Holland America Port of Call: Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

If there's one thing that can totally throw you off cruising around the Western Caribbean, it's setting your clocks back! Upon arriving in Grand Cayman we had to do just this. Which isn't too difficult to handle, but then it happened to us again

the next night. On the main deck of the ship near the middle area (I'm sure there's a proper ship name for 'middle of the ship') near the elevators are giant monitors that tell you the position of the ship, the current local time, weather forecast and all the other need-to-know info if you truly need to know. But I never thought to check this. When our cruise director announced the time change, we flipped our watches back and never thought about it again. I guess we could've checked our room phone too for the correct time, but that never occurred to us. Hey, we were on vacation! Who cares what time it is. You'll see where I'm going with this a bit later...

Today's port of call was Grand Cayman. I'm not sure what I expected. I remembered always hearing about people who vacationed in Grand Cayman and the diving and string ray swimming they did there. The way they presented it, it always felt like the 'it' place to take a proper vacation! Pulling into port, my initial thoughts were that it didn't seem as fancy as the other ports we'd been to. The main priority of the shoreline is to get the boats and tenders in and out of the island as efficiently as possible. I guess it wasn't about presentation here like Grand Turk was. Grand Cayman is more lived, so to speak. Stepping off the tender, you go through a small covered area where

you're bombarded with excursion options, then there you are! Streets and shopping everywhere! You're in the thick of it all immediately. My first inland impressions were of scattered hints of a North-Eastern coastal town. Complete with the brightly coloured buildings and traditional sign posts painted in white and blue indicating the maritime heritage trail around the area. It was extremely hot the day we arrived, and the streets were busy and full. It was a bit overwhelming. We struggled our way across the street through the traffic and took off shopping.

The stores inside are incredible. If you're looking to drop some serious change, this is where you want to do it. The selection is abundant and filled with the greatest amount of designer watches I'd ever seen

(amongst a ton of other jewelry and sparkle)! And every store feels this way. We toured around a bit. I tried on a pair of $5,000 dollar earrings at Milano. Hey, this wasn't my intention! The sales lady noticed my citrine ring that I'd purchased in Grand Turk, which she assumed was a yellow diamond (hah), offered us some very welcomed bottled water and had me decked out in five grand worth of the most gorgeous yellow diamonds I'd ever seen. After I found out that these clearly out-rivaled my great Grand Turk ring price of $115, I quickly discarded them out of my ears and away we went. We

also scored a collector island map print for..., well, I'm not sure why. They like to give you gifts if they think there's a chance you could spend some money.

Our walk around was pretty tiring, so we grabbed a nice overpriced cocktail at the Green Parrot, then jumped back on our tender for the ship to spend the afternoon there. Our included itinerary with the travel company called for a culinary demonstration at 6pm, so after a quick nap on the ship we headed down to the Culinary Arts Center. Because of the time change, and

our culinary event actually staying at the traditional time before we flipped our watches back, we were an hour late for our cooking demonstration. Which was disappointing. But they were just starting to cook the crab cakes when we got there so we were able to join in for the best part. I still haven't figured out how we missed the demonstration. I believe now the ship schedule stays the same even though we sailed through time changes. Perhaps. But the crab cakes were amazing! It was a nice treat!

We also chose to dine in the main dining room this evening. After much persuasion by me. Mom prefers to wing it on the Lido deck, but I love to check out the decadent menu options each night. Okay, so that's only part of the reason. My other two parts included the very cute main dining room guy who I chose to nickname 'Ashton' because he looked like Ashton Kutcher. That was our name for him for our cruise. :) And the other part included the amazing dining attendants we had at our table every night who were just awesome! Absolute rock stars! They quickly learned our preferences and had our table set just for us every night by the time we got there. Balsamic vinegar and wine for the bread, and extra caesar salad dressing for mom (a gravy boat worth), and red wine for me! Our wine attendant loved to keep my glass

topped up. After about the third time of him trying to top it up I politely declined, saying I was good. To which he replied "Oh, but you don't have to drive anywhere". Well, this is true. Okay, I'll take another glass. "It'll help you enjoy your night" he said. How did he know?!! :) I really miss our dining room crew.

I was really looking forward to the next morning though. We'd be stopping in Costa Maya, Mexico. To see the Mayan Ruins! I'd never been to Mexico before and I always wanted to see the Mayan Ruins so this was a huge day on my list!

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Holland America Port of Call: Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos

Did someone say swim-up bar? Welcome to the second stop on our Western Caribbean tour: Grand Turk, in the Turks & Caicos Islands! There are islands, then there's the Turks & Caicos Islands. I've been here once before so I knew this stop would be a highlight on our tour. It turned out to be one of the best! It seems like it's always sunny here and the beaches are filled with beautiful sun-bleached crystal white sand!

I enjoyed this port the most because we didn't have to tender in. Our ship was docked which meant we could easily come and go off the ship as we liked without having to wait for the tender boat to take us back and forth. But really, if you ever came here you'd never want to leave! Upon arriving we were greeted with a huge duty free shop and some of the BIGGEST bottles of alcohol you've ever seen. But don't try to take them back on the ship with you. Haha, they won't make it through security when you board (think x-ray machines and metal detectors and lots of security, and a nice present for the staff if you do try)!

Grand Turk has lots of fun shopping. Novelty clothing like Piranha Joes, nail polish that changes colour with the sun, and lots of jewelry too. Lots of delicious jewelry! Diamonds International is here, which is a staple throughout the Caribbean but sort of feels like a scam to me. They remind me of those commercials with the greasy guy begging to buy your gold for top dollar if you only conveniently ship it to him first. Lots of promises of everything being cheap, no tax, and of the highest quality. Yeah.

