2BCruising: Wednesday-Day 11: Grand Cayman

Warning: another picture intensive blog post. Enjoy!

Our alarm went off very early as in 5:50 am. We have a swim/snorkel with the stingrays and beach break excursion for today and have to meet our group in the Princess Theater by 8am.

We arrived into Grand Cayman around 7am along with 4 other cruise ships: 2 Carnival, Celebrity Eqinox, and Norweigan Getaway. Wow! That's a lot of passengers! Especially for a tender port.

We are in the Princess Theater by 8am. We are given a group number (purple 27) and shown where to sit. Five minutes later we are heading out of the theater and heading down to the gangway. Security scans my cruise card and...Bong! It's working! Life is good!

They pack us in the tender like sardines while the tender is bobbing up and down. At one point the tender is like 12 inches lower than the ship and goes up a few inches and then is level with the ship. Interesting to see and feel this motion (we like it).

The tender ride takes us about 20 minutes to reach the South Pier/dock where Princess has setup "home". I look over to the North Pier and see Norweigan has setup "home". The North and South pier is tiny and can hold two tenders at each dock.

We follow a few groups of fellow cruisers to a waiting area and then the announcement is made by one of the guides: we're sorry but such and such excursion has been cancelled. The sandbar has been closed by the authorities due to the extreme weather conditions. We had heard the weather today was one of the worst they have experienced in awhile. Hard to believe from my pictures. The authorities are talking about the unusual high winds that would make the sandbar unsafe.

We decide quickly to head back on the next tender to the ship to unload our snorkeling gear and get some money. Normally, our back up plan would be to go to the beach as in the famous Seven Mile Beach. Since we have to be back on the ship by 3pm (too early in my opinion), we knew we did not have enough time. Plus with all the additional passengers from the other ships on the island we did not want to take a chance on trying to find transportation back. Also there would be a long line waiting for the last tender.

After our back and forth tendering, we finally had a chance to go exploring in town. We headed away from the crowds and towards the direction of where our ship was "floating". I notice our Regal is not anchored, but the other four ships have their anchors dropped. My inquiring mind is curious. I make a mental note to ask Captain Perrin when we see him again at the Captain's Circle party on Friday night.

We come across Eden Rock, a dive center:

Here we see a few folks snorkeling from a platform:

The water is quite clear here and I start to see other snorkelers quite a ways out.

Hubby is looking at the crabs:

The Regal is on the left and the NCL Getaway on the right:

Hubby has a knack for finding tiny creatures like this lizard and is always pointing out photog moments:

As we're heading back, we come across Paradise Restaurant and next to it is another entry point for snorkeling/diving. Next time we'll come to these two locations and snorkel from their walk on platform/pier:

Along the way, we come to a craft market and I spied these colorful scotch bonnet peppers. My older brother D, would have enjoyed these:

Here's a rather large photo op, an iguana:

We walk through crowds of people and see this beautiful mural:

One of several shopping areas:

We had a really nice meal at Breezes on the bay:

While eating our lunch with a view like this:

We head back to the Princess tender area/"home" to find a long line and another photo op. Isn't the water just gorgeous?

The Regal Princess is the first ship to sail out of Grand Cayman in the late afternoon. Hubby and I had a wonderful time here hanging out with the locals.