Day Three, Grand Cayman

Welcome to day three of our cruise!  On this day, the Disney Magic was due to visit Grand Cayman, an island known for it's beautiful beaches and scuba diving.  Ever since I read John Grisham's The Firm back in the 90's I have had a desire to go to Grand Cayman.  I probably thought I would see non-crazy Tom Cruise walking around.  Spoiler Alert!  I didn't.

Before I launch into our day, it's necessary to give a little cruise planning background.  When we booked our cruise I started researching things to do in Grand Cayman. Shore excursions fall into five categories on this island:

• SCUBA diving  
• snorkeling
• Stingray City
• beach breaks
• other- turtle farm, submarine, glass bottom boat, historic places

As I looked into each of these, I got very unexcited about this day.  Although Rob and I love to SCUBA dive, the kids are too young.  Everything in the "other" category was either uninteresting for 4 year olds or really expensive for a family of 4.  My kids LOVE to snorkel, but because of liability Disney will not book anyone under 5 on a snorkeling excursion.  I found outside vendors that would allow 4 year olds, but they were either all booked for that day or cost prohibitive.  

Stingray City is probably the biggest draw for cruise guests to Grand Cayman.  It's a sandbar where they've been feeding stingrays for so long, they come by the droves every day.  You can book a catamaran out to the sandbar and swim with them.  You've probably seen pictures of stingrays climbing up people's backs? That's stingray city.  They've trained the stingrays to give "massages" by putting food on people.  Our kids would probably have loved this, but the water was described as 3-4 feet deep.  My kids are only 3 feet tall, so they would have needed life jackets.  But let's be real, they would have wanted us to hold them.  Holding two preschoolers while being swarmed by stingrays didn't seem like a fun day to me.  

This leaves beach breaks.  You can book a Disney excursion with transportation to and from the beach.  That would have cost us $100.  Once at the beach, you can rent a beach chair ($15), an umbrella ($15) and you still need to buy food.  Which is VERY expensive on Grand Cayman.  For most of the menus I read, lunch for our family would have cost $75.  So, if we booked a Disney ride to the beach, we were looking at over $200.  Option 2 for a beach day is to take a cab ($20 each way).  This would be a $145 beach day.  It's a tough pill to swallow, but that's what we decided to do.

I probably should have stopped my research there, but I didn't.  I went to the Grand Cayman tourism site and found out that there would be 6 ships in port that day.  All together, those ships would add about 18,000 people to the island..  That makes for a pretty crowded island.  And I really didn't want to spend $145 to go to an overly crowded beach that probably wouldn't have available chairs, etc.

Rob and I talked it over and we decided that we would stay on the ship for the morning, then take a tender to the island, have lunch, and walk around a bit.  So when we woke up on this day, that is what our plan was.  As I drank coffee on the balcony (in my DCL robe) and watched the 5 other ships drop anchor, I was really glad we weren't rushing around to get off the boat.  

Two of the other ships approaching Grand Cayman.

It's a great feeling when everyone else is rushing to get off the ship and you have planned a leisurely morning.  We knew that people started getting off the ship around 7am so we avoided the breakfast buffet until 8am.  It was pretty empty.  Then we changed into swim suits and were at the pool by 8:45.  One problem.  The pool wasn't open until 9.  

A closed pool.

Is she really 4?

If you want a chair poolside, 8:45 is the time to get here!

We were pretty excited when the maintenance men came and took the rope off the pool.  Time for a private swim!

Other people started coming to the pool around 9:30, by 10:30 it was packed. Then we heard the announcement that the ship was in open tendering.  I guess I should take a step back and explain tendering.

The port at Grand Cayman isn't deep enough to allow the ships to park (do ships park?) right at a dock.  So you anchor out in the harbor and then tender, or take a smaller boat, to the shore.  These smaller boats hold about 200 people when full.  So if you have 2000 people on board, it's going to take more than one tender to get them all off.  The way Disney controls is this process is ticketed tendering.

To get on a tender, you need a ticket.  The first tender is #1, and so on and so forth.  The first people to get a tender ticket are those who purchased a Port Adventure through Disney.  If you didn't, you go to an assigned location, usually the Walt Disney Theatre, and get a ticket.  Then you sit in the theatre and wait for your number.  Once all the people with tickets have gotten a tender, they move to "open tendering" which means you don't need a ticket, you just go to deck 2 and get on the next tender.

