Disney Treasure Cruise Report Part 6 - The Finale

What a long, strange trip it’s been. We’ve finally arrived at the end of our Disney Treasure, 7-Night Caribbean Cruise trip report. Join us for even more time at sea, plenty of characters, door problems, Castaway Cay, allergy arguments, and disembarkation.

If you’ve been tracking days, you probably realize we have three days left to cover:

  • Day 6 - Day at Sea

  • Day 7 - Castaway Cay

  • Day 8 - Disembarkation

I will cover all of these, but I’m not going to belabor them for a few reasons...

To begin with, this trip was in August and I’m still trip reporting in December, mostly hoping I don’t confuse days and re-report something that I already wrote about 3 months ago. You’ve seen us through the highs and lows of the time on the Disney Treasure, and by now you probably know the minute-by-minute breakdown of another day on the ship—somewhere between our third and fifth, depending on how you count—isn’t going to teach you much. And disembarkation is always pretty quick and straightforward.

As for Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island is a port deserving of a post of its own (one I will write), and you can find so much on the internet already about it. We don’t spend our time soaking in every inch of the island anymore, but we did do a new excursion this time! I’ll recap our time there, but I’ll leave broader Castaway Cay discussion for another day.

Finally, if you really want more Disney Treasure content, I will have a “review” of the ship forthcoming, too. For now…

Day 6 - Another Day At Sea

By this time, we’d spent the following days on the ship:

  • Embarkation day, boarding at 12:17PM

  • An official “Day At Sea”

  • A Cozumel port day that was cut short, so we spent it all on the ship

  • A Falmouth port day where we left the ship for only a few hours

Day 6 was another official “Day At Sea”, which at least meant the schedule had a healthy number of activities, greetings, and such.

I was impressed that even though we lost an hour overnight, the Fitness Center managed to open on time. Of the six mornings (it isn’t open on disembarkation day, as far as I know), it wound up opening late only the first two.

Today was Churro Mickey Waffle day. These are super tasty, but if I’m being honest, by day 6 I’ve had enough indulgent meals—particularly breakfasts, I love an indulgent vacation breakfast—that this one gets a little lost. I think it would be better earlier in the trip. Despite running every day of this trip (and the surrounding visits to Disney World) I was carrying something like 5 extra pounds when I got home.

There was an Open House scheduled at the Marvel Super Hero Academy section of the Oceaneer Club. Unfortunately this was effectively pre-empted by the (all ages) “Challenge of the Taskmaster” activity during which the games in the room were rendered inoperable.

Once that was done, we spent some time in the Marvel Super Hero Academy playing Chutes and Ladders (a game I believe was engineered to tear our family apart) and then checking out the super hero suit design and interactive game.

For all the minor grief we’ve had with the Oceaneer Club on the Wish class, I have to admit this is overall a pretty cool space. If nothing else, it has a “wow” factor that works on almost all kids and many adults. The space itself is one Imagineers should be proud of. The game itself is maybe a tad too ambitious, but the kids seem to enjoy it.

At 10AM, Moana was playing on Funnel Vision. Moana also happened to be the show in the theater that evening, so I kinda like that they had the movie playing, too. As I’ve pointed out so many times in this report, all Zoe really wants is to chill in the pool and watch a movie—can’t blame ‘em.

While we stayed at the pool, Emily went to check out Jack-Jack’s Diaper Dash. This is an opportunity for guests with babies (pre-standing) to enter them in a race. It was crowded and there were a lot of babies who didn’t get to race. She describes it as “a thrilling affair.”

After a Deck 11 lunch by the pool, we had some time to fill before the 2PM showing of Disney The Tale of Moana. There was a character dance party going on in the Grand Hall, so after a few minutes of that we dropped Zoe off at the Oceaneer Club, and Emily and I headed to The Rose.

The Rose is the “fancy” bar on the ship, situated at the entrance to Palo and Enchanté. We were a bit underdressed for the atmosphere of the bar, but certainly not relative to the general midday crowd.

The Rose is about as close to an “escape” you can find on the ship. I assume it sees a lot more traffic around dinner, but midday it has “hidden gem” vibes.

