When the kids were younger, we used to do a lot of Disney World trips! As the kids have gotten older, we have moved on to other vacations and Disney World has taken a backseat. When my 11 and 13 year old recently became interested is Disney again, this Disney-loving mama jumped at the chance!
When the kids were 3 and 5, we sailed with a Disney Cruise (see my review here) on the Disney Magic. Since then, Disney has release 2 new, larger ships, the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy. We decided it was high time we tried out a new Disney ship and chose the 4-day itinerary to the Bahamas on the Disney Dream. This left us with a few days on both ends of the cruise to visit the Disney World Parks. It was an ambitious trip with a lot of planning involved so follow along on our Disney adventure!
Day 1 – Arrival to Disney Beach Club Resort. As I planned this vacation many months before, the 6 AM flight to Florida seemed like a great idea. We would arrive by 11:00 AM and have a whole day to spend at the famous Stormalong Bay pool at the Beach Club Resort. At 3:00 AM on this day, I was seriously doubting my sanity. However, it ended up being a great decision!
After landing, we navigated over to Disney’s complimentary (for Disney Resort guests only) Magical Express which is truly magical. Before leaving Denver, we attached these yellow tags provided by Disney to our luggage.
Magical Express Tags
The next time we saw our bags was in our hotel room about 2.5 hours after we landed! So we were able to head straight to the Magical Express Buses instead of waiting for our baggage at the carousel. A short wait in line, a few other hotel drop offs, and Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, we arrived at our hotel!
Disney’s Beach Club
Was it coincidence or magic that I was suddenly texted our room number and a notification that our room was available right as we pulled up? With Disney’s new Online Check-In, you set up a phone number and you are texted when your room is ready and you never have to stop by the front desk. You simply go to your room and your magic band is your key!
Disney’s Beach Club room
We had planned ahead and packed our bathing suits and sunscreen knowing that our bags might not arrive for a bit. We changed and then headed straight to the biggest reason to stay at the Beach Club: Stormalong Bay, the pool. This pool has a pirate ship water slide, sandy beach, and a lazy river! It’s a dream!
Disney’s Beach Club Stormalong Bay
Day 2 – Epcot. Now here is where Disney’s Beach Club shines. Epcot’s International Gateway entrance is a short 10 minute walk from the resort! So if you are looking to do any serious time in Epcot, this is your resort. On this day, we had planned a character breakfast a full 45 minutes before the park opened. This would allow us to enter the park while it was empty, have breakfast, and be in line for rides before the park even opened to the public!
Epcot before park opening
On this trip, I had decided to purchase a Disney Dining Plan and this character breakfast was a great use of table service points! We arrived to the “Garden Grill” at the land to have our farm fresh character breakfast with Chip, Dale, Pluto, and of course, the big cheese: Mickey Mouse. 
This was one of the tastiest meals I’ve had in Disney. It started with delicious cinnamon rolls and fresh fruit followed by a “bottomless” skillet of eggs, mickey waffles, hash browns, sausage, and bacon!
We finished our breakfast and the characters by 8:45 and we were in line for Soarin’ before the park even opened! Our plan worked! The rest of day flew by and we were even able to sneak back to our hotel for a few hours to rest before returning for the Epcot Food and Wine Festival that was going on! Our last stop of the night was to Germany for a full buffet and German Oompah band! Another great use of table service Dining Plan points!
Germany in Epcot
The AquaDuck slide
Then it was time for the lunch buffet at Cabana’s. Right as we finished lunch, an announcement was made that our cabins were ready! We rushed upstairs to see our cabin for the next 4 nights. As an obsessive researcher, I had found that the balcony cabins on the back of the ship had HUGE balconies for the same price as regular balcony cabins so I just had to book one!
Cabin 7194
Our cabin for 4: The couch folds into a bed and the pullman bed pulls down from the ceiling above it making bunk beds!
Dinner this night was in the Royal Court with dining staff dressed as Prince Charming in a very regal setting! It was early to bed (get started to buy the best from here) for us this night after the nightly show, The Golden Mickeys.
Day 4 – Nassau, Bahamas. Bright and early, we were docked in Nassau. After many visits to Nassau and Atlantis on Paradise Island, we decided to take it easy and walk to a local beach, Junkanoo Beach. This was a short 15 minute walk from the pier and we were able to rent 2 chairs and an umbrella. Vendors were lined up selling food and drink and my daughter was able to get her hair braided!
Junkanoo Beach
We returned to the ship ready for our dining room rotation of Animator’s Palate. This is decorated in an adorably artistic theme with Crush from Turtle Talk interacting with you!
Animator’s Palate Dining Room
For this dinner, we donned our family costumes for Halloween on the High Seas! As a sailing in October, this was marked a specialty sailing to celebrate Halloween. After dinner, there was trick or treating and a special 4D showing of the Nightmare Before Christmas with bubbles, snow, and lighting effects!
