What We Did in Grand Cayman – Take 2!

 

 On our recent 7 night Western Caribbean cruise on the Disney Wonder (trip report here) we stopped at the island of Grand Cayman.  This was our second time visiting Grand Cayman on a Disney cruise and we loved our first excursion there (you can read all about it here) so much that we decided to do the exact same thing again.  We booked 4 hours with Cayman Luxury Charters on their 42′ Sea Ray sport yacht, the Elusion.  I highly recommend this company and cannot say enough good things about them.

All ashore that morning was 9:30, but because we had to tender to shore and catch a cab to the boat dock, we scheduled our excursion to start at 10:30.  Right at 9:30 we called our concierge host Joanne and she led us downstairs and put us in the tender line.  If you are not concierge and not doing a DCL excursion, you first have to go to one of the theaters (listed in the Navigator) and get a ticket which essentially puts you in line for the tender boats.  It was nice to get to skip this step, and before we knew it we were climbing onto the tender boat for the short ride to shore.  For those who have never tendered before, the boats are pretty large (2 levels) and probably hold at least a hundred people, possibly more.  Here is a picture of one I took from our verandah later that day:

The ride to shore is only a few minutes.  Since we were the only ship in port that day, we had all of the tender boats serving just our ship and they seemed to be getting people to/from shore really quickly.  Here we are on the tender boat to shore.  That is the side of the ship behind us:

When we reached the shore I turned around and took this picture of our ship:

After getting to shore we needed to find the taxi area.  We started walking through the port area and fairly quickly saw a parking lot off to the right so we headed that way.  We spotted a driver looking for guests and she told us it would be $4 per person to Camana Bay, which is where Cayman Luxury Charters docks their boats.  That was cheaper than I had expected.  Another family walked up right after us and were going to the same place we were because they had also booked with Cayman Luxury Charters on another one of their boats.  We ended up sharing the taxi van with them and made the 5-10 minute drive to Camana Bay.  Camana Bay is a pretty area with other things to do as well (you can check out their website here).  We unloaded from the taxi and walked down a few steps where we saw the boat and crew waiting for us.  Our crew was Arthur (who we had last time), John and photographer Rachel.  One of the many things I love about this company is that you can pay a little extra for a photographer to be onboard and underwater recording all of your memories.  About half of the photos in this post were taken by me and the other half by Rachel.  I forgot to take pictures of the boat at this point, but here are a couple from their website:

We were introduced to the crew and shown around the boat.  You will see plenty of pictures of the upper level throughout this post, but I also took some of the lower/interior level.  Here is the main living/kitchen area right as you walk down the steps:

Here is one of the 2 bathrooms onboard:

And a storage area:

This is the bedroom which stored the crew’s stuff and some water sport equipment:

And the stairs leading back up to the outdoors:

Arthur asked us what we wanted to do for the next 4 hours and we told him Stingray City, snorkeling and Starfish Point.  We were then on our way to Stingray City to hopefully beat the crowds.  Here are some photos from the ride out there.  Can you tell which girl loves to have her picture taken?

We pulled up to Stingray City and as hoped were some of the first ones there.  There were only 2 other boats and what looked like a jet ski excursion:

Checking out the stingrays swimming by:

I couldn’t get in the water due to my recent surgery, but everyone else quickly jumped in.  This was my view of our group from the boat.  You can see John with the squid container, Rachel with her camera and Arthur trying to catch a fish:

He ended up catching this fish in just a few seconds by holding a hook in his hand and placing it underwater:

He cleaned it and ate it for dinner that night.  Anyway, back to the stingrays.  Everyone was having a blast:

At this point Arthur had gotten back on the boat with me and John was helping the kids with the stingrays.  They are very gentle and act kind of like cats, trying to rub up against you.  It is really not scary at all.  The tour operators know and recognize the stingrays and even have names for them.  There is one without a tail names Frisbee who we had seen at our last visit 2.5 years ago.  We saw him again this time.

