WEST CARIBBEAN CRUISE
on the CARNIVAL VALOR
Day 3 � January 24/06
Today's "drink special" is Goombay Smash.
Today we are docking at our first port of call - Grand Cayman.
Grand Cayman is, what is called, a "Tendering Port". This means that the ship gets anchored off shore, and we board smaller boats to take us ahore. This is done to protect Grand Cayman's reefs.
First thing I notice when we got into port was how BUSY this city was! It was a smorgasborg of banks, and very cosmopolitan. Very much catered to tourists.
I wanted to do Stingray City so bad, but Gary wasn't so keen on that, so we booked the "Trolley Roger" and the "Atlantis Submarine" excursions for this port of call. He thought it would be cool to go down in a submarine.
The Trolley Roger was basically a trolley tour of Georgetown (Grand Cayman's capital city) with a flakey (as Gary called her) guide that gave us a lot of history and info about Grand Cayman. You have to have a minimal $1MILLION deposit in order to even open up a bank account on this island! Everything is very expensive... there is no way we'd be able to afford to live here! LOL
We stopped at a local beach for a nice break, then carried on into Georgetown where we were dropped off to shop.
No time to shop though! Had to run to catch our next excursion - the submarine ride.
It was definitely different! The submarine basically had a bench on both sides, with a bunch of port holes to look through. It was almost a bit cramped, I'd say. We did see corals, and fishes (LOTS of niger triggers), and other "critters" including a beautiful statue of a mermaid. We even saw a turtle! :o)
For the record, we went down 100 feet!
We finished this tour with shopping.
Still wish we'd done Stingray City and the Turtle Farm though! Just means we will HAVE to go back to Grand Cayman some day! :op
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