The pirate of Castaway Cay
By Kerrick James

Disney’s private Caribbean island offers an outdoor adventurer and his son an arr!-some experience.


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Keanu James outlines Mickey Mouse’s head and ears with local shells collected on the family beach of Castaway Cay.
© Kerrick James.

When you were 9 years old, the world was a simpler place, each day a blessed interlude of play and camp and friends and... trips, if you were lucky.

Imagine that your Dad sought you out at the beginning of summer break and asked, “Would you like to fly to board a Disney cruise and sail to their private island, and bone up on your pirate skills?”

Now imagine you’re the lucky Dad who gets to say those words to your 9-year-old son. You feel like the proverbial king of the world when he jumps and shouts, “I’m going to Disney Island!” And that’s how the cruise to Castaway Cay began for Keanu James.

I, the Dad in this tale, always take my three young sons camping in pine forests or at Monument Valley, white water rafting in Utah or exploring Lake Powell by boat and sleeping on beaches. And we’ve taken many cruises, but always on small vessels with fewer than 100 passengers.

Still, when the chance arose to take my youngest son on Disney’s newest and grandest cruise champion, the Dream, a vessel larger than Titanic, how could I refuse?

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Young guests aboard Disney Cruise Line meet Captain Hook on deck. Courtesy of
Disney Cruise Line.

Boarding the Dream

We jetted into Orlando for an overnight at Disney World, and buses swooped in the next morning for our bags and our cruise mates. After a quick and friendly check in at the terminal, we board and find our suite—the most luxurious, beautifully appointed, and largest cabin on any of the 20-plus cruises I’ve enjoyed, with a super comfy premium hotel quality queen bed for me, and cool bunk bed for Keanu.

During the mandatory lifeboat drill, I can see that Keanu is eager to explore. He joins the Midship Detective Agency by taking a ship map, the Detective Casebook and his handy dandy game card, and becomes Agent 066. He spends the next 30 minutes on a criss-cross journey to collect clues at various interactive screens, ornately framed, up and down staircases and 10 of the 12 decks, fore and aft on a thousand-foot ship. Suddenly we, he I mean, solves the crime of the missing Dalmatian puppies, and in the bargain exercises enough to be very hungry for the first dinner seating, in the Enchanted Garden.

One of the attractions of big-ship cruising is the variety of cuisines, and for some folks the sheer quantity of quality food is irresistible. My goal is to dine very well, to expose Keanu to a variety of new foods, and at the end of the trip to weigh the same as we did when we boarded.

Disney offers what they call “rotational dining.” We’re assigned a pair of food servers, Ramsey and Vitor, and they fill us with lobster ravioli, raspberry spinach salad with pecans and gorgonzola, seared scallops and sea bass, fresh breads and dessert. Keanu pronounces the chocolate mousse “spectacular,” while I savor the lemon buttermilk pudding.

Every night on the Dream you can see a live Disney stage show in the grand Walt Disney Theatre. Tonight’s opener is The Golden Mickey’s — A Timeless Tribute but Keanu and I opt to watch it live on the flat screen in our suite.

Next morning, after a fine breakfast at the Enchanted Garden, Keanu wants to explore the Oceaneer Club and Lab, where he takes pirate lessons from Disney’s own renegades. I read a book on a quiet covered deck, loving the respite and the luxury of time to myself.

The schedule includes a port day in lovely Nassau. Many of the ship’s 4,000 passengers take leave of the Dream to explore the city and parts of the island. Keanu is happy to stay on board. After a casual lunch at Cabanas, we play nine holes of Goofy golf on Deck 13. Dad wins but Keanu makes me promise a rematch. Later, I say, as I’ve been eyeing the enclosed triple hoop basketball court. We shoot lay-ups and jumpers, with views of Nassau across 180 degrees of the horizon.

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In Andy’s Room on the Disney Dream, the world of Disney-Pixar’s “Toy Story” films comes to life. Courtesy of Disney Cruise Line/Kent Phillips.

Hungry again after our games, Keanu munches an apple and strawberries. Newly recharged, he shouts, “I want to swim!” So we quick change into our suits and bolt up two flights of stairs to Deck 11, where two kid-friendly pools await, beneath a monstrously large TV screen that begins showing Monsters Inc. Several spray-filled hours slip by. Keanu is in his element here, as kids of all cultures and countries play around us in a cacophony of shrieks and cries, with mostly delirious parents looking on. Did I mention that there is a secluded, over-18-only pool for parents who need a sanctuary of peace?

Before leaving the manic pool scene, Keanu and I wait in line for 30 minutes to ride the AquaDuck, a 90-second ride with one heckuva view, and a great way to chill, or be chilled.

After all that play, dinner is a welcome event, and the Royal Palace is all that the name implies. Our fun and dignified waiters greet us warmly, and Ramsey skillfully shows off a card trick to Keanu, recreating on the cards the effect of movie frames as they first were done 125 years ago, with a stickman drawn on all 52 cards slowly pulling a card out of his top hat. Ramsay asks me to pick a card, King of Spades, using the same deck of cards, and somehow he shows my exact card choice on the final frame of his movie. Crazy! Magical fun, wonderment on Keanu’s face, and Dad can’t figure out how it’s done so artfully, but the spontaneity is perfect. It’s a true moment of surprise and bewilderment on a young boy’s face, which is so delightful and priceless to me, or any parent.

Though the requested dinner attire is “cruise casual,” many of the adults and children dress up, with shiny shoes, sport coats, the odd bowtie, and cocktail dresses on the younger ladies. This feels so much like a “rite of passage,” learning to behave like an adult with manners and style.