There’s me and Arthur in the background watching all the fun:

John helped everyone get a back massage from a stingray:

Group photo (if you look in the very back, I managed to make it in too!):

More stingray fun:

One last pet:

Even though we didn’t want to leave, it was time to get back onto the boat and move onto our next stop.  The back of the boat had this platform that raised up and down and made getting in and out of the water really easy.  Here are the girls being lifted up:

On the way to the snorkeling spot, Rachel got some great photos of the girls:

We arrived at the snorkeling spot and got all of our gear on.  Here are the girls getting ready to go in: (except for me of course):

The platform is being lowered:

And off they go!  I liked how John constantly circled around them on the jet ski making sure everything was okay:

Once again Rachel got some great snorkeling shots:

That is a sea cucumber:

The highlight of the snorkeling session was seeing this guy.  Rachel knew where he lived and I think she called him Elvis:

Eventually the girls started getting tired and swam back to the boat.  Arthur and I were entertaining ourselves by feeding the fish, which the girls loved:

Next we were off to Starfish Point for some beach time, tubing, and of course, starfish!  Here we are on the way:

The big girls loved riding up front:

And our youngest kept up her tradition of sleeping at some point during the charter:

Here she is last year in St. Thomas:

And also in St. Maarten:

Soon we were pulling up to Starfish Point, which is a pretty little beach where lots of starfish live:

The boat anchored just off shore and while everyone else just walked from the boat to the beach, I couldn’t get wet above the waist so John was nice enough to give me a ride to shore.  Our youngest hitched a ride as well:

My kids were dying to get some beach time in, so we let them play in the sand:

We also had a great time finding and holding starfish.  Rachel really stressed the importance of always keeping them underwater or else they can get stressed out and die.  She said it is actually against the law to take them out of the water and that she has seen it enforced.  She swears there are guys in boats off in the distance with binoculars waiting to nab people.  Even though some of these pictures don’t look like it, we kept all of the starfish underwater.  I took dozens of pictures but here are some of the best:

We also found this pretty shell:

After we had been there for a little while, I was playing on the beach with our middle daughter.  She was splashing around on the shore, running in and out of the water and having a grand old time like this:

All of a sudden she started freaking out, yelling that something was on her legs and screaming at me to get it off of her.  She ran out of he water and I could immediately tell that there was nothing on her legs, but she was crying hysterically, saying they burned and stung.  I suspected a jellyfish sting although I looked around and didn’t see one in the water, and there were lots of other people in the water nearby who were just fine.  She was in agony, so I urged her to stay calm and quickly walked her through the water towards the boat.  My husband was relaxing on the boat and noticed the commotion and walked over to the edge to help her climb in.  Rachel knew right away it was a jellyfish sting and sprung into action.  Arthur told her where to find some vinegar and she showed up with a large jug.  She and my husband started wiping it all over her legs.  The jellyfish got her really good all over the insides and backs of her legs.  After a few minutes she was still in a lot of pain, so Rachel pulled out the big guns:

This stuff is a green goo with little exfoliating beads in it that worked wonders.  After just a few minutes, she started to calm down and feel some relief.  Here she is getting the goo applied:

After we got home, I found this same stuff on Amazon.  It is called Wipe Away Pain and you can purchase it by clicking here.  After this experience, I will never go on a cruise or to the beach without it.  I don’t know what we would have done if Rachel had not had that packet.

 While all of this was going on, John had pulled out the tube and took our oldest tubing:

After she was done, John asked the jellyfish victim if she was up to tubing and what do you know, she made a miraculous recovery!  She brushed off the incident and got into the tube.  You can tell she is still a little bit sore at this point:

Nothing like a little bit of tubing to get your mind off a jellyfish sting!

After the tubing, our 4 hours were sadly almost up and it was time to head back to the dock.  For the ride back, the little one and I decided to ride up front with the other 2:

While we were driving, Rachel had the idea to get the girls into a human pyramid for a photo.  I have to admit that I was more than a little nervous about this idea.  What you can’t see in this photo is (A) the boat was moving very fast, and (B) I was just off camera ready to catch a flying kid as best I could.  Arthur (in the background) seems unfazed by the shenanigans:

After the human pyramid it began to get cloudy and start to rain lightly.  Here you can see the clouds rolling in:

And then the rain started:

Right before we got to the dock we went through a forest of mangroves where these huge iguanas live.  We had fun trying to spot them in the branches:

Next thing we knew, we were docked back at Camana Bay and saying goodbye to our wonderful crew.  Here are some shots that Rachel took as we were leaving:

The crew had called a cab for us a while back and it was waiting for us.  It was a short ride back to the cruise pier and as soon as we got there, the skies unloaded.  Thank goodness that the port has a lot of covered areas or else we wold have been drenched.  We waited out the downpour and used the public bathroom there (surprisingly clean!) until the rain let up, and then headed for the tenders.  I took this picture as we walked towards them:

We were able to walk right onto a tender without waiting and were soon back to the Wonder:

We loved our day with Cayman Luxury Charters and hope that there will be a next time!

Click here to read about our other cruise excursions.

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