Spring Break - Half Moon Cay

Day four of our cruise was Carnival's private island, Half Moon Cay. We opted to sleep in this morning. The ship anchored about 10am and it was about 10:40am by the time we were all dressed and into the Palladium Lounge to get a ticket for the tender to shore. We ended up being in group #25 (they were calling group #10 as we walked in) and so it was a little bit before noon when we finally made it to the island.

The docking area for the tenders and excursion boats.

We rented a clamshell for the day at the Water Sports booth, so that we would have some shade over a couple of beach chairs and a place to store our stuff. We were fortunate to get one down in the heart of the children's lagoon and play area, right next to one of the slides.

The view of the Destiny from shore.

That cabana on the left? It was a private rental with a big family that looked like they were having a birthday party. Cost? $2,000 for the day, which included a private lifeguard, bartender, open bar, and catered lunch. It was open air but had ceiling fans and bathrooms.

The main play structure in the kids area....and a great big water jet that they all loved.

We hung for a while and the kids had a blast playing on the slides and in the water. About 1:45 we headed into the interior of the island to find the free barbeque for lunch (which was wonderful!!!!) On the way we passed this chapel - there was a couple from the ship that got married here first thing that morning, we ran into them getting their pictures taken on the beach later.

After lunch we followed the sounds of the music farther down the beach to the big pirate ship. Downstairs was the main bar on the island...we took the boys upstairs to explore and check out the view.

Looking back to the interior of the island. The big long building was the buffet and kitchen - the smaller buildings were covered picnic shelters where everyone sat to eat.

Looking out to sea and the ship.

One of the smaller shelters to rent privately. There were only 10 of these and they were $200 for the day. They had an open front porch (no bathrooms) and also came with drinks and snacks. They were all rented out to people long before our ship ever set sail.

We headed back down to our section of the beach and the boys had more fun playing. Eventually they decided the sand was more interesting than the water and were just rolling around in it!


About 4pm we decided that we had enough and headed back to the ship. The boys opted for the lido deck for a while so that they could do the really BIG slide. We finally headed up to the room in time to change for dinner. Dinner that night was especially memorable. The boys chose to eat off the grownup menu - gourmet macaroni and cheese with bacon pieces - and Debbie had Chateaubriand while Daryl had a lovely filet of fish and shrimp. Wesley actually managed to stay awake for the entire dinner!

After dinner, we took the boys to Camp Carnival for the evening because it was movie night. Wesley's age group was encouraged to wear their jammies and bring their favorite snuggle buddy (he brought Brownie bear) to watch Ice Age 2. Parker's age group was in a different venue to watch Wimpy Kid 2 and he got ice cream as a snack. While the boys were occupied, we watched movies too. First part of While You Were Sleeping on the big screen out on the lido deck. Then we went down to the Criterion Lounge for the Grease sing-a-long! They showed the movie on a large screen and it had the words for all the songs across the bottom. People were really belting the words out - it was great. We picked Parker up first and he'd had a very good time. Then we went to get Wesley. He was sound asleep - the counselors said he fell asleep ten minutes into the movie and started snoring! Daryl picked him up to carry him out - bless his heart he couldn't wake up. So we headed back to the room and put him right in bed. Parker's the one who discovered that night's towel animal....a monkey.