A Grand Time in a Grand Cayman

July 10, 2014

Current Location: Georgetown, Grand Cayman

Good evening from one of the most beautiful places in the world!! We have seriously found a new favorite vacation spot, behind Hawaii of course. This place is absolutely immaculate.

Before I get ahead of myself going on a tangent about the beauty of this wonderful place, let me tell you about our day. We actually didn't dock this morning until 10:00 am but we had until 6:00 pm to get back to the boat. Before I go any further, let me tell you that we did not have the same drama today that we had yesterday with shopping. We had enough time to get all of our wonderful souvenirs, T-shirts, and crafts.

At the beginning of our day, we began by meeting at The Amber Palace as we normally do for our  excursions. There was a guy in there who was in charge of making sure everyone went where they were supposed to go and he was hilarious. As soon as we walked in, someone yelled out "hey, have you called my tour yet? Hey, hey, have you called my tour yet?" The guy looked right at him and didn't say a word. The rude guest yelled out again "hey, have you called my tour yet?" Without missing a beat, the employee said to him in a wonderful south African accent, "yes sir, I do speak English." Then he proceeded to tell him that had he been on time or had he paid attention, he would know whether his tour had been called. That's what I'm talking about! Tell him how it is.

We giggled about how angry he was but it didn't damper his spirit. As soon as the rude guy stopped yelling out, the funny guy continued to call tours. One of the tours was called Turtles, turtles, and more turtles. Another was called Turtles, turtles, and more turtles deluxe. Two funny things about this: the first is that he pronounced deluxe as doo-lukes. Second, is what he said about why it was called deluxe. "Why is it deluxe?" He asked. When no one responded, he said "oh they must serve you lunch. What do you eat? Turtle soup?" :-) Of course, he was simply joking.

He also told us about all the people we left behind at ports previously in the week. He told us to make sure that we were on time because the Carnival Glory would not wait for us. He said that if we plan to be late, we need to make sure that we had our cameras out so that we could take a nice picture of the Carnival Glory sailing away in the distance. He also told us that he would wave to us from the top deck. Then he proceeded to get very serious about wearing sunscreen. He said "people, you must reapply your sunscreen. You can't think that applying the sunscreen first thing in the morning, getting in and out of the water, and then not applying it again will be enough. You people will come back looking like lobsters. I'm just saying, it's happened to me before."

He definitely brightened my morning. Finally, our entertainment called for our tour: stingray city, hell, and turtles, turtles, and more turtles. "Whoohoo" I called out. We walked to get in line with the other guests to make our way down to the bottom deck of the boat. Once we arrived on the bottom deck, we were escorted to the customs area where we checked out and headed for the boat that was going to tender us to the port. This was another port that wasn't big enough for our big ol' cruise ship to park it's big butt. As a result, the Cayman Islands government had to send a tiny little boat out to pick up about 100 guests at a time and tender them back to the port. This time, we were able to park a little closer so it didn't take nearly as long to arrive at the dock.

Even from the dock, I could tell that this island was absolutely beautiful. There were beautiful buildings, wonderful attractions, and fabulously decorated areas as soon as we arrived. We met up with our tour guide whose name was Michael. He looked just like Denzel Washington! Seriously. Even he said "if you lose me, just tell them that you are looking for Denzel!" The rest of the city did not disappoint. It was possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I was very surprised at this news because I've never heard anyone say that they are going on a vacation to the Cayman Islands. I've heard people say they were vacationing in Belize but now I question people who vacation there instead of the Cayman Islands. There was no poverty where we went on our tour. Now that is not to say that there was no poverty on the whole island but we definitely didn't see any.

After we toured the city (and realized how many familiar businesses there were -- KFC, Burger King etc.), we stopped at a place called Hell. Yes. Hell. Denzel, I mean Michael, stopped so we could see the limestone rocks that gave Hell it's name. They were very scary and he said that this is what some people thought Hell might look like so this is where the name came from. Seriously cheesy but there was a devil walking around Hell taking pictures. Don't bother scrolling to see that picture because I refused to take a photo with someone who was dressed up as a devil walking around in a place called Hell. Come on folks! I wasn't trying to get struck by lightening!

As you can see, we did take a picture with the statue against my better judgement but that is totally different than taking a photo with a wanna-be devil! I also did buy a shot glass and a postcard from Hell. You could also have your passport stamped in Hell but we didn't. The funniest thing about this place was how everyone that worked at the center kept saying Hell. Please excuse my language because y'all know I don't use these words, but let me explain. They would say "How the hell are you? Where the hell are you from? What the hell is up?" It was funny to hear them ironically use this word so many times. The neat part of this place is that despite the name, there were scriptures and Christian messages painted on the building.

After we saw Hell, we went to the Tortuga Rum Factory. Here, we got to buy souvenirs and try samples of rum and rum cake. I am not a huge fan of rum but I do love cake! :-) We didn't  buy any rum or rum cakes but we did pick up some souvenirs. By the way, did you know that many people (not us) buy alcohol while they are at port because it is so much cheaper than it is in America. Even more people (again, not us) buy diamonds here because of how inexpensive it is. I tried to get Ricky to buy me a necklace but he was not excited about buying a necklace that costs as much as our car payment -- haha!

Next, it was on to a fun part of our day. We went to the turtle farm where we learned about the history and life cycle of turtles. There were so many cool things to see here! First, we went to the breeding pond where the turtles weighed several hundred pounds and were an average of 55 years old. In addition to the pond, there was also a "beach" where the turtles could lay their eggs in the sand. Michael told us that hundreds of eggs are laid on the artificial beach each year.

