Grand Cayman

Tuesday-September 15-Grand Cayman

After sailing for a day and a half we were all ready to get off the ship and tour our first island stop. Today we were going to be at Grand Cayman from 7-4. We had an excursion planned for 9:00. We knew that we had to tender off the boat (take a boat from the ship to the shore of Grand Cayman) and that there could be lines delaying our travel to our excursion at 9:00. Being novices at this whole cruise thing we (Denice, Kristina, Dan and I) decided to get off the boat at 7:30, ensuring that we'd find everything within plenty of time. If we got there early we could just look around the shops.

Well, we got off the ship with hardly any line and made it the shore of Grand Cayman by 7:45. We walked the 4 minutes to our taxi meet-up destination and noticed that none of the shops were open. Then in dawned on us. The ship was on EST, and Grand Cayman was on CST. That meant it was only 6:45 there and we had WAY too much time on our hands. None of the shops opened until 8:00 so we found a quiet spot to sit and chat, and ended up playing 20 questions.

Finally around 8:00 we headed back towards our taxi meet-up spot and walked around a little shop called the Blue Iguana. At 8:30 we decided we better be out by our taxi area just incase he came early. We waited.... and waited... no taxi for a waverunner/stingray excursion was coming. This seemed to be a popular area to pick up taxis so we asked each one if they were ours or if they knew our company. A few did and assured us they always see him and they should be here soon. By 9:45 we still hadn't seen a single taxi that met our descriptions. I had left the contact info for the place on the ship b/c we didn't have cell phones on us to call them anyways. We went into the Hard Rock Cafe and they were very helpful by letting us use their yellow pages and their phone for free to contact them. The lady said, "What do you mean no one came. The guy came back and said no one was there. Are you at the Blue Iguana?" Grrr... of course we were there. We'd been there since 6:45! She came back on the line and said she'd send a taxi right away. He came about 20 minutes later, quite apologetic and said the taxi ride would be free.

We got all signed in and life vested and waited for our now taxi driver and tour guide to get 5 waverunners into the water. Just as he got the last one in the water his phone rang. There was a problem. See, there was a 9:00 tour and an 11:00 tour. It was now 10:45 and if we left with the 5 waverunners before the 9:00 tour came back, there wouldn't be enough waverunners for the 11:00 group and their tour guide. He came out and offered us another $20 discount each to wait and allow them to have enough waverunners. After all the waiting we'd done already, another 15 minutes or so and $20 discount each sounded great! That was snafu #2 of the cruise.

We finally got in the water, on the waverunners and got going! I personally hadn't ever been on one by myself. I was a little scared at first but had a lot of fun. Dan was having a little too much fun. He was doing flatspins and all sorts of stuff over there, not in the way of anyone, but we were supposed to be moving as a group towards stingray city. They slowed us all down and went and told him to keep up with the group. Hehe....

I didn't want to goof around on the waverunner, but I did want to stop and just admire the clear blue water instead of skimming right past it. It was super warm and just beautiful. Stingray city was all clear and shallow and warm in the middle of the ocean. They had warned us not to jump around so the stingrays didn't get nervous, but they never warned us as to how big they were! I had seen stingrays at the zoo and they were the size of a dinner plate or so, but I jumped off my waverunner and this HUGE black mass came toward me and I about lost it! These things were the size of tires and very friendly. The would just come up and rub against you, almost knocking you over. We got to hold them, kiss them, I fed one, and they gave us back rubs. It was pretty dang cool. There were tons of other tourists there that had all come on a ship, but we were the ones who came and left on waverunners!

After stingray city our guide took us to a snorkel spot and let us go as long as we wanted. The snorkeling was very pretty, but it was my first time. I tried not to hyperventilate and just stay calm, but it gave me a headache. Maybe with more practice?

Finally it was time to zoom back to shore. We made it there a little too quick and showered off and headed back to the ship with a free taxi ride. (And in the taxi that everyone had described to us in the first place that we NEVER saw by the Blue Iguana) By then it was 2:30 ship time and the last tender to the ship was at 3:15. We zoomed through a few shops and made it back on.

That night was the 1st of two shows that we went to. It was a juggler and a comedian. They were both okay. The juggler was almost funnier than the comedian and lots of lines ready for when he dropped stuff. He said it was intentional 'just to make it look harder' but he did drop quite a bit. It bugged me b/c he would do that trick over and over until he finally got it. Most jugglers i've seen when they drop something, they'll just move on. Oh well, free entertainment right?