about the ship, the destinations and the entire experience, and there's absolutely nothing like the feeling of being on the top deck as the ship leaves port and hearing that magical horn blow "When You Wish Upon a Star." It gives me goosebumps every time.

A Wonder of a Ship

The ships of Disney Cruise Line, Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, have been sailing for more than a decade (since 1998 and 99, respectively). They are still among the most beautiful ships on the seas. Designed in the style of classic ocean liners of the past, the ships combine elegance and luxury with a whimsy that only Disney could provide.

The primary colors of the ships are black, white, red and yellow... the traditional colors of Mickey Mouse. Disney sought special permission from the Coast Guard to use Mickey yellow for the ship's lifeboats, as opposed to the usual orange. It was deemed that the yellow boats would be just as easy to spot in the event of a rescue, and permission was granted. As for that black, though... it really isn't. The hull of the ship is actually painted the darkest possible shade of blue. Avoiding true black allows the hull to deflect some of the sun's rays, saving energy on board.

The Mickey colors aren't the only Disney details on the outside of the ship. The funnels sport a large white Mickey shape. On the Disney Wonder (pictured here), the bow features an image of Mickey as Steamboat Willie, while Donald Duck hangs off the stern trying to paint the ship as Huey threatens to cut him down. Disney Magic displays Sorcerer Mickey on the bow and Goofy tangled up off the stern.

Once aboard the ship, the beauty and elegance are amped up considerably. The three-deck high atrium is a gorgeous example of Art Nouveau, a style of architecture and design prominent at the turn of the 20th century. Art Nouveau is marked by curved forms and floral motifs, complemented here by the blown glass chandelier custom designed by artist Dale Chihuly. Disney Magic also features a Chihuly chandelier in an atrium modeled on the later Art Deco period.

The centerpiece of the atrium is a bronze statue of Ariel, bringing one obvious Disney reference to the space (a Helmsman Mickey statue can be found in this spot on the Disney Magic).

There are other, more subtle references to be found, though. Look for Mouse ears and other character silhouettes worked into the ironwork on the stair railings and elevator towers throughout the atrium.

Of course, being a Disney ship, Disney imagery is everywhere, but many Guests are pleasantly surprised to discover that the "Disney" on the Disney Cruise Line is rarely big, bold or cartoonish. More often, it's done with class and style.

A New Kind of Animal-tronic

I was honored this week to be a guest on the WDW Today podcast with Matt Hochberg, Len Testa, Mike Newell and (the fabulous) Annette Owens. For Episode 592, they invited me to talk about one of the many projects I worked on as a writer at Walt Disney Imagineering; a project very few people actually got to see.

In the late-90s, Imagineering Research & Development was starting to think about new ways to use technology to present characters in the parks in a natural, realistic way. Audio-Animatronics had been around since the 1960s, and while there had been many advances over the years, they were still restricted to performing in a specific area within an attraction or show.

One of the first projects designed to break the ties of traditional Audio-Animatronics was a dolphin, created in partnership between R&D and a motion picture effects firm and designed to be puppeteered in real time in an aquatic environment.

The dolphin figure was tested in two different applications. I was fortunate enough to be the show writer assigned to the dolphin test conducted at The Living Seas at Epcot. In that scenario, we dubbed the dolphin DRU-1: The Dolphin Robotics Unit. A key element of the story was that researchers at The Living Seas were studying live dolphins to learn about their cognitive and problem-solving abilities - how dolphins think. DRU-1 allowed scientists to study dolphin propulsion and hydrodynamics - how dolphins move - with the potential goal of discovering newer, more efficient methods of propelling boats, ships or submarines. The story was based on real science and was a great fit for Epcot. Because of the story being told, DRU-1 was "dressed" to look like a robot and operated tethered to a power cord. The show was presented at Epcot over a five-day period in October 1999.

In a separate test run, the dolphin was dubbed Del (short for delphinius, Latin for dolphin) and presented in the water at Disney's Castaway Cay in the Bahamas. For that test, Del was operated in just the dolphin skin and under battery power. Guests selected to participate in the experience were told up front that Del was robotic, but once they found themselves in close contact with it in the water, they still behaved as though it were real.

While both of these tests with the robotic dolphin were incredibly well-received by Guests, ultimately it was determined that aquatic figures (at least at that time) would be impractical for a daily theme park operation. It was the beginning, though, of a new way of thinking about technology and characters in the parks. Eventually, it would lead to what has become known as the Living Character Initiative at WDI, producing such marvels as Lucky the Dinosaur, Muppet Mobile Lab, Turtle Talk with Crush and Chef Remy.

I recently learned that the Show Producer on the dolphin project, Roger Holzberg, has uploaded a fantastic video of DRU-1 (and Del) to YouTube. Take a look: