Grand Cayman

It was muggy the day of our visit here, but it felt great compared to the snow we had up north! We had to "tender" in Grand Cayman, which means the boat can't dock so they sit in the harbor and send little ferries out to get the passengers. There was no line for the tender, but a lot of confusion through the crowd regarding sail and sign cards vs. photo id's. For the record, you should always have both! They don't check your photo id on the way off the boat but the customs officials in the countries want to see it before they let you back on. We didn't have anything planned in this port, but the ship had made sure to inform us several times that it was a shopping mecca. We wandered around and decided to get out of the overcrowded/overpriced downtown area (there were 5 other boats in that day!).



On board we had stopped at the "shopping desk" (located before you walk in the casino) and gotten a packet for Grand Cayman and Cozumel. These packets are basically coupons for different jewelry stores and maps to Carnival approved shops. We looked in some of the stores on the list (the infamous Diamond's International, of course...LOL! Take a cruise and you will see how much they push this place), found a watch we liked for Brad but decided to hold off on purchasing anything this early in the trip. The prices seemed comparable to the states, but at least in the states you know if something is not up to par you can return it! Some of the shops were very pushy (EFFY). We saw a place that looked like Starbucks (that wasn't) and stopped in to get a coffee. I thought the price was very high (5 dollars US for a small latte), especially because the prices looked normal in Cayman dollars but when converted to US were more. After that, we found a taxi and negotiated (what we thought was) a good fare and headed out on a 2 hour island tour. The cab driver, Eric, took us to all the tourist spots on the island, the turtle farm, tortuga rum cake store, stingray city docks (huge tarpon), and of course Hell. We mailed some postcards from Hell post office, and took some photos of the dead coral that forms this attraction.











I decided to buy a coconut from a man cutting them open with a machete and ended up making Brad drink it. It was not what I expected...basically luke warm water with a hint of sweetness and some other weird flavor. Least to say I would not last long on a desert island!



We had the cab driver drop us somewhere for lunch, at which point he told us the tour was 80 dollars, not the 40 we had thought. I thought I had clarified with him enough times but those accents and con men will get you every time. The tour through the boat would have cost us 104 so I guess we still made out but not with the bargain we thought we were going to get. Feeling gouged, we decided to head back to the boat for our free lunch. We had no problem getting an early tender and got back in time to hang out by the pool for a few hours.



Brad wanted me to write at this point that he thinks the chairs by the pool "suck". They are fine once you get in them, but if you try to adjust them to any height other than straight up they automatically pop back that way every time you sit down. You basically have to sit on the middle to the end and gradually ease your way into them. However, once you are situated, they are quite comfortable. I didn't notice a shortage of chairs like I have read about on other sites, but we mainly stuck to the back pool. The middle pool (where all the activities went on) seemed like it had more people but there always seemed to be chairs open here and there, and the back Unicorn deck that was adults only seemed to be only half full as well. There were a lot of older people on this cruise (my dad says cruising is for newlyweds and nearly deads-LOL), and unfortunately if I had to have one complaint it would be how rude some of them were. It's interesting how some of them think they should not have to wait in line and that they can (loudly) comment on people all around them. This is a very small complaint, however, because that only happened a few times. Also, Carnival is known as a family cruise line and although I am sure there were kids on board, because of Camp Carnival and our late seating at dinner, we rarely saw any of them.

After naptime, we headed down to the lobby bar to listen to the excellent entertainment (a guitar player from Alaska named Scott) and then headed to Truffles Lounge for our 8:15 seating. Here is a picture of Brad with his girl drink and a sideways video he took...it's the sound that counts! LOL





At dinner, Brad had French Onion Soup, A Study in Sushi appetizer, and Jerk Pork Roast, and I had a Flat Iron Steak with baked potato. All the food was great and we finished with dessert that we didn't need, warm date cake with rum raisin ice cream for Brad, and of course the chocolate melting cake for me.













Full of food and two martinis down at this point, I was ready to head to bed. The way back to our cabin of course lead us through the casino, where they were having a black jack tournament. Brad and I both entered and he ended up getting in the finals. I forced my eyes open with toothpicks and waited until the final game to cheer him on. He ended up coming in 3rd and got a lovely 150 dollar (that's how much we ended up losing this week after the first night being up 75) Carnival t-shirt. LOL.