We wake up to see overcast skies again, and an announcement that we are having to head South of the city to tender in as the winds are just too strong. I have to say I am very impressed that the Captain went over and above to get us ashore. He could of easily cancelled the port but he made every effort and we were fortunate to be able to see Grand Cayman. The other downfall is that most of the excursions are cancelled, the beach excursions, the sailing excursions, all the snorkeling excursions including the fact that Stingray City is closed because of high winds.
We had booked Native Way http://www.nativewaywatersports.com/ for a private excursions to two snorkel spots including Stingray City. When we got off the tender ashore we saw someone with a sign for Native Way and we approached them and they confirmed it was cancelled but were there just to notify us. That was impressive.
I should state that as the tender came ashore there were a lot of pieces of luggage that had obviously missed the ship because of all the storms. I am just glad our bag made it to Florida or else our bag could of been one of these bags.
We hoped on a small bus that held about 20, and we waited for the bus to fill before heading to town. The downfall of docking South of the city is that we have to take a taxi to town, $5 each way. Make sure you pick a bus that is almost full because they won't leave until it is full.
We arrived at George Town after about a five minute taxi ride. It is cold! We have our sweatshirts on, and I am wearing pants! Bernie has decided to be brave and is wearing shorts, but I can tell he is cold. The wind is picking up and we are watching the waves crash ashore and we can see why we were not able to tender into town, and why they closed Stingray city, safety first.
We are the only ship in port, which is a good thing because downtown is busy, a little too crowded for me. We are not really into shopping, and we don't need rum or another t-shirt, and we aren't hungry. We wander around, check out the bus terminal, chatted with a driver and took lots of pictures.
We see lots of passengers wandering around with hot coffee, normally ice cold beer is the norm. We decide to head back to the ship after only about 3 hours ashore.
Tonight is formal night, but Bernie and I are not doing formal nights. We relaxed the entire afternoon and went up for dinner in Horizon Court. All the tables have candles (the battery powered ones) and all the staff are dressed up. It looks very nice, but we are in shorts, even better.It is Monday nights so Monday Night Football is everywhere, a bit too much, can't seem to find a venue that isn't showing football. So we call it a night early and head to the room to read and relax.
Have to say that Ron Goodman our cruise director is great, very approachable and funny and his assistant Brett is great too.
Our observations of the people that are on board is very different than what we are use to. Much younger crowd, I would say the average age is 40, lots of families, lots of young couples, and a few couples that are getting married and have brought family to witness, many grandparents with their kids, and their kids. It is nice to see the variety of ages, but with the variety of ages come a lot of annoying people. There was a constant issue with kids swimming in the "adult" pool, children running wild. One couple comes to mind, they had one young son who they thought was a prince, because he could do no wrong. This evening while watching David Moore the boy decided he wanted to play the piano too, so when David was taking break this "evil" child took over. One of the crew had to advise his family that this was not allowed. Seemed like everywhere we went on the ship this child was screaming or causing problems.
With the younger age came a lot of new cruisers, and lots of questions and mistakes. We tried to help out when asked or felt we could help. But in the end we realized that 7 day Caribbean cruises are going to have younger passengers and a lot of new sailors too.
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