Day 14
This was our first port day and we were due to arrive early and leave early. Grand Cayman is also a tender port so that added some time to get off the ship. We got up at 7:00 and got ready. Our nice new DVC bag came in handy. Once we were ready, we quickly went up to deck 9 to get some towels. While we were up there, we decided to grab some pastries from Cove Cafe and then we headed for the drink station where Graham got some coffee and I had an Earl Grey tea. We sat down and enjoyed the view while we had our breakfast. Once we were finished, we headed down to the Buena Vista Theater, which was the meeting point for the tenders for people who did not have excursions booked. We got lucky once again. As we approached the cast member giving out the tender tickets, she pointed us to the other door and advised us that they were about to send a group down and there was still room. We were told to just join the end of the line. We did and less than 10 minutes later, we were on the tender. We had see the tender boats at Grand Cayman change a lot over the years. On our first visit, they were essentially just floating platforms. The previous year, they looked like excursion boats and this was still the case this year, but the boats were a lot bigger. We went downstairs and there were not many other people on that level.
The crossing to Georgetown did not take long. When we arrived in the port area, the heavens opened. I have never seen anything like this. It only last about 10 minutes, but I think during that period we had about a week's worth of rain. Fortunately we were not far from shelter and we just waited it out. Once this freak shower had passed, we had a beautiful sunny day and it was very hot. On our last two visits to Grand Cayman, we had gone on excursions. This time round we decided to just head for the beach. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring my wallet. I noticed this just as we were heading to the Buena Vista Theater and suggested I would go back to the cabin to fetch it, but Graham said we would just find a cash machine and get some money. So once the rain had stopped, this was the next task. We had hoped that there would be a cash machine right by the port, but that was not the case. We asked one of the people trying to sell excursions and he pointed us down a street opposite the port. We walked the whole length of the street, but could not find a cash machine. We decided that we would head in the general direction of Seven Mile Beach as we had seen some strip malls driving along that road the previous year and hoped that we would come across a cash machine on our travels. We were treated to a beautiful rainbow as we walked. We even came past a HSBC bank, but still no cash machine. It is really beyond belief that it is virtually impossible to find a cash machine on an island were banking is the second biggest industry.
We found an access point to the beach before we found a cash point. Graham went in the water, but there were a lot of rocks in the water at this stretch of beach. I stuck my toe in the water, but it was too cold for my liking. This was a real shame as this stretch of beach had beautiful white sand and we were the only people there. It just looked like a little piece of paradise. We decided to move on and saw some interesting wildlife on the way. Unfortunately I had a disagreement with one bit of wildlife. I caught my leg on a tree branch. It was bleeding quite a lot at first, but it soon enough stopped so I did not have it seen too. With hindsight, I should have taken it to the health centre. It took well over a month to heal and now I have a very angry looking scar. I think this may have benefitted from a couple of stitches, as it was so deep. We walked along the beach for about an hour, but there was no further access to the sea at first and then we got tangled up with the resorts. In the end we gave up and cut through a resort to get back to the road and walked back to the port.
Once we got back to the port area, we found ourselves a shady spot and sat down for a while to cool down. I was actually considering heading back to the ship to get my wallet, but this seemed like a lot of effort. There were a lot of people near where we were sitting offering shuttle services to the beach. Graham decided to speak to one of them to see how much they charge and if they accepted cards. They only charged $4.00 per person and although they could not accept card payments, they offered to take us to a cash machine near the beach resort were they were taking us. That sounded like a plan. We accepted that offer gratefully.
The resort they took us to is the Royal Palms Resort. They dropped off everybody else at the resort and then they took us to strip mall about half a mile further that had a bank that actually had a cash machine. Graham got some money and then they took us back to the resort. I was surprised that they actually had US Dollars in the cash machine. We had expected that they would have Cayman Dollars, but apparently there was a choice of both.
The resort was absolutely amazing. They offered all kinds of water sports there at an extra cost; they had a beautiful white sand beach with shallow access to the sea, a freshwater pool, a restaurant and a couple of bars. You could also hire a sun lounger with an umbrella or even a cabana. Everything was spotlessly clean. We did to bother with lounger. We just put our beach bag down where it was out of the way, but we could still see it and then the beautiful turquoise sea was calling us. We had a bit of a discussion about this. I absolutely love the colours of the Caribbean and Graham much prefers the darker blue of the Pacific. Still, he was quite happy with the Caribbean, too. As we had got quite hot, when we initially stepped into the sea, it was quite a shock, but it was actually beautifully warm once we were in. We were surprised how few people were actually in the water. The beach was quite busy, but there were less than 10 people actually in the water and most of those stayed in the shallows.
Even though the access was shallow, it dropped off quite steeply shortly afterwards. This was perfect for swimming. Actually, I say swimming, but essentially we swam out for a short stretch and then we essentially just floated and enjoyed our beautiful surroundings. Every now again if we felt we were drifting a little too far out we swam back towards the beach and then started floating again. On one of those quick swims back to the shallows I nearly jumped out of my skin. There was suddenly a huge silvery fish right next to me. The fish was obviously interested in me, but did not seem aggressive. Still, I was not happy about its presence. The fact that I had a cut on my leg made me even more nervous. We decided that we had enough of the sea shortly afterwards. We Googled images of the fish at Grand Cayman when we got home and the best that we could find out that this was a member of the Grouper family.
When we came out of the water, we collected our beach bag and headed towards the front of the resort. As we came in, I spotted the pool and that looked very appealing. We found some outside showers on the decking near the restaurant. The showers were blissfully warm. Once we had rinsed off the salt and sand, we headed in the pool. I swam for a bit and then I noticed that they had ledges around the sides of the pool with jets of water. So I sat there for a while. At some stage I had enough water for a day and I got out of the pool. Graham had already got out a while before. We both drip-dried for a while and once we were no longer dripping, we went to the exit. There was a shuttle there, but we had to wait a little bit until the shuttle was full and then we headed back to the port.
When we got back to the port, a tender was just pulling in so we did not have long to wait. When we got back to the ship, we went to our cabin to get changed. As we approached the cabin, I noticed that there was a piece of paper behind our fish. While I picked this up and read this, Graham had already gone inside and asked me why there were some tubes on our bed. The letter stated that they were special commemorative Coke bottles to celebrate the 15th anniversary of
Disney Cruise Line and that they were given exclusively to Platinum
Castaway Club members. The tubes had the 15th anniversary logo on them and inside were classic Coke bottles that had the logo on as well. Graham suggested that we should drink the Coke, but I would not hear of it. They are now sitting on our windowsill at home.