Here’s what we brought during our two port days at Nassau and Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay.

What we brought:

room keys/ship i.d. cards for all members of our family
passports for all members of our family
credit card
a few dollars in cash
change of clothes for our daughter
camera
sunscreen
sunglasses
towels (provided by cruise line)
swimsuits

What we left behind:

iPhone
wallet (you know how wallets can get: packed to the gills with expired credit cards from ten years ago and coupons for free sandwiches.)
car seat/booster seat (neither stop required any driving)
snacks and drinks

Is there anything you’d add to the “bring” list? Let me know in the comments section.

You might also be interested in reading:

Aboard the Disney Dream: the stateroom
Aboard the Disney Dream: the food
Disney Cruisin’

To be honest, my expectations weren’t high when it came to food on our cruise. I knew there would be a lot of it, but I didn’t expect it to be anything unique or interesting. I mentally prepared myself for lots of chicken fingers, pizza, and cheeseburgers.

However, the food ended up being pretty good! I was surprised by the variety of items available both at lunch and dinner. The Disney Dream also gets extra points in my book thanks to the endless supply of frozen yogurt available near the pool.

Dinner

Disney cruises have a unique rotational dining system for the evening meals. You sit with the same people each night, but in three different restaurants according to your assigned schedule. Your servers follow you from restaurant to restaurant during the duration of your cruise, so you get to know them, and they get to know your tastes. We ate at the Animator’s Palate, Enchanted Garden, and two nights at the Royal Palace.

Each night, we were given a wide variety of choices: beef dishes, lamb, chicken, seafood…even a tofu dish on our last night of the cruise. On average, we were given 2-4 appetizer choices, 4 soup/salad options, and about a half dozen entree selections each evening.

One of my favorite dishes was the black truffle pasta: pasta purses filled with truffle-scented cheese and served with champagne sauce. I ordered this on our first night of the cruise, and it was such a pleasant surprise. Another favorite was the sea scallops with pasta pearls and asparagus. My daughter loves scallops, so we actually ordered this for her instead of one of the kids meals, and she loved it!

For dessert, we were offered about 3-4 choices per night. One of the options each evening was called Sweet Temptations, which included three mini-desserts. This was a great way to try a little of everything.

Lunch

Our first afternoon on the cruise, we ate at the very-casual Flo’s V-8 Cafe. My husband chose a mozzarella, tomato, and pesto sandwich with caramalized onions. I tried a bite and was hooked. We loved it so much, that we ate lunch at Flo’s every day for the rest of the cruise! I loved that even the casual lunch options included non-fried, non-cheesey dishes. Of course, Flo’s also serves pizza, chicken fingers, and other “typical” kids dishes in addition to the more adventurous sandwiches and salads for adults.

Breakfast

A buffet breakfast is served in Enchanted Garden each day, but we could never get there at the right time. We missed brunch our second morning on the ship, arriving just minutes after they had closed. We missed it the next day too, since it closed a half-hour earlier than the day before. Darn it! We ended up eating at Cabanas, a casual spot on Deck 11. This buffet breakfast included all of the usual suspects: Mickey-shaped waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal, and fruit.

Overall, I was pleased with the food on the Disney Dream. Check the Disney Cruise Line website for more on the ship’s restaurants.

Looking for more Disney cruise info? Check out my recent post about our stateroom aboard the Disney Dream.

Our stateroom was outstanding in every category: clean, comfortable, roomy, stylish. We stayed in a verandah stateroom on Deck 10. Before we departed, I had read some people complain about Deck 10 because it is right beneath the very busy Deck 11, which is home to the pool, hot tub, and other busy areas of the ship. However, noise was not an issue at all in our stateroom. I actually thought the location was very convenient. We could run up a quick flight of stairs and be at the pool or at one of the casual lunch/breakfast spots. We were also only a floor away from the frozen yogurt station, which is of course of the utmost importance.

We didn’t know our room number or what deck we would be on until just a few days before the cruise. That’s because we booked a special rate through disney.com. Disney describes the rate like this:

What are Category GTY staterooms—or restricted-fare staterooms? Category GTY (Category VGT, OGT, IGT) staterooms — also known as restricted-fare staterooms — are available on a limited basis, although the following terms and conditions do apply when booking these rooms:

This category guarantees you a stateroom within the selected stateroom type: Inside, Oceanview and Verandah. Disney Cruise Line will assign the stateroom at a later time, based on availability. Staterooms are assigned run of house, and location requests are not accepted. Category VGT staterooms may feature a whitewall verandah. Full payment is required at the time of booking for all Guests and is non-refundable. Sail date and stateroom category changes are not permitted. The stateroom offer cannot be combined with any other discounted or promotional offer. Full legal names of all Guests are required at time of booking as no name changes are allowed.

In other words, we were able to book a verandah stateroom at an inside-stateroom price. This might not always be the case, but this was our experience with the Category GTY rate. We were very happy we took advantage of this reduced rate and loved having a verandah. Since we booked our cruise only two months ahead of time, many of the restrictions didn’t bother us, since we knew we wouldn’t need to request name changes, refunds, etc.

We thought the stateroom was very spacious. We had two little bathrooms: one with a toilet and sink, and the other with a sink and shower. This made getting ready in the morning much easier, since two people could be getting ready at once. We also had a “sitting area” with a couch and a bunk bed that pulled down from the ceiling. E. slept in the bunk bed rather than the pull-out couch and thought it was so much fun to climb a ladder to bed each night.

