Monday, March 7, 2016

Carnival Breeze Recap Day 4:: Grand Cayman

Florida and Days 1 & 2 on the Carnival Breeze here
Day 3 in Falmouth, Jamaica here

We continued our theme of waking up early again on the fourth day of the cruise. That really surprised me because one of the biggest things I was looking forward to on this cruise was all of the awesome sleep I was going to get. Turns out, it was easy to wake up early when there were no kids waking us up all night long! Go figure. ;) 

Our second port was Georgetown, Grand Cayman. I'd been there three times before, and it's one of my favorite places to go in the Caribbean. Seven Mile Beach is unreal, so that was our plan for the day. 

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan hit Grand Cayman as a Category 5 hurricane, devastating the island. Among the damage was the pier in Georgetown where the cruise ships used to dock. Now, twelve years later, the island is doing very well, but they haven't rebuilt the pier. When you go there, you anchor off the coast and take a tender (ferry boat) to shore. 

It's kind of fun getting in the tender to go to the shore. Selfie at 7:45am! 

Here's some perspective on the size of the Breeze. The small tender there holds about 200 people. 

Every time we've gone to Grand Cayman, we've told the taxi driver we want to go to Seven Mile Beach and we always ended up at this great spot with a nice wide beach, facilities, a restaurant, chairs, water sports, and shade. This time, our driver brought us to a different spot with a short beach that was super steep. We didn't like it. We talked to someone on the beach and found out the place we wanted to go was called the Royal Palms and it was two miles down the beach. 

A two mile walk on a gorgeous beach in the warm sun with the amazing Caribbean Sea at your side? No shoes, feet in the sand? Yes, please! 

(Especially with Dave carrying our bag - ha!) 

I snapped away while we walked. I'm in love with the colors in these pictures. Light sand, white foam, teal sea = perfect! 

I snuck this shot of Dave. What a great morning! 

Two miles later, we made it to the Royal Palms and found our spot in the shade. I love Anna's dress! 

Seriously, this beach! 

We swam and read and walked some more and relaxed and swam and slept. :) Dave, Anna, Joanne, Gary, and I ate at the beachside restaurant but I somehow have no pictures to prove that. 

We begrudgingly left Paradise to go back to the ship. Kristine and Eric were keeping their eyes out for real estate on our way back. I think they really wanted to stay. :) 

The hot sweaty taxi. By the time we got back to the port (ten minutes maybe), we were ready to jump back into the sea. Unfortunately there was nowhere to safely swim over there. 


Back on the ship, we had a great view of Grand Cayman. The island is so flat. And gorgeous. :) 

Sailing away! 



That night we were all dressed up for dinner and we all met outside on deck 5 to get some pictures. We had such a fun vacation with these fellow cruisers! 







We asked someone nearby to get a picture of all ten of us. 




Dave & I ended the night enjoying some 80s tunes by this band. They were good! 

In the next couple days, I'll have a recap of our last port day in Cozumel. I'm already wishing we could go back. 

I hope you're having a great Monday! 

4 comments:

Heidi said...

So fun! Hearing about it and these posts are really making me ready for my next cruise!

Karen said...

I know, right?!! I'm already ready!

Kristine said...

So fun to see the recaps. I'll have to show my kids, as you have way more pictures than we do. Now that we're experienced cruisers, we'll know how to do it right next time ��

Karen said...

Thanks for reading and commenting. It's fun to have all my pictures in one spot now. The first two days, I was no good at taking pictures. I had maybe five total from those two days. Then I realized I should be taking more, so I did. :)