A bit to our surprise, the 2PM showing of Disney The Tale of Moana was basically full by the time we arrived around 1:45PM. As I’ll mention below, the following evening’s showing of Beauty and the Beast also drew exceptional crowds.

The crowding around these stage shows was the biggest complaint I heard from other guests. I’ve seen reports that some guests try to see the shows twice, which definite exacerbates any general crowding problems a showtime or two might experience.

Unfortunately, I don’t really know what the best solution would be. A clunky voucher system seems silly just to deal with a handful of guests seeing a show twice. And something more complex like assigned seating would invite a host of problems.

From what I can gather, the schedules of the shows vary by cruise director. I’ve seen scheduled with the show-days for Beauty and the Beast and Moana swapped, and I’ve seen schedules with extra performances on different days, instead of the matinee. Check the schedule in the app on embarkation day.

Luckily, Zootopia was playing on Funnel Vision, so it was back to Deck 11 for us! We follow that up with…another trip to the Oceaneer Club and a bar! Are you starting to get why I didn’t feel the need to break this into more posts? This time, Emily and I went to Periscope, which I already discussed in part 2 of this report.

Triton Lounge was hosting 18+ Movie Quote Trivia, which Emily and I were woefully unfit for. It turns out that they wanted names of movies, not just nodding and confirming you recognize the quote.

Mickey was scheduled to greet at 5:15PM, so we figured we’d try and squeeze that in before queuing for the 6PM Moana showing. He started greeting 2 minutes late, but he was in his formal attire, and Zoe got some great pics just before 5:30PM. We were seated in the balcony of the Walt Disney Theater by 5:36PM.

I thought Moana was a fine production, but I wasn’t overly enamored by it. For us, it definitely fits in the category of “good excuse to make your kid sit and watch a theatrical show for an hour” more than “must see Broadway-level production of a story we love.” Again, you’ve got seven nights on the ship—you can probably spare some time for this show.

After an hour at Hero Zone (table soccer, air hockey, basketball, bags), we were back in 1923 for an uneventful dinner. It was semi-formal evening (not for us, though…never for us), so being in 1923 was actually pretty thematic. There were various photo ops in the Grand Hall after dinner, so we snagged a few of those before heading to bed:

Day 7 - Castaway Cay

Castaway Cay is Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. (Disney also has another private port, Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, that isn’t on their own island.)

There’s a lot to love about Castaway Cay, and first timers should always find it a fun experience. But now that I’ve done it more than a few times, including several times since Zoe was born, I’m less locked into the experience than I used to be.

Overall, my favorite things to do on Castaway Cay day are: look at Castaway Cay from the ship, run the Castaway Cay 5K, ride bikes around the island, and get a drink at Heads Up Bar while taking in the view of the ship. Zoe loves the beach, likes the kids’ club (Scuttle’s Cove), and likes the game area (In Da Shade).

While there are a few water features—a slide, a dump bucket, a climbing area—this is not by any stretch at all a “water park” style experience. Above all else, Castaway Cay is about a day at the beach.

I’m one of those people who isn’t really into sand. I’ll swim in the water for a bit, but there are a dozen places on the ship I’d rather sit than on any sandy beach.

On that note, there’s something to be said about the tension of Castaway Cay being on the last day. This is common on Disney Cruise Line itineraries, but I always feel torn—do I “relax” and collect sand to bring home in every crevice, or do I squeeze whatever I can out of the ship. On this trip, where I’d already spent so much time on the ship, it was hard to feel a ton of pull in either direction.

In the end, I split the difference, spending some of the day on Castaway Cay and some on the ship.

The Fitness Center opened on time again. While I considered running the Castaway Cay 5K, my daily run is longer than that and I figured I’d rather have my mileage in the mostly comfortable Fitness Center than on the island.

Ashore time was 8:30AM, so after a short breakfast we headed down and we were ashore at 8:36AM.