After diner, we see our first live show, Villains. Disney doesn’t disappoint with this fast-moving, snappy show featuring spot-on comedic timing, adept voices, superb stage lighting and surprisingly topical references to current events and celebrity peccadilloes, ahem... Fun for the kids and juicy for the adults.

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Keanu James feeds a Southern stingray, in a lagoon on Castaway Cay. © Kerrick James

On shore, a date with stingrays

Next morning, we awaken to find ourselves at Castaway Cay (pronounced “key”). I rub my eyes and step out on the veranda to survey the vista of golden beaches, shallow aqua waters and the prospect of a full day ashore to explore. But only after breakfast!

Keanu is almost too excited to eat but soon enough we are walking down the long dock to the beaches and a date with stingrays. The warm waters invite us to join the dark ghostly shapes flitting in groups across the inlet. Keanu’s eyes widen in anticipation and we don light life vests—floaties really—and walk barefoot on the cushiony creamy coral sands. In a literal splash, he’s in before me, in gentle pursuit of the elusive creatures. When their velvety, gelatinous bodies brush against our legs, the sensation is oddly electric but pleasurable. (The barb of the Southern stingray can be dangerous, but the staff of this marine park regularly clips them, just as we would trim our toenails.)

There are 53 Southern stingrays here, and all but one is female, and they gather, knowing mealtime is approaching. Julianne, a Bahamian native, smiles broadly and helps Keanu feed them shrimp and calamari. The sun breaks through tropical clouds, and it becomes possible to photograph the stingrays underwater with just point-and-shoot cameras. Far too soon, our time with the docile stingrays is over.

Keanu says, “Dad, this is the coolest thing ever, better than any zoo!” I agree, while remembering goats trying to eat his clothing at a petting zoo once upon a time.

Saying goodbye to the stingrays, we stroll over to the Castaways family beach, pick out two lounge chairs and grab Keanu’s new Mickey ball for some water sports time. He’s a natural at two-man volleyball and has Dad all to himself for game after game. Hunger overtakes us so we haul out of the jade green lagoon and belly up to Cookies’ BarBQ for ribs and sweetly spiced mahi-mahi, plus coleslaw and corn on the cob—great summertime beach fare!

During lunch the clouds build ominously, the sky boils and darkens, and thunder booms across the Cay, louder than any pirate cannonade, I’d wager. Then rain of biblical magnitude falls in buckets from heavy low clouds, a tropical cloudburst, with gales blowing the rain in sideways under our picnic shelter, and nearly onto our plates. It feels like a movie set with fan-blown sheets of water, madly waving palm fronds, tin roofs tattooed by the torrent, and all this in a Disney setting! Surreal, but the storm passes in about 30 minutes and seems somehow to be part of the show we came to see.

‘The beach is open!’

The clouds lift and lifeguards megaphone the news: “The beach is open!” Indeed, it is empty, as the throng sought refuge on the ship. Keanu and I build a sand castle, our first such construct since he was in Hawaii as a 3-year-old.

Small soft white shells adorn the beach, dime to quarter size, and someone before us has started the outline of Mickey’s round head and ears on the rain-spotted sand. Together we improve the design, making it ours. But more rain threatens, so we sigh, pack up and walk back to the Dream through a warm summer drenching, laughing, sharing time and space, father and son together again in the elements, smiling.

After dinner, we scamper to Deck 11, for Mickey’s Pirates in the Caribbean stage show. Keanu is inspired so we buy swords and don bandannas, as this is a night for pirates! Keanu and I swordfight under the giant movie screen playing the Muppet’s Pirate Movie, and many other equally inspired young pirates in training are sword fighting all about. It’s nearly a free-for-all, yet somehow no eyes or ears are lost and no one walks a plank. Very much a pirate parent’s dream.

Then Keanu smiles and says, “Aaarrr—let’s AquaDuck!” and soon we’re tucking down the route of the screaming duck, with sunset painting the sky pink and rose above us, neon below us. Sensory overload for some, but pure heaven for a kid. For adults, we can either bemusedly watch the kids from afar, remembering vaguely how it once felt to be so deliriously thrilled, or just cut loose and laugh and howl and share in the joy.

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A little boy plays with Dori at Nemo’s Reef—a fanciful water-play area aboard the Disney Dream. Courtesy of Disney Cruise Line/Matt Stroshane.

We catch our breath, put on dry clothes, and return to Deck 12 for the Buccaneer Fireworks Blast, the only fireworks display at sea! Under a crescent moon, black sky festooned with stars, the fireworks shells arc and spin, exploding in evanescent glory above one ship alone on the high seas. After the 20-minute gaudy display and a ripping grand finale, the Club Pirate on the pool, not the poop deck, moves to booming music that no one can resist. Pirates know how to party, it seems, within a scene set by Disney’s sound and light artists.

I prefer quiet places and times, but there is a perfect place and time to immerse oneself in all that is Disney. The best part of the trip for me was the gift of time with my son, and the chance to feel again what childhood is all about. Castaway Cay and the Dream will always be part of Keanu’s memories, and mine. I can hear the Cay calling me now, over the rippling night waters.

And neither of us gained a pound.

Kerrick James earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from Arizona State University in 1982. He has photographed lands and cities of the American West, Mexico and the Pacific Rim for more than 25 years, shooting both adventure and destination travel features. His work has appeared on more than 200 book and magazine covers and in major features for Arizona Highways, Alaska Airlines Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Conde Nast Traveler, and Sunset.

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