So at 10:30 they were in open tendering and we decided to leave the ship and head to the island for lunch.  We changed and got on a waiting tender.  Then we sat for about 10 minutes waiting for the tender to fill up, and much to my stomach's dismay, that little boat was rocking! Luckily I had a cutie sitting with me and I was distracted.

Just the girls.

Just the boys.

The Magic as seen from the tender boat.

Once on terra firma, we were greeted by a mosquito control station.  This was a canopy, under which there were tables with mosquito repellent and lots of signs warning about the dangers of Zika.  So yes, we stopped and applied some.  

I only have two photos from our time in Grand Cayman, because yes, it was very crowded.  I was so busy trying to keep the kids from being run over or trampled that I didn't remember to take pictures.  

Nothing says welcome like a chain link fence.

Cool old historic church.

Let's see... we went to a Tortuga Rum Cake store, a really cool old church that I don't remember anything about, two souvenir stores selling everything you can think of that says Grand Cayman, went to the bathroom and then declared ourselves hungry.  

We saw a Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and a Hard Rock Cafe.  But we didn't come to Grand Cayman to eat American food!  Any local food within walking distance of the port? Yes, awesome.  So we walked to an open air eatery that only had bar height tables with no stools.  Since half of our party is four years old and only three feet tall, this would not do.  We reconsidered the Hard Rock Cafe.  But why spend $100 to eat at a Hard Rock Cafe when we can eat on the ship for free?  It was an easy decision and we headed back to the ship.

4 of the ships in Grand Cayman.

The Magic, I never get tired of looking at the Disney ships.

I'm going to pause here and do a little reflection on our time in Grand Cayman.  Yes, we took a cruise to Grand Cayman and all we did was get off the boat for an hour to walk around.  This may seem like an enormous waste to you, and I say to each their own.  

Rob and I talk a lot about the seasons of life.  Right now we are in the season of having little kids who can't do a lot of the really fun stuff.  This means we can stay home, or take a cruise and do limited activities.  Obviously we choose to cruise and we did not regret it.  For us, there will be other cruises and more activities.  If your travel opportunities are limited, and you save up and do one big cruise vacation, I would advise you to research your ports and choose an itinerary that fits your season of life.  

Ok, back to the trip report.

It was a really important night on the cruise... Pirate Night!  Most DCL itineraries have a Pirates in the Caribbean Night (all of the ones in the Caribbean, Alaskan and European itineraries have a Frozen Night).  The whole ship is taken over by pirates, all the restaurants serve a pirate themed menu, the staff is in pirate garb, and then there is a huge deck party.  

In preparation for Pirate Night we told the kids after lunch that they had to take a nap.  They insisted they weren't tired.  Too bad, we said.  Nap now or no Pirate Deck Party.  It took about 2 minutes for them to be asleep.  Winning!

I was especially excited for this deck party because on the Magic the party was between the dinner seatings (7pm).  On the Dream, our previous cruise, the party was at 10pm, so the kids didn't get to see the big fireworks show.  With the kids napping before dinner, I knew they would be able to stay awake through dinner and the party with minimal whining.

Our dinner that night was in Animator's Palate again.  I've been on three DCL cruises now, and every time I've had Pirate Night in Animator's Palate.  This is a cool bonus because this restaurant has all those big screens, which on Pirate Night feature all these cool drawings from all the Disney movies that have pirates in them.  

After dinner it was time to par-tay!  The deck portion of the evening begins with the cruise staff playing pirate type games with the kiddos.  Our two weren't interested in playing, but enjoyed watching.  Then there is a dance party with the characters, and let me tell you, Anne and Ryan left it all on the dance floor.  It was so cool to watch. 

The next paragraph contains major spoilers.  Seriously, if you are contemplating a cruise and want it all to be a surprise, stop reading.  You've been warned! Then, a band of pirates take over the party.  And although the music was rocking, we need to be rescued.  And who's the best option for a rescue? You got it, Mickey Mouse! And in true hero fashion, he zip lines through the sky between the two funnels and announces he's got another party for you, in the sky! Bam, fireworks!! It will probably come as no surprise that this moment brought tears of joy to my eyes.  The staff does such a good job of pumping you up with the games and dancing.  By the time you see the Mouse in the sky, you are emotionally invested in the night.  Add to it this is the first time my kids have seen a real fireworks production, and it was a recipe for waterworks.  Best night of the cruise, by far.

Pirate Night, or kids' first rave? Same difference.

Thus ends day three.