Day 1: Grand Cayman

Hey guys! I said it last time and I'll say it again... I'm so sorry for not being consistent with my posting. This time its because I was working on a big project that was taking up all of my free time but will make for an interesting post in a few days once I scrounge up the during and after pictures. Anyways! Finally, I have all of the pictures from the Go Pro on my laptop from our trip. Our first stop on our cruise was the Cayman Islands. For each stop we chose to go through the cruise line for our excursions. Thats not at all mandatory, theres always other companies to go through or you can go off on your own. Before you decide which route you want to go, I would strongly recommend doing your research first. Cruisecritic.com is a great resource when deciding what you want to do! I personally prefer going through the cruise line just because theres a guarantee that the excursion will happen for one, but the biggest reason for me is you know that you will get back to the ship on time and if not the boat won't leave without you! If you go off on your own and you're supposed to be back on the boat by 5pm and you get there at 530pm, you are out of luck buddy! For this stop, we chose to do a "Safari Kayak and Stingray City" excursion. If I remember correctly, this was priced around 80$/person. It was a nice excursion, but I personally don't think it was worth the amount spent.

The mangroves (in the background)

The first part of the excursion was a quick drive around town to a marina, where we each got into kayaks and went on a 45 minute kayak trip, where our guide told us about the wildlife and mangroves. We saw TONS of iguanas and wild chickens. Apparently there was a large storm a few years ago and everything the chickens ate was contaminated so now they just have a bunch of wild chickens that no one can eat! Towards the end of our kayak trip our guide caught a jelly fish and we all got to look at it up close and touch it. And by all, I mean like two people because even though the type of jelly fish they caught couldn't sting us, it looked sketchy. Apparently these jellyfish live for a very short time, they eat a lot and then they just die. Weird!

After the kayak trip we took a VERY rough boat ride out to the middle of the ocean to the stingrays. The point behind this part was to feed the stingrays and get to touch them, neither of which happened. There were so many boats speeding in and out so quickly and so often that the stingrays just kept scattering. But, either way it was a cool experience and we did get to see them pretty closely.

After we were taken back to land we actually ended up having a couple of hours to kill before we had to be back on the ship. We were both starving, and wanted to eat something local. We ended up finding this amazing little hole in the wall place that was SO amazing. It was a little more pricey than a typical 'hole in the wall' place would be at home but I can honestly say it was SO worth it. I got shrimp rolls with a side of plantains and slaw, and A got jerk chicken and fish tacos. SO SO SO GOOD. The jerk chicken was probably the best I've ever had and was so unbelievably spicy. It was actually funny because, I had just said "This is so spicy but so good, I can't stop eating it" and one of the people at the next table just looked at us and said "You guys must be eating the jerk chicken, worth it!"

And that delicious meal wrapped up our first stop. We got back on the ship, found a comfy chair on the pool deck and passed out for a couple of hours. What else are you supposed to do on vacation?Until next time. xo-B