Day 5: GRAND CAYMAN

So here we are. It's already Thursday and where is my time going on this cruise? It started out slow and it's going by so quickly now. Sigh

Today we are in Grand Cayman and I have been looking forward to this for a long time now. Last time we were here was last year in March and the Pearl. We did not have the greatest experience (you are welcome to read my review in my signature for a complete detail).

So just a short review of last time. We booked the Stingray sandbar, snorkeling and Rum Point with Nativeways. We received several emails stating that their time in Cayman was the same as the ship time. We met, they left without us. They put us on another tour (which I believe to be a ship sponsored tour). They, IMO, were reckless, impersonal, and in a way put our daughters life in danger. It was one mess up after another. After posting my review on TA, someone on my thread came back to inform me that Nativeway said they would give us a complimentary excursion next time I was there. Well...this trip would be that time to get it right.

Just to make sure of this "time" issue (like before), we checked and double checked with the front desk the time of the ship versus the time at Grand Cayman and were assured the ship was on the same time as the island. We were going to get this thing right this time!!!

Our wake up call came at 6am. This was our view from our balcony:

We seem to have a ship following us still. I'm pretty sure it was the Carnival Sunshine.

 Yep

It was a race to get to the anchor area. I believe we won. 

Then we were eating at the long, no place to sit, buffet for breakfast by 6:45am. HA, I was way ahead of schedule this time. No way I was missing this excursion.

The ma'ams and our Epic cruise buddy had decided to join us for this day adventure and we were excited to all be together.

Now the night before, we had planned on trying to meet up with the ma'ams and our Epic cruise buddy and the ma'ams thought they were getting their priority tendering by meeting in the Star Bar. I know ours said to meet in Le Bistro. I figured it shouldn't really make a difference and I was just going to go up there and meet with them so we could all go down together.

When we got to the Star Bar, there wasn't anyone in there, so we sat down for awhile and let our daughter entertain us for awhile.

After awhile, I told the hubby we should probably go down to Le Bistro and just go ahead and get on the tender. We would meet up with them once we got to the port. We were informed that the first tender had already left and it would be just a moment before another would be here.

The weird thing I found during this cruise, on the tender ports, I never did hear ANY announcements saying they were cleared and ready to start tendering. Could this be because they getting all the VIP people and the people with NCL excursions off before making an announcement? That's the only thing I could come up with.

As soon as we sat down, it was time to get back up and go to the tender. Here's where the Cigar Bar comes into play. This was their secret stairway to get down to the front of the line.

We got on the tender and sat down and waited and waited for 30 minutes before we ever even left. Well....looky who is getting on the tender now....the ma'ams and Mrs Epic friend. See we met up after all.

We docked at the south dock (which is opposite of where we docked last time). We looked around and didn't see anyone with the Nativeways tour sign but was told to wait around. After awhile, I stopped a lady on the sidewalk and she called Eldon (the owner) up and he said he would be right there. He walked over, checked everyone in and told us to meet in the gazebo over on the north dock at 9:15. We just hung out for awhile waiting there at the port. Another member of our roll call showed up and introduced themselves. This was pretty cool that we were all roll call members. (Well, we did end up with 2 other people on the excursion, but that was it). So a total of ONLY 12 PEOPLE!!! How awesome is that??? You talk about amazing to not be crowded on a boat and excellent service.

A few pictures I told while we were standing there.

So it was time to leave and we walked over to the parking lot down the street and around the corner from the port to get in the bus to take us to the boat dock.

To see my complete review of our day in Grand Cayman and the Stingray Sandbar, snorkeling and Rum Point click the following tab to take you there:

Along our trip back to the port, I managed to capture a few pictures of the ships sitting out in the ocean.

When we got back to the parking lot and walked back to the port area, it was a mad house. The line was all the way down our dock side, wrapped down the sidewalk and past the other port dock. YIKES! We were in line by 3:16pm and they had told us to be back to the ship by 3:30pm. The lined moved along and it wasn't too bad since we seem to keep moving. It was just hot in the sun.

On the tender. It's a really short distance to the ship.

We watched people come back from the port.... from our balcony of course...

We had a cheese and cracker tray waiting for us in our room to enjoy while we watched the tenders come in.

Once again, we were late pulling out (but it doesn't really matter to me. We were back on the ship and could stay here forever).

When we got back to our room, the room was made up and all of the towel animals were in a pile along with Trixie. I have to say, this is the FIRST cruise they allowed us to keep all of our towel animals the entire cruise. Every other cruise, they would remove them each day and Sakari was sad.

We also had this waiting for us in our room:

So tonight was the night of the Latitudes wine & cheese gathering and I completely forgot about it. sad face!

However, this was different than the Captains party I missed on Monday night in the Haven (I believe this is the one the Ma'ams went to) and the reason I forgot is because we were at the Nick meet & greet for Spongebob. Plus they had it during a time that the kids club wasn't open, which I found strange.

I would have loved to see the Haven area in person since I probably will never get to do this on my own. Sigh. But, if you remember, this is the night I won in the casino, so I guess I won't complain tooooooo much.