Halloween on the High Seas
Day 5 – Castaway Cay. Having missed this highly anticipated port last Disney cruise, I was anxious to explore Disney’s private island! I was so nervous until I peeked out from the balcony and saw that we had indeed docked.
Disney’s private island: Castaway Cay
Castaway Cay was worth the wait! We found a lovely shaded spot on the family beach. My husband and I ordered frozen drinks from the passing waiter and the kids ran back and forth between the waterslide and the play equipment. At some point, we all were hungry enough to visit the complimentary BBQ buffet. Then we donned our snorkeling equipment (which we brought from home but borrowed the mandatory life vest) and set off for the snorkeling lagoon. In addition to seeing all the sunken treasures such as statues, ships, and parts of old rides, we also spotted a few stingrays and colorful fish!
At night, the cruise transformed into a pirate ship and suddenly EVERYONE on board became pirates. This was an incredible feat as even those who had neglected to pack costumes suddenly felt as though they needed to find their most pirate looking outfit for dinner! Even the menu changed to the theme, as did the waiters!
Pirate night!
Later that night, we watched a Buccaneer show complete with Captain Jack Sparrow and fireworks from the ship!
Day 6 – At Sea. Ah! A true rest day! We needed this! However, this is far from a boring day at sea. This is the day to catch up on everything we have missed on the ship! The kids did an amazing scavenger hunt that only Disney can do. You simple register for a magic card at a station on the ship and follow the clues!
Disney’s magical scavenger hunt
You hold the card before an ordinary painting and it comes alive with your next clue!
And this was the day we also gave out our Fish Extender gifts. Now if at this point, you are thinking “say what?”, stop reading now and google “Fish Extender”. I’ll wait here while you do that.
Okay got it? Now that you are an expert, you will understand why we needed to go cabin to cabin delivering gifts like little pixies! In doing this, we were able to explore the ship a bit and also see how everyone on a Disney Cruise decorates their door with magnets! Ours was fairly plain compared to others but it was fun to experience!
Fish extender bag and door magnets
Our final dining night was spent in the Enchanted Garden, a venue designed to look like a beautiful magical outdoor garden. Also they saved the best for last with a brand new show “Beauty and the Beast” which was one of the best productions I’ve seen done of it!
Day 7 – Disembarkation and Magic Kingdom. You are probably now thinking to yourself, “Wait, those can’t both be on the same day?”. However, we had done this before and knew it could work. We were first off the ship by walking our bags off ourselves and we quickly taxi’d back to Disney World. This time, we checked into Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. Our room wasn’t ready at 9:00 AM so we dropped our bags off with the bellman and later returned to our room.
Room at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Wilderness Lodge is patterned after the classic lodges of Yellowstone and features a dedicated boat that runs to the Magic Kingdom right from their very own dock. We were able to hop on the boat and be in the park by 9:30 AM!
Magic Kingdom
With a few cleverly scheduled fastpasses, we had more than enough time to get in all the rides we were looking forward to and also a special lunch reservation at the new Be Our Guest restaurant. We were able to order our lunch ahead of time online and when we arrived, they asked us to find a table and they “magically” found us to deliver our pre-ordered meal! Now that was enchanting!
Be Our Guest restaurant
Later we tested out the new Disney app that allows you to pre-order food and pick it up at the window. This experiment was with a Dole Whip – my favorite treat in all of Disney!
Dole Whip
Day 8 – Animal Kingdom. Are you exhausted just reading this blog? Yes we have made it to our final day! Can you believe it? On our final day, we had breakfast in the Club Level on Wilderness Lodge aptly named “Old Faithful Club”. For this portion of the trip, we decided to not do the Dining Plan and instead purchased a Club Level room. The Club Level provides a continental breakfast, snacks throughout the day, and finally desserts/cordials at night and a place to watch fireworks! We really enjoyed this service and found that we could easily make a breakfast and a dinner out of the food in the club. We did also enjoy the fireworks with desserts. They even broadcast the music from the fireworks!
After breakfast, we headed to Animal Kingdom a full 30 minutes before it opened and found that there was already a line wrapped around the park to ride Disney’s newest ride, Avatar Flight of Passage. As were weren’t able to get fastpasses beforehand, we resigned ourselves to the line. However, it really went fast and we were through it in under an hour! It was worth the wait!
Pandora
The day passed easily and we even had time to return to Wilderness Lodge to do some swimming before bed! It was an amazing and magical vacation! I think I might need a vacation to rest from this one though!
Thanks for coming along on the ride. Remember, I would love to help you plan your Disney vacation or Disney Cruise (or both!) and I don’t charge a fee! Contact me at yb*******@gm***.com.
