Grand Cayman

We drop anchor early.  When we look outside it looks like another beautiful day in the Caribbean.

Grand Cayman is a tender port and after a quick breakfast upstairs we are slathering on the sunscreen and gathering our snorkel gear for a great day ashore.

I reserved Captain Marvins Sting Ray City excursion with one snorkel stop.  You can check out their site here.

We head down to the Island Dining room for tendering.  As an elite you get priority tendering but pretty much everyone in the room is able to board the tender right away.  The time is around 930 am.

The tenders are operated from shore side and they are huge with two levels.  It does take time to disembark though.

We are at the Royal Walter Cruise Terminal - the terminal to the West.  There are three terminals, but since we are the only ship in port we are tendering to Royal Walter Cruise Terminal.

There are numerous shops, bars, restrooms, taxi stands and a large covered area for those on excursions to wait out of the sun.  

Numerous people within the pier and just outside the terminal offering tours and taxis.

The prices our outline on a large board.  Here is a picture of the rates.

We cross the street and stop in a lovely coffee shop called Cayman Coffee Club for iced coffees and to wait.  

We don't have to be at the Captain Marvin office until 10:45.  We arrive at 10:50 and we are told they were just about to give up on us.  When we point out that we should of been here at 10:45 we just shrug.  Note the boat only leaves at 11:15 and we are only a few minutes from the boat.

You can see our ship in the distance 

The boat is very nice, and newer.  We first used Captain Marvin over 15 years ago and loved it.  Once again Captain Marvin's tour did not disappoint.  There was only 22 people on the tour.  Many from the ship and many from people staying on the island for a vacation.

 When we arrive at Stingray City it is crowded but not as crowded as we have seen in the past.  The ships' excursion  has a few boats here and they are packed.  Glad we went independent.

The water at the sandbar is  not very deep, around waist high but the water is a bit choppy and it is hard to stand at times.

There are a lot of stingrays and at first it is a bit freaky but once you get use to it it is lovely to be surrounded by such beautiful graceful creatures.

We all get to hold one and even kiss it and then they have the stingray glide up our back!  

Later the squid comes out and we can feed them.  Boy talk about some suction!  

We are here for about 45 minutes.  Lots of time and we never felt rushed.  The crew from Captain Marvins was very professional and helpful and worked very well with everyone and they were especially good with the children.

Our next stop was a snorkel site at a coral reef.  We spent about a half hour here and got to see some lovely fish.  

The water temperature is so warm.  Warmer than in the winter months that is for sure.

They do offer all the photos they took of us for a price of $50 US all placed on a USB drive.  The pictures are cute and we thought about buying them but for $50 US that is a bit much for us especially when you convert to Canadian which is around $65 Canadian. 

We are back at the pier around 2 pm and board the tender back to the ship.  

It is hot, our suits are wet, and our shorts/t-shirt over the swimsuits are wet too.  Rather uncomfortable.

Back in the cabin we shower and I order a pizza to the cabin.  It takes about 30 minutes and it costs $3 for delivery.  But the pizza is huge - more than enough for two people and it is hot.  But it is no where near as good as Alfredos Pizzeria that the Royal has (and other ships have it too).

Not sure if we will be eating supper tonight after the late lunch but we have decided to go to the Captain Circle Party at 7:30.

Tomorrow we are in Roatan but not until noon and apparently there will be another ship in port with us.

Jan 11th Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman - Sort Of



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.