Grand Cayman

Today we are in one of my favourite places in the world, Grand Cayman. As I sit out on my balcony waiting for Steve to wake up, the sky is clear and I can tell it’s going to be a glorious day at Seven Mile Beach!

This is how our boat looks from the beach!

We eat another yummy breakfast of egg white omelets and fruit (they do have a lot of healthy food on here… they even have no sugar added desserts which are very tasty), get our tender ticket and then tender into Grand Cayman. I’m amazed to see the colour of the water again. It’s really an incredible turquoise colour!

At the dock we see taxi drivers holding up signs that say $4US to the Royal Palms and quickly flag one down. He’s trying to fill up his van, so approaches about 8 college kids who after much discussion decide they can get the taxi ride for cheaper.

Heres the travel tip of the day: $4 for a taxi ride is cheap! Saving a dollar is not going to make your vacation better.  Everyone is not trying to rip you off!!!!)   Then, we finally get in the cab, quickly drive to Seven Mile Beach and at last I’m HERE! This is my favourite beach in the world so far (Steve says it’s HIS favourite, not mine) but I’m making him share.

Oh look! Here are my three favourite things in the world in one photo:
The Handsome Man, Diet Coke and the beach!

We set up our towels on the beach and lay out in the beautiful sunshine in front of the Reef Grill (Our favourite place to have a mudslide on Seven Mile Beach).

Steve is almost giddy because at last there are girls in bikinis to look at 😉 We take a walk, have a mudslide and some lunch at the restaurant and generally have a fine time.

An iguana friend at the beach with us

Steve mentioned to me that he noticed three local guys sitting on the edge of the beach with a big garbage bag full of stuff. They had an open bottle of alcohol (Rum?) and were going through a black bag. We were kind of keeping our eyes on them (just to see what was going on) and you would NOT believe what happened. This single girl is walking along with a plastic cup (probably a drink from the reef grill). They call her over and she is thrilled with the attention, so when they offer her alcohol out of a bottle, she says sure (yes, she actually took alcohol from an open bottle from 3 guys on a beach that she doesn’t know) and chats them up a bit more. Then she goes and sits on her towel and one of them starts watching her. Of course we were watching too (in case we needed to rescue her…. well in case I thought Steve should rescue her). Eventually the guy goes over and sits with her, and is encouraging her to drink. Anybody with half a brain can see where this is going, but I suppose if you’ve had too much rum you might not have half a brain?! I realize I’m feeling a little toasty and decide to go shower off, but Steve stays at the beach. Suddenly, the cops are there… they take their alcohol, go through all their stuff and take the guy away from the girl. Crisis averted! From what I understand crime is pretty rare in Grand Cayman, and I can see why if the cops are that on the ball.

Lunch at the Reef Grill

Hey! Where did my mudslide go???

We catch a cab back to the ship. Our driver is Elizabeth from Jamaica… I can barely understand her… but pick out the words that she loves us, Grand Cayman loves us, and we should come back… who am I to argue with Elizabeth? Oops almost forgot what Elizabeth told us about Jamaica. Her mother told her that if you ever get the Whooping Cough you need to eat the rat. R-A-T! Not the sewer rat, the bush rat. (I’m hoping I never get the whooping cough in Jamaica!!!!)When we get to the pier we see a GIGANTIC long snaky line to get through the gate. I go to get in line and Steve goes to check if it’s the right line (it’s so nice to have systems… this is back to the efficient part). Guess what? That was not our line!!! That was the Carnival line. Our gate has NO line (this never happens to me!)

We go through the gate and see the tender is just docking. As we are standing waiting to get on the tender the staff bring us chilled towels and fruit punch. (This is another thing I like about Celebrity!) Steve has a moment of sadness as he realizes that all the pretty girls in bikinis are headed back to the Carnival ships.  Steve notices a young attractive couple on the tender, and gets excited that there are actually young people on this ship. He quickly realizes that they are staff  on their break for the day 😁

Steve enjoying his chilled towel

Once on the ship ,we have a shower… this is when I realize that I am BURNT. Really burnt. Not sure what happened. I had on my 30 spf sunscreen. Parts of me will not be seeing sun again for at least a few days.

We head out for another delicious dinner. Bob informs me that tomorrow night I need to do a presentation on what we can do in Cartagena, Colombia. Monica would like it to include a powerpoint slideshow (note to self… don’t tell people you are a librarian). We have all kinds of fascinating conversations with our dinner companions (carefully avoiding the topic of Obama and Healthcare, because that went off the rails last night!)

Enjoying our evening

Then we head to the show. I can’t decide if I liked it or not. The guy had a great voice and amazing ability playing the trumpet but he kept jumping around and punching the air and “making the song his own” (thanks for that American Idol)… he totally wrecked a Ricky Martin song and the Phantom of the Opera song. Anyway, it was entertaining (and free).  We walk past the disco it’s literally empty. So we decide to go check out the “interactive theme night” in the Sky Lounge. Turns out it’s 40’s music and the staff try to make you dance with them. (I’m out of there pretty quickly!) We head back down to the grand foyer where the live band is playing something . People are dancing but they seem to be about twice my age, and we are not particularly fond of the music. 

I have a brainwave that if we go to the disco, and are the only ones there that the DJ will play whatever we want (I’m willing to let go of my rule that there must be at least two other couples on the dance floor). We walk back to the disco (did I mention that the sky lounge is on deck 14 and the disco is on deck 4 and we have a commitment to take the stairs to combat all the eating?!?) only to discover that the DJ is not there. Guess where he is? In the sky lounge playing the 40’s tunes. This is my only problem with Celebrity. We don’t appear to be their regular demographic and the nightlife is not that good. Okay fine, this calls for a drink. We ask if they can make a Vodka Paralyzer… our waiter (from Honduras) keeps asking if I’m saying Vodka Budweiser 😁(For the record, I am not). We tell him how to make them and spend some time chatting with our very nice waiter.  We ask if people ever dance in the disco… he says maybe one or two couples…  and giggles as he tells us there are a lot of “mature” guests on the boat. He tells us about his wife and kids (we chat for a long time, perhaps because nobody else was in the disco???) and wait for the late night comedy show.

The Late Night Comedy Show was hilarious! One of Steve’s favourite parts was when the comedian said, “The people on this boat are old. I mean REALLY OLD! Even the old people are looking around and saying there’s a lot of old people on this boat!” We both really enjoyed the show. It’s 12:30, and we head off to bed. (I suppose I should be preparing my Cartagena presentation... but skip my homework and go to bed. I can always say my room steward ate it!) 😉