This is a post about our trip to the Bahamas on the Disney Dream in 2022.
Day 1 – Arrival in Miami
We arrived in Miami on Saturday. We had to work with the hotel to meet up with their shuttle, which was a little frustrating. Once I finally got a hold of them, they said they would be there in twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes later, we found that they were too full to pick us up and fit our luggage, by the time they got to our pick up. Even though we were the ones that actually called them.
When we finally got to the hotel, we were starving and tired. Since, for some reason, all the restaurants closed at three, we had to buy ramen from the hotel’s small convenience store, for dinner.
The hotel had a very powerful perfume smell throughout all the hallways. We soon figured out it was to mask the smell of marijuana that filled the place. I was fired from choosing the next hotel. 😊
Another thing that caught us by surprise was the humidity. We had no idea how bad it would be. While the temperatures in August were easily in the upper nineties in Spokane, the humidity made Miami’s eighty degree weather feel a lot hotter.
Day 2 – Hotel in Miami
We met up with Jeremy and Matt, flying in from Salt Lake. We warned them about the hotel shuttle fiasco and they chose to get an Uber. A smart idea.
We hung out at the hotel the rest of the day.
Day 3 – Cruise Day 1 – Embarkation Day
We got up ate the continental breakfast provided by the hotel, made a pact not to stay at this hotel on the way back, and got an Uber to the port.
We then waited for Matt to get his Covid test done, as it was required to embark. We had already done ours over Zoom.
Jeremy and Matt joined us after about twenty minutes. We then waited for a couple of hours for our boarding number to be called.
During this time, at Jeremy’s recommendation, since he was the only one of us that had been on a cruise before, we moved closer to the door that led to the ship.
After awhile, one of the Disney cast members took pity on us and let us on about an half an hour early.
After boarding the ship, we headed to our muster station, to check in. This is the area where we should meet in case there is an emergency. They assign guests to different areas of the ship to keep everything organized.
After checking in at our muster station and finding out that our rooms were not quite ready, we went to Cabanas (the buffet that is open for breakfast and lunch) to grab some lunch. We then went and checked out the adult swimming areas on deck 11, which is a lot less noisy then where the kids pools are.
After we checked out the adult pools, Jeremy showed us the spa and told us that he would pay for us all to get massages, which was super generous of him. We set the time for 4pm and headed back to our rooms to see if they were ready.
The couch area.
Once we got back to our cabins, they were ready. We then had to wait a bit for our luggage, probably because we boarded a little earlier. Once it arrived, we changed into our swimming suites and went to the pool and swam until our massages.
After being thoroughly relaxed from the massages we went back to the room and took a nap before the show. The show the first night was The Golden Mickey’s, which was great. Lots of music from different Disney shows organized like an award show.
We then ate Animators Pallet, which was cool. There are pallets, paint brushes, and other animator tools everywhere. The pillars were even paint brushes and pencils.
During dinner everything slowly comes to life, all the drawings become animated. Eventually we were in an underwater world straight out of Finding Nemo. Crush the turtle even comes along and chats up random guests. As dinner wraps up, everything goes back to normal and eventually all of the animated characters freeze back into drawings.
We also met our servers, who followed to each restaurant each night. This was great because they learned our preferences and were able to refer to us by name each night. They were super good at remembering all about us and amazing at their jobs.
After eating, we went back to our cabins. Where we found our towel animal of the evening. Each night our room service team would make little animals or characters out of a towel or blanket.
We didn’t stay up too late, as we were all exhausted. I did embark on my own and started exploring more of the ship, taking night pictures above deck, but I’m not going to include those here for the sake of brevity since there is still so much to cover.
Day 4 – Cruise Day 2 – A Day at Sea
After eating breakfast at Cabanas, I headed to the kid’s club, since they were having an open house to see what it was like. They had several different areas for the kids, like a Star Wars room, Pixie Hollow, and Andy’s room (from Toy Story).
Rex in jail.
I also found Pepe’s cabin on the way back to mine. I brought Courtney back later to get a picture by it.
After returning to the cabins, we all met up and went to a class to learn how to draw Goofy.
We then went to some of the stores on board, which are only opened while at sea. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the stores. While shopping on deck 11 we did catch the horn, which is an awesome experience.
There were quite a few character meets going on, and after passing by some we decided to stand in line for a few.
Unfortunately, most of the other character meets happened while we were busy with other activities.
We then spent a lot of time in the pools and by the ice cream, pizza place, and soda fountain.
We also spent some more time exploring the ship.
That evening the show was Beauty and the Beast, which was amazing. It was the best show and definitely Broadway quality.
for dinner we ate at The Enchanted Garden, which is based on Versailles. The restaurant had a a fountain in the middle of it and the lighting slowly changed from sunset to twilight, as we ate. It was a Courtney’s favorite dinning rooms.