Our stateroom gets an A+ for cleanliness. Housekeeping came by once a day, and we received turndown service each night, which included preparing the bunk bed. (It had to be stowed away during the day.)

The verandah was great. There was enough room for two chairs and a small table. Waking up each morning was like being a kid on Christmas. We’d rush out to the verandah and take in the new view before getting off the boat.

I would absolutely recommend a verandah stateroom, and if given the choice, I’d stay on Deck 10 again. Here are some photos, so you can see the room for yourself:

Note: All opinions are my own. I was not given any discounts in exchange for writing this post.

This week and next, I’ll be sharing tales from our cruise. I’ll give you the scoop on everything from the stateroom to food to the ports-of-call that we visited in the Bahamas. First up will be our verandah stateroom…stay tuned later this week.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures of our adventures aboard the Disney Dream:

I like to think of it as reverse-hibernation. While my Midwestern friends are updating their facebook pages with joyful pictures of their families outside in the nice spring weather, my Las Vegas friends and I are sighing. Pretty soon we’ll be the ones hiding indoors. A pleasant spring is drawing to a close, and it’s time to prepare ourselves for the hot temperatures that await us. We’re beginning to think about indoor activities, playdates at the park in the early hours of the morning, and how great it will be when fall rolls around and we can put away the sunscreen.

However, the hot Las Vegas temperatures can be mitigated by a trip to Mount Charleston, Nevada. Located about 30 minutes away from downtown Las Vegas, Mount Charleston is home to Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, which offers visitors picnic areas, hiking trails, and other outdoor fun in a slightly cooler environment. The recreation area is part of Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, which covers 6.3 million acres.

Temperatures at Mount Charleston are often significantly lower than those found in the Valley. We noticed a distinct difference on our recent visit when we hiked part of the Fletcher Canyon trail on Earth Day.

For more information on activities and hiking trails within Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, check out this list of things to do from the Forest Service. You’ll also find some helpful tips to keep you safe during your outing.

Luckily, no one was injured or killed by these traps because the trip wires were spotted by an alert park ranger. However, this situation is worrisome on so many levels. Those traps could have gone off. And it could have been me and my family on that trail.

Readers of this blog know how much I enjoy spending time outdoors with my daughter. I believe that time spent in nature is an essential part of a healthy childhood. Study after study has shown the benefits of playing outside: reduced stress levels, improved distance vision, increased Vitamin D levels…not to mention the learning process that goes on when kids can actually hear, touch, smell, and observe the natural world.

Although we often hike with my husband or with friends, there are times when my daughter and I hike alone.

I’m always very careful whenever we head out on a hike. I try to prepare for any curveballs Mother Nature could throw at us. We slather on the sunscreen, use bug spray if necessary, and always bring plenty of water. I make sure that I tell someone where we’ll be ahead of time in case we go missing. Sometimes I even check-in on Foursquare at the trailhead before we begin so that there is a record of our specific location within a park or natural area.

I’m used to thinking about protection from the elements. What frightens me is that we live in a world where people could leave deadly booby traps on hiking trails.

Will this story change our hiking habits? I’m not sure. Although this appears to be an isolated incident, it brings up a whole new category of safety issues in regards to hiking.

Want to learn more about hiking safety? Here are some great tips for kids from hikesafe.com.

Our afternoon at the Clark County Fair made me feel like I was back in Texas again. A big western sky, dust and dirt, fascinating animals, and all kinds of less-than-healthy snacks made this an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday.

Our five-year-old daughter was the perfect age for most of the rides, and she particularly liked a little roller coaster that she got to ride on her own without Mom and Dad.

As for the livestock, we got to see all kinds of interesting animals. We saw an enormous peacock with a huge, beautiful plume of feathers. We also saw some piglets…and their mom who was absolutely enormous. We saw a calf with its mother as well, and several roosters, one of whom cock-a-doodle-doo’ed right at us.

We ended our day with some funnel cake and homemade root beer from one of the food stands. On our way out, we let our daughter play one more carinval game, and she won a little stuffed animal that quickly became a sentimental favorite of hers.

Don’t miss out on the fun! Give the fair a try when it comes around again next year.

I tried something different this time and used Aviary to edit my photos. What do you think? I found Aviary to be very easy to use, and I look forward to experimenting with it more in the future.

The Ethel M® Botanical Cactus Garden is located at:

2 Cactus Garden Drive
Henderson, NV 89014
(702) 435-2655

This is one of those rare Las Vegas activities: not only is it kid-friendly, but it is also FREE and requires almost no planning. We arrived at the Silverton Casino on a Saturday afternoon and didn’t have any trouble finding a prime spot for mermaid-watching right up front by the glass.

I thought the mermaid was pretty convincing. Older children might not be fooled, but we saw lots of smiles from the younger kids. The mermaid did lots of waving, blowing kisses, and high-fives through the glass. She really seemed to go out of her way to make each child feel special.

For more information about the “real” mermaids, take a look at the Silverton Casino website. You’ll find the aquarium hours as well as a short bio about each mermaid. I found it interesting that many of them have a background in synchronized swimming.

For more Vegas fun, check out my list of family-friendly activities in Southern Nevada.

If you subscribe to this blog via email, you shouldn’t be affected. However, if you are reading this blog through an RSS feed like Google Reader, you might see old posts popping up as new. Let’s just think of it as a nice walk down memory lane.

Thanks for reading Wandering Off!