When it was time to drop Sakari off at the kids club, we turned her over to them and we were off to see a show.

Tonight was the comedian show with Darrell Joyce. He was funny and we enjoyed it. He did the normal jokes about the ship, life as a single person, growing up and his life with his momma ruling the house and his dad being scared to speak up. All jokes we can and do relate to.

After the show, it was time to meet up for the VIP chocolate buffet. We were told to meet in front of the kids club and the area was getting crowded. So they ended up moving us down into the hallway that leads to the 3-5 yr old club...which is a long harrow hallway. This is where we stood and waited and waited...once again, they were late.

I won't go into too many details about our experience standing in line and the (sorry for the expression but it was the nicest words I could come up with) white trash huge family in front of us that had the worse vulgar ghetto mouths (including the children) that I've ever heard, that proceeded to rub in everyone's face how they were in the Haven and VIP and they should go in first...then wanted to know how ALL THESE OTHER PEOPLE FILLING THE HALLS had the same VIP access that they did because they knew there wasn't that many Haven's on the ship. They went on and on about it. They proceeded to talk about how they were going to run in and gobble up everything before anyone else had a chance to get to it because they deserved it and they were special. I believe one of the workers at the front of the line heard this and then decided to make an announcement. She let everyone know that this was the VIP line for special guest and the reason that we got to go first was because this was a PICTURE TAKING OPPORTUNITY. It was our opportunity to get in and take pictures of the displays before they let the rest of the crowd in at the other doors to eat the food. You talk about the disgusted looks on their faces and the smirky grin I had on mine...priceless.

When we were finally able to walk in, the workers were all lined up and singing and playing Christmas music. 

I proceeded to walk around taking pictures of everything. The other family proceeded to pick up a couple of plates each, run by the thing they wanted to start eating and stand there until they staff said "go eat". Totally made me want to vomit....on them. Oops, did I say that out loud?

This display drove me NUTS!! It changed colors and blinked really fast. I can't tell you how many tries it took me to capture it with the lights on. Come on...no need to have someone go into a seizure with the blinking lights, just leave them on for those of US that want an actual picture.

Now I have to admit...I don't like chocolate...unless it's white chocolate or something with peanut butter in it (like a candy bar every once in awhile). But when I seen that they had cheesecake, my heart start to go pitter patter. Even though it had chocolate swirl in it, I thought I might give this a shot. Oh my...I don't know what it was, but it wasn't cheesecake. It was probably the most disgusting thing I have tried. It was a ball of fluff with no consistency. I have no clue what it was....at all!

Now NCL is known for not having the best deserts. I don't know what the problem is here. Everyone complains about their deserts and how nasty most things are or very bland. This was no exception here either.

When they started to let everyone in, the Mr & Mrs White family and all their hood rats made a dash for the chocolate like if they had been starved the entire cruise. I managed to get a plate of the "cheesecake" (using the term lightly), a few regular cakes and a few things I thought Sakari might want to try when we picked her up.

The only thing I liked were the red and yellow slices of cake and I didn't even eat all of them. I have to add, Sakari didn't like any of the things either and decided not to eat any of it. I thought she would at least go for the apple, but I guess her first bite spoiled the rest of it.

I will add that while we were sitting down enjoying the atmosphere at the table....along comes....you guessed it "The White" family. I sat there while I wanted to ignore them, it was very hard to do. At one point I watched the youngest, which looked like she was maybe Sakari's age or a little younger say something to the mom and the mom grabbed her BY HER HEAD and slammed her into the booth chair. :eek: The little girl sat there the rest of the time with the saddest look on her face and didn't talk at all or eat anything. She just sat there while the family continued to devour their food and completely ignore her. I almost wanted to cry. I could feel her pain. So sad. This of course just made me want to run and get my daughter and hug her and never let her go. Sigh

Sakari had a fun night at the kids club and came back with her face painted of course. I think she was a butterfly tonight since the theme for the night was "Bugs & Butterflies". (I'm surprised she didn't opt to be a bug actually).

We had a towel crab tonight and Sakari squealed with excitement. Of course anything "beach" or "ocean" related she loves.

I ended up with the crappiest picture ever of it. I think my flash forgot to fire.

The kids club had made balloon animals for the children and Sakari had what she called "turtles" on her wrist. Part of the balloon actually wrapped around her wrist and she wore these around. She insisted that I take a picture of them and share.

When we returned to the room for the night Trixie had gotten herself into a mess. I guess either Mr Crab was hungry, or she tried to ride him like one of the other towel animals and he wasn't having it.

Balcony update for the day. When we returned at night, not only was our balcony door unlocked IT WAS ACTUALLY OPEN THIS TIME. Not all the way by about 1/4 of the way. :confused: What the heck???

Tonight was another time change. We would turn our clocks back 1 hour and gain an extra hour of sleep. Whew, I really needed it at this point. I didn't inform the hubby of this and played it off like it was getting late and time for bed. (I really needed this extra hour of sleep after the exciting day we had). I called in the wake up call for in the morning. Another bright and early day in Cozumel.