After the breeding pond, we went into the hatchery where we learned about hatching baby turtles. Did you know that the temperature of the hatchery is what determines the gender of the hatched baby? If they set the temperature below 86, males will hatch; but temperatures above 86 degrees call for females to hatch. I thought this was so interesting! He said that's why girls are hot. Haha! We saw the little, sweet, baby hatchlings and we got to observe a real monster sized shell!

Near the end of our tour, we came to my favorite part of the tour -- the interactive part! I got to hold young turtles!! It was so cool! They start to freak out a little when they are first being picked up, however, the trick is to cradle their necks and gently rub your finger on the bottoms of their necks. I don't know why this worked but for some reason, it calmed most of the turtles down and comforted them. Now you know!

After the turtle farm tour was over, we headed to another super awesome pier to catch a boat. Our boat was called clear waters and it took us out a few miles into the ocean. Once we drove a few miles out, the boat stopped and we arrived at Stingray City. Even though we were way out in the ocean, the water only came about chest high. The ground was smooth and sandy and there were visitors waiting for us... Hundreds of beautiful and spontaneous stingrays! We were told it was good luck to kiss a stingray so we were among the first in line for a smooch! :-) the stringrays also let you hold them which was insane. They are so heavy! They are smooth underneath like silk, but they are rough on top like sandpaper. They also have this huge thing called a barb sticking out of them. I steered clear of the barb because that my friends, was the end of Steve Erwin! The stringrays would literally swim right under your feet and past your legs. They would brush up against us and just keep swimming. We learned that stingrays eat by sucking their food up like a straw. They have suction that is 15 times stronger than a vacuum. I am glad none of them thought my hair looked tasty! :-) We spent about an hour snorkeling and swimming with the beautiful stringrays before it was time to head back.

Once we got back to the port, we had about an hour to mosey around. We went to the Harley Davidson store first and can I just say? Holy COW! Best Harley Davidson store I have ever seen. There were at least 8 shirts that I wanted to buy so badly! Since the are between $35-$60 a pop, we decided to just get one each (and leave some for next time! :-) ) and it was such a hard choice. I finally decided on a pink one (shocker!) and Ricky picked out a black one (never would have guessed that --- not!) and then we hit the road.

We looked around for a bit but couldn't find the craft market. I asked directions in a gift shop and I am pretty sure she purposefully gave me the wrong directions. Ricky said it was rude to basically walk in and say "I won't buy your stuff, but where can I find hand made stuff?" If I was a local, it would make me happy, but I guess she didn't agree. We walked for what seemed like forever before we asked a gentlemen on a bench. "Hey, he looks like a local ask him!" I told Ricky. Well, apparently that fool was not in the right state of mind because he started mumbling words and just was not helpful at all. We kept walking and came to another local who again led us astray. She led us to one lady who was making bracelets. Not the craft market by a long shot! By the time we walked all over creation, we were pretty much out of time at this port. Two days in a row! What the heck?! We went back to the port with four minutes to spare. When we arrived though, there were literally hundreds of people waiting to board. We asked the police man if we were in the right line because they were supposed to stop running tenders at 5:30 pm. He told us we were and he said that if would be a nice long wait to get back aboard.

I had a crazy idea and I was pretty sure Ricky would not be cool with it. I asked the policeman how far away the craft market was and he pointed right to it. Guess what? It was only about two blocks past the Harley Store which is where we originally began searching for it. I don't regret the walk though because we got yo see a lot of the port. Back to my crazy idea... I asked the cop how long he thought it would take to get yes through and he responded with "a looooooooong time, probably!" What if we just went and tried to rush back? Ricky was definitely not on board at first but after I did some convincing, we dashed over to the craft market. It was super small, but there was a little girl playing with a drum and it was like we had our own private entertainment! We ended up buying a little handheld drum for my classroom and a hand carved/gorgeous turtle. I think this was a perfect souvenir for our fabulous day in Grand Cayman!

After we picked out our turtle, we had to high step back to the port. What if we didn't make it? The line definitely looked shorter! Oh no! Please don't let us be one of those folks that our cray cray friend spoke of this morning. We didn't even have our passports! Knees to chest, knees to chest, knees to chest, go, go, go! Finally, we could see that we were going to be just fine so we chilled with the high stepping. We told the cop that "whoohoo! We made it." He was glad because he said he wouldn't have stopped them if they started to leave! :-) We had to wait only about another 15 minutes or so, so it wasn't too bad. It wasn't a covered area to wait in like Belize so it was pretty warm. Also, there were no piña colada samples like in Belize. They were passing them out from across the street when we were there. FYI: there was a mom in front of us with a 13-14 year old and he picked up three samples of hard liquor. Three! First of all, how selfish, and second, I can't believe he did that right in front of his mom.

Anyway, we took 15 minutes and then the boat was ready for us. After we got back to our stateroom, we smelled like ocean sweat and reptile toes so we HAD to shower. It was elegant night again, yahoo! After we bathed, we got ourselves ready and headed down for a rushed evening of portraits. Again, the wait for pictures and dinner wasn't too bad. Check out the lovely picture we bought from elegant night!

We also went to our last show tonight, Latin Night! Those performers are just amazing. I can't believe how talented they are and how many songs they have to memorize. It was wonderful. My favorite
show of this week was the Motown one, but I've truly enjoyed these performances!

When we got back to our room, we found a cutie bull waiting for us. Ni Wayan is spoiling us, I tell you!

At the conclusion of our evening, we had a new comedian on board to see. His name was John Wesley Austin and I swear I have seen him before. I wonder if he was on our cruise last year maybe? He was another cowboy and he had some hilarious dance moves. His show was also very R rated! He was pretty funny and we enjoyed ourselves.

Tomorrow, we will have a day at sea and we are thinking about seeing the last two comedians again. They both said they never repeat shows so we think it will be pretty funny again. Today has been exhausting and I am looking forward to bed time tonight!

Good night friends!

Amy & Ricky