Spring Break Cruise: Part IV

First stop: Grand Cayman!

"Pilar...what time is it?"

"I don't know, let me look at my phone. It can't be later than 9AM because that's what I set my alarm for...uh oh..."

"What?"

"Phone's dead...and it's 10:45!"

Allow me to backtrack. Today was our third day on the cruise and the first day to dock at a port, this one was Grand Cayman, in the Cayman Islands. The ship docked at 8AM, and we had put out our order for room service for breakfast the night before, so we had planned on waking up, getting ready, and eating breakfast quickly while giving the crowds leaving the ship time to die down. We had also assumed that our cruise director would come over the intercom with a "Good morning!" greeting as he had done the previous day. This did not happen, nor did our breakfast arrive.

We frantically got up and called the boys and then threw on our clothes and headed down to breakfast. We wolfed down our food and hightailed it off the ship. We had to take a boat from the ship to the island and made it to the island around 11:30. Our first order of business was to find a watch so that we could keep up with the ship time and make it back before the ship left. In case you've never cruised before, if you don't make it back to the ship on time, they'll just leave you. You have to pay out of your butt to get back to the ship and we didn't have enough money in our butts to consider doing that. Ipso facto, we needed a watch, Chris needed shades, and I needed some rum for my padre. (Here goes another tangent...)

Upon my leaving La Grange, my dad did some research on rum in the Caribbean. He discovered that out of all of the stops we would be making, the best rum would be found in the Caymans and would be called Seven Fathoms. This was his only request and since he paid for my trip, I felt obliged to honor his request. This is, yet another reason why our lateness was stressing me out.

Once we reached the shopping area which was right inside of the port, I hightailed it into the liquor store and was told that the rum I sought could be found in the original Seven Fathoms distillery which was two blocks down. We made our way down the busy street, dodging taxi recruiters and found the rustic looking little house that said "Seven Fathoms" on the front. There were two doors, neither of which looked very inviting, but we opened one of them anyway. This wasn't a store by any means, it was more of a workshop-looking place. We asked the people inside where we could purchase some Seven Fathoms rum and they told us to go around to the back and up the stairs. I forgot to mention that this place was right on the water and had a pretty cute little outside bar area attached to the back of it. We meandered around and up the stairs and opened the door to, yet another room that was not a public place where rum could be purchased. There was a guy sitting with a huge barrel and was running rum through a filter into the barrel. There was another guy in the other room who told us to go back downstairs to a little hut where a lady would be selling the rum. After venturing back downstairs, we finally found the place where we needed to go to buy the rum. There was a very nice lady who sold me the much sought after Seven Fathoms and I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful to have this beverage for my daddy. Rum in hand, we ventured off to find a taxi and head down to the seven mile beach.

After a quick ride with our spunky little British cab driver, we had arrived at the beach. We had already glimpsed the water from our boat ride from the ship, but nothing could prepare us for the beautiful white sands and sparkling, crystal clear waters. Since we were on the seven mile beach, we had plenty of space to find our own spot where we wouldn't be surrounded on all sides by our fellow cruisers. We laid down our towels, lathered up in sun screen, caught some rays, and then got in the water.

THE WATER! The water was this incredible shade of light turquoisey aqua blue but was also crystal clear while you were in it. It literally was more clear than a swimming pool. We floated and swam and played and frolicked and just drank in the fact that we were in the Cayman freaking Islands.

After enjoying this beautiful beach for a few hours, we made our way back to the port and were back on the ship in no time. Because of all of the hectic activities that happened earlier in the day, we decided to chill and watch "The Town" in our room (great movie!).

The rest of the night was pretty chill. We were still exhausted, if you couldn't tell....

We went to dinner and then spent some time at the piano bar, which was awesome and was the source of much entertainment a little later in the cruise. If I remember correctly, this was the night that we saw the comedian perform in the Eagles Lounge. I believe it was not too much longer after this that we retired to our quarters.

Next stop: Mahogany Bay, Isla Roatan, Honduras!