All Aboard and on to Key West The Disney Way

[SportFishStaff]

This was our first cruise. Being that we have 2 girls 5 and 9. Plus we had 4 families going as a group, so early on we chose Disney as having 7 kids among us we wanted to make sure the kids had plenty to do.

We chose the western Caribbean with stops in Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel Mexico, and our final stop in Disney's own Island Castaway Cay

We booked our trip with Lori from Discovery Travel in Marmora NJ everything was top notch with the planning stages and Lori did a great job. We booked our flights with South West and flew out on Thanksgiving.

You are allowed to bring alcohol on board and we brought a few bottles with us but in the future we will buy from the duty free shop on board.
Beer drinkers beware your bar bill can get quickly up there at 6.00 for 16oz miller lites. Cans were like 5.00. I'm not a beer drinker so it was of little difference for me.

We left Port Canaverel Late afternoon and headed south to Key West. We never left sight of land and arrived mid morning on sunday.

[SportFishStaff]

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[giantfan]

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

Still working on those tickets for you.

[clt_capt]

It's a small world after all...


Great Sunset - Were you lucky enough to catch the "green flash"?

[SportFishStaff]

Thanks guys.
Ctl, we were not lucky enough to catch the Green sunset. I'm not sure I have heard of the green sunset.

Gang,
One thing I want to point out is. I love Key West, the history and the culture. The treasure museum is top notch. The fishing world class. With that being said I was extremely disheartened by what I saw there this trip.

I haven't been their in 12 years. But the place is really getting hit hard by the economy. A lot of businesses that I went to before are now gone boarded up or abandoned. Duvall street had a lot of boarded up shops. The place looked run down, upkeep on the houses was lacking, and the marinas seemed to have a lot of empty slips all in all it was a harsh reality of this economy.

The thing that stung the most was Mallory Square. I think that is a true gem of Americana. Street performers putting on a show, trying to make a buck. It has always been light hearted and fun. That is up until now. A gentleman whom has been their forever doing tricks of gymnastics and acrobatics. He was cursing out viewers, refusing to perform unless more money was put in his hat. He berated people with families, it really was an ugly seen. He was not the only one. One guy with his dogs told a kid the doggies would die if his dad didn't put more money in the pot.

This was not the Key West I have loved over the years, I'm sure the economy is mostly to blame. I still enjoyed the stop on the cruise, but these things left a hole in my heart for a place I love.

[gottaflylee]

Great pictures Tim, sorry to here it is changing like that. On a lighter note, looks like you were working on the "Duval Crawl"...