After dinner we went back to our cabins and pretty much went straight to bed.
Day 5 – Cruise Day 3 – A Day in port at Nassau Bahamas and Pirate Night
We awoke in Nassau.
After having breakfast at Cabanas, we disembarked and headed for a pirate museum we had decided to visit.
Courtney and I purchased an eye patch, a hat, and a couple other items to prepare for Pirate Night back on the ship.
After the Pirate Museum, we decided to head back to the ship. The humidity made it extremely hot and none of us were used to it. Plus we were all excited to get back to a swimming pool.
On the way back we were hassled by many vendors, which we were able to ignore. But I did have one person offer me a free homemade bracelet, I told her I was not interested. She told me it was free, so I let her put it on me. After placing it on my wrist, she asked if I would donate to a charity. I told her I was not carrying any cash. She immediately removed the bracelet and said to come back when I had cash.
Once we were back aboard, we went back to our cabins to rest and then to change into our swim suits and head to the pools.
Matt and I took the opportunity, on returning to the ship earlier than most, to ride the Aquaduck. The line for this water coaster is usually pretty long, but by going while we were in port, we able to get on it in about twenty minutes.
In the late afternoon, the ship left Nassau and headed back out to sea.
Later that evening, we found bandanas on our beds that we could bring for Pirates Night. We changed into our pirate costumes and headed up on deck to enjoy the show.
The show was Mickey’s Pirates of the Caribbean, which had all the Disney characters including Captain Hook. It was a really fun show.
We went back to the The Enchanted Garden for our Pirate dinner. And then went to the show that night, which was a circus using lights. It was a good show, but did not compare to the usual show quality we had on the other nights. After that we went back on deck for a final pirate show with Captain Jack Sparrow. Then we had Disney’s Fireworks at Sea. (Disney is still the only cruise line that can do fireworks at sea)
We passed through Cabanas and saw all of their pirate themed food and decorations, but we were still too stuffed from dinner to take advantage of anything.
After that we went back to our cabins, we basically collapsed. It was a fun filled day, but a long day.
Day 6 – Cruise Day 4 – At Port in Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island)
We woke up to being docked at Disney’s Castaway Cay. This island was truly paradise.
We ate breakfast at Cabanas and headed out to explore Castaway Cay, excited for our snorkeling excursion.
Unfortunately, we were not equipped to take photos while snorkeling, so I do not have any pictures, but it was awesome. I am adding a link to a Youtube video of exactly where we went, so this will show you what it was like.
After snorkeling we went and got some lunch at the buffet on the island, called Cookies.
We then started heading back to the ship.
Once back on the ship we showered all of the sand off, since it “..gets everywhere.” -Anakin
Once we had showered and swam for a bit, we went to the movie theater to watch the latest Marvel movie, at the time.
Not too long after we finished the movie, the ship started to leave port.
After leaving Castaway Cay, we prepared for our dinner reservation at Palo’s, one of the up charge restaurants on the ship. We had to dress formal, as this restaurant has a dress code.
We then had to rush to our show, which was Disney’s Believe. It was fantastic. After that we started packing and getting ready to disembark the next day. We prepared our tips for all of our meal servers and room servers. We then turned in a little early to be ready for the next day. This night was a little sad, as it was our last night aboard.
Day 7 – Cruise Day 5 – Debarkation Day
We woke up around 6 or so and finished any last minute packing. We tagged our luggage that we were not taking with us and headed for our sit down breakfast at the Royal Palace dining room. This was the first and only time we ate in this dining room, as we had skipped it to eat at Palos.
We left the ship the same way we came on and reentered the Port of Miami. After briefly going through U.S. Customs, we were reunited with our luggage and called an Uber to go to the hotel. This time Courtney found the hotel and it was so much better.
We went swimming in the pool and considered going to the beach, but we were so tired we pretty much just hung around the hotel until Matt and Jeremy had to leave to catch their flight.
Day 8 – Flying Home and a Visit to Tracy Aviary
We left early in the morning and caught our flight back to Salt Lake, where we had a five hour layover, which really means a three hour layover, since it takes so long to leave the airport, go back to the airport, and then go back through security.
We spent the three hours at Tracy Aviary in Liberty Park, in Salt Lake.
We then went back to the airport and boarded the plane to home.
It was super rainy and stormy when we got back, our plane was even struck by lightening, which goes to show that planes can handle lightening strikes, so that’s good. It was very loud and a little scary at first, but once the crew explained what happened, it wasn’t so bad.
We then got off the plane, grabbed our luggage and car and went home.
And that was the end of that adventure! 😊