Disney Adventure Day 4, December 24, 2012 (Grand Cayman Island)

Same deal as yesterday, everything is behind the jump!

I woke up at 6:30 and called for coffee, then knocked on Mom’s door to let her know it was coming.  The waiter who brought it was immaculately dressed, as they all are, hair brushed, wearing a light cologne and had the most terrible breath I’ve smelled in a while.  I wanted to hand him some Altoids with his tip.  Mom and I had our coffee on the veranda, then she went to the gym and I took a shower, got dressed and alternated between reading, getting my bag ready for the day’s excursion and smoke breaks on the veranda.  I was also addicted to the “Bridge Report” channel on the tv.  It gives a map showing where we were, plus the position, course and speed of the boat, and the temperatures in the various pools.

Since we were traveling due east, I had to lean over the side a bit to get pictures of the sunset, but at least this time I remembered to take them!  The sun also made really short-lived rainbows on the spray from the waves.  I spent about 15 minutes just watching them and then more time trying to photograph them.  All I got were pictures of waves, lol.

Because we had to disembark at 12:30 to make our 1:30 excursion, Mom and Dad and I planned to have a late breakfast/early lunch.  Mom got Dad up and upstairs a little after 11, where the buffet was serving lunch.  We ate and went back to our rooms, then had a bit of time to load up with cameras, sunscreen, key cards and in my case, a bottle of water.  Mom and I also wore hats—mine a really cute turquoise one bought on our trip to D.C. last year, right before we met Kat and Kate and Kate and Dawn for perfume-sniffing, knitting and lunch.

Because the Fantasy is so big, it doesn’t fit at the docks in Grand Cayman, so I got my first experience riding a tender.  That part was fun, but milling around on the pier looking for our tour group was not.  Then when we found them, we had another wait on the pier, then a wait on the bus, and then the tour was kinda meh.  I’m apparently sucky at picking shore excursions. :p [link to st martin tour]  the bus ride was mostly the driver exaggerating his Jamaican accent and phrases and pointing out hotels and condos.  Then we stopped at Devil’s Hangout in a town called Hell to A. see a bleak-looking limestone formation and B. visit a gift shop (which Mom and I skipped).  We did go look through the gift shop at the tortuga rum cake place—dad bought Chips Ahoy and I was looking for and didn’t find another bottle of water.

We did get to see some beach, but it wasn't overwhelmingly beautiful the way some other places in the Caribbean are.

I had intended to go on the all-day excursion to the turtle farm,  but after seeing it for 20 minutes as part of the tour, I was glad I hadn’t.  I enjoyed myself—there is an alligator, and turtles ranging in size from hand-size babies to a 600-pound female named Sparky, and I did get a silver sea turtle charm for my bracelet, but I wouldn’t have wanted to spend the whole day there.

Back on the bus we were treated to a video soliciting time shares or something, then dropped off at a very pricy set of stores.  Mom’s sunglasses had broken in the parking lot of the turtle farm, so we looked at the sunglasses in one store.  Well, actually, Mom asked me to read a price on one pair, and since it was $260, we decided to see what we could find on the pier.  We left the fancy stores and walked to the pier, where Mom checked out sunglasses and I stretched a penny, thanks to Jen, and bought a lovely hematite necklace.  Then we rode the tender back to the ship, where we had time to shower and dress for dinner.

I wore my new hematite necklace to dinner, and the strawberry shortcake was as good as I remembered.  Our server, bless her heart, brought me two when I told her how much I loved it, and I gave the second one to Super Doughnut.  I also had a discussion with Princess Mathscience about why she never ordered any other dessert than a Mickey Bar.  She told me that once you’re 10, you’re too old for Mickey Bars.  I told her that Grampa loves him some Mickey Bars, so you’re never too old.

After dinner, Jeeves and Annabel and Dad and Mom and Captain Crossword and I went up to Quiet Cove, the adults-only area.  Jeeves and Dad had espressos, I had a water and the other two didn’t have anything.  We had a nice chat and some of us had a smoke and Annabel showed me around. 

When we got back to the room, the towel of the day was a snowman with a Disney Santa hat ornament.  He was so cute I didn’t want to disassemble him, so I put him on one of the shelves by the closet.  We also all got really beautiful lithographs from Disney.  I changed out of my dinner clothes and got some reading done, checked my e-mail and headed off to bed.