Wednesday, June 15 – Grand Cayman
Today is my only ship sponsored shore excursion. I am going to Stingray City, which I have been to two prior times (it is by far my favorite shore excursion) and the Turtle Farm for the first time. I woke up at 6:30am and stayed in bed until 7:00am. I’m dressed and out the door by 7:30am and this time score a banana for breakfast with a minimum of trouble. There are lines, but they are short. Given my limited menu selection, I just reach over someone shoulder and ended up with exactly what I wanted for breakfast.
Live music ...
Even though I could see from my balcony that the tender was not filling fast (meaning no line) I’m at the tender station at 7:45 (and there is no line). I’m on shore by 8:00am for an 8:30am shore excursion. I agreed to meet my friends on shore and they arrive about 8:15am. We were all here about seven years ago and my friends’ then six year old was not too keen on getting in the water with the stingrays. Today he is looking forward to it.
Rear (adult) pool ...
We are the third boat to arrive at Stingray City (at least half a dozen more boats arrived before we left). First was the handling, petting and picture taking with the stingrays. I had my under water camera and got a couple of good stingray pictures and several good pictures of my friends’ son holding the stingrays. The reason the food is last on this tour is once the food comes out the stingrays show up in large quantities and the stingrays get right up to the people. Some people panic when this happens. That is the last thing you want to do, because if you step on one you are going to get the stinger in your leg, and that will hurt.
Middle pool on embarkation day ...
Once we were done feeding the stingrays we headed back to shore and then it was a short bus ride to the Turtle Farm. But first they stopped the boat in deeper water so that people that wanted to could jump off the second deck. There were a lot of volunteers for that. Also, if you wanted to buy any of the pictures they took, it was $25 US dollars (cash) for a disc (which included all the pictures of your group).
Lido deck ...
At the turtle farm we got to pick up the turtles, and even swim with them, though while swimming I only saw one (we don’t swim with the turtles in the holding pens). The area where you can swim with the turtles is huge and there are only a few turtles in the pond. However, I was able to get lots of good fish pictures. There is also a fresh water pool with a couple of water falls (one very kid friendly) for swimming without the turtles. I highly recommend the turtle farm tour. We saw turtles of all sizes, from seven month old ones weighing a few pounds to a 75 years old weighing over 600 pounds. My friends’ son had fun feeding the turtles, one of which he named “Fattyâ€.
Middle pool on a sea day ...
After the turtle farm tour we were taken back to town where we did a little shopping and then returned to the ship before the big crowd arrived at the tender station. Because we ate a late lunch we skipped dinner in the dinning room and ate in the buffet. Since the guest services line was short, Mom decided to clear up the on board accounts. Apparently there is one main account for everyone and two sub accounts (father and son). Only Mom’s account will be charged (I think a “we shall see†approach is the best to use here). Also Carnival claims the son cannot charge more than the $60 he has been allotted (even though his balance is over $85 because of the $60 gratuities listed on his account).
Late night party on the Lido deck ...
After dinner we went to the main theater were my friend’s son won a metal in a Fact or Fiction trivia contest. I also won one contest, but it was the last one and only the first two were given any prizes. Then we stayed for the Gender Showdown. The men won round one but the women won rounds two and three and thus were the champs. We then stayed for two rounds of Game Show Mania which is another trivia challenge which requires a good knowledge of old movies, TV shows and music.
From the Sun King Restaurant ...
After all of that it was back to the cabin to upload the photographs and update this. And now, since it is after 11:00pm, it is time for a long nap. See ya in the morning.