There are trams that take you to the heart of the beach, but we prefer the walk. We passed Scuttle’s Cove at 8:46AM and grabbed some chairs on the first beach at 8:49AM. Plenty of options:

Before swimming, we headed over to the Pluto greeting. The bulk of the greetings are earlier in the day and take place on the ship-side of the island. If you head all the way to the second family beach or the adult beach immediately to start the day, you’ll be poorly positioned for character greetings.

The greetings were just outside Scuttle’s Cove, the kids’ club. The club also had Open House to start the day. I’d never been inside, so we popped in to check it out. It’s overall a relatively bare space, probably to make it conducive to supervision. I think overall it’s a place where the activities matter much more than the space itself.

We used a Goofy greeting as an excuse to pull Zoe out of there, and afterward we went for a family swim.

After about an hour of swimming, I opted to head back to the ship to do some laundry and pack. If you’ve got hotel stays before or after your cruise, laundry on the Disney Cruise ships (the Wish class at least) is probably easier than dealing with it at your hotel. I spent less than two hours onboard before meeting up with Emily and Zoe at heads up to take our favorite photo:

The sky looked as it good as it did at any point that day.

The highlight of this day was an “Aqua Trike Rental” excursion. This was Zoe’s first trip to Castaway Cay as a five-year-old, which allowed us a few more excursion options than in the past. The Aqua Trikes are $34 per person, for up to two guests per trike, for 30 minutes.

It was hot and sunny, but not awful. You were able to get pretty close to the ship, which is cool. It was surprisingly not hard, especially given that Zoe couldn’t reach the pedals. This was a fine way to spend 30 minutes (not strictly enforced, but you also didn’t need more than that), and definitely not the worst use of money this trip.

My only other note from this time was that I sat on the beach watching Emily and Zoe, and I was surprised at how inflexibly the Castaway Cay Crew Members were turning away people without reservations.

I don’t assume this is something left to their discretion, and of course there were some factors at work that I don’t know about, but I was pretty surprised at how many people got turned away while there was a ton of available gear.

I’d sort of assumed this is just a good chance for Disney to make a quick buck from guests walking to and from the ship, but I guess it turns out reservations really do matter sometimes. You could contrast this with, say, bicycle rental, which is bookable ahead of time but seemingly always available on demand, too.

We were back onboard at 2:45PM. After taking some time to pack, we split up, with Zoe heading to the Oceaneer Club and Emily and I heading to Skipper Society and Scat Cat Lounge.

At Skipper Society, we got to enjoy the space being crowded on both sides with guests lining up for Beauty and the Beast as early as 5:15PM for the 6PM showing.

We opted just to not see the show. There’s a sense in which this whole post screams “plenty of free time”, but when you’re wrapping up your time on the ship, it really feels like you want to make perfect use of every minute.

Today had gone relatively smoothly, so it’s not a surprise we finally encountered some awkwardness entering Scat Cat Lounge. We were there well after the scheduled opening time, but the door was closed, and we couldn’t see anyone inside. Another couple was waiting, too.

We tried to open the door, but couldn’t open it. Finally, someone went around to the bar—facing the Grand Hall—and a Crew Member came around and opened the door.

I don’t know what was happening with the door, and while I’m sure it was partly user error, it’s also just another one of those quirky things that happened to us on the Disney Treasure.

(I’m not surprised the randomly-timed above photo by Emily happened to be during this question about going counterclockwise around the World Showcase. The question spent a hefty amount of time on the screen while the room “debated” what direction that was. Wild.)

After a round of Disney Parks Trivia, we squeezed in some last-minute character greetings. We were able to really zip around, meeting Chip & Dale, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy in the course of about 40 minutes.

Dinner was in World of Marvel. This would have been our third night in World of Marvel if we’d attended the Pirate Night dinner, but it was the second of the two World of Marvel “sets” if you will. The first meal was the storyline with Ant-Man and the Wasp. This one was Marvel trivia throughout the meal, with tables answering via the device on their table.

I thought this was a fine way to wrap up our dinners aboard the ship. The trivia is engaging without being “too much” on a night when most guests probably care about packing or otherwise wrapping up their time on the ship. Combined with being at 1923 for semi-formal night, this was overall a pretty great dining rotation.

As with a lot of these techno-interative things Disney does, I wish they’d add some layer to it—maybe assign each of the tables a team (Captain America vs. Iron Man, for example). Straightforward trivia seems a little meh.

After we finished packing, I headed out to enjoy the ship one more time. There’s a farewell show and character greetings in the Grand Hall. If you think you’ll want to meet characters at this point, I recommend doing a little more prep than I can offer here (try Facebook groups, forums). The lines looked pretty long.

I went to the 10:30PM “Sound Tracks: Music from the Parks” in Scat Cat Lounge. This was a great piano set with modern and throwback Disney parks tunes, complete with a lot of fun facts. It was one of my best experiences I had aboard the ship (of course, I’m obliged to say here that the bar had significant delays serving customers—not me, for the record—as they rotated staff)

After the music wrapped up, I headed up to Deck 11. Funnel Vision was showing Mary Poppins Returns until just after midnight. Without passing judgment on that film, it does feel like the sort of selection that says more “maybe get to bed on time” rather than “come enjoy your last night on Deck 11” (I get it).

While waiting for pizza, I heard a rather irate guest complaining about the lack of allergy-friendly pizza, which had ended at 10:30PM. If I recall, the Crew Member said that the best option for allergy-friendly food at this hour was room service, which isn’t a great option if you want to be watching a movie on Deck 11. (That said, I don’t think the guest really want a Crew Member to improvise allergy-friendly food at this point, right?)

My 2 cents is that allergy-friendly options should be available for the duration of the quick service schedule. But I’m already unhappy with what I consider fairly limited quick service options in the evening and late night, so maybe my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.

After I ate several final slices of pizza, my final night aboard the Disney Treasure came to an end.

Day 8 - Disembarkation

Our final morning aboard the Disney Treasure was mostly uneventful.

As a quick reminder, disembarkation procedure starts the day before you get off the ship. You’ll basically have four things to worry about heading into disembaration:

  • gratuities

  • luggage

  • photos from Shutters

  • breakfast

Gratuity envelopes are provided for Head Server, Server, Assistant Server, and Stateroom Host/ess. If you prepaid gratuities, you’ll get a sheet with tearable slips indicating the amount. You can place these in the envelopes and hand them to the Crew Members if you want.

You’ll be provided tags to tag luggage the evening before you get off the ship. Tagged luggage that is left in the hallway by the designated time will be picked up that evening. You’ll recover it the next morning after you get off the ship. Guests disembark when their luggage tag group is called. If you choose not to tag and leave luggage, you can disembark as soon as the ship is cleared by the authorities.

Shutters—the onboard photogrpahy shop—is one of the few things open disembarkation morning. If you haven’t purchased photos, this is your last chance to do so. We always pre-order photos these days.

Breakfast is your choice—either (1) at a designated time in the restaurant you had your last dinner at, with your rotational dining staff or (2) at Marceline Market. As we always do nowadays, we opted for quick service breakfast. Marceline Market was running a pretty skeleton operation in terms of food, space, staffing, and seating.

We’ve always found the table service breakfasts to be a little too much for us on disembarkation, so we can’t complain about Marceline being a little sub-optimal, either. This is the “price” we pay for all of our stellar embarkation experiences—if you expect the ship to be ready to go when you board, then you need disembarkation to favor efficiency over everything. (They were temporarily out of spoons, which is a little…but at this point, maybe I let that one go.)

We did have one small hiccup this morning—NOT the Treasure’s fault at all. We packed Zoe’s shoes the night before. So, be careful when shoving stuff into bags after your kid goes to sleep. This only drew the curiosity of an uppity government agent at the port. Without a “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” sign to point to, he was forced to let us through.

I failed to timestamp this morning (sorry!), but we were picked up by family and made it into Animal Kingdom by 10:34AM.

That recaps our time aboard the Disney Treasure. I tried to give a sense of our time on the ship, but I’m sorry it took so long. I will have a review of the ship up in the coming weeks, and I definitely expect my next cruise report to get published more expeditiously than this one.

Thanks for following along on our time aboard the Disney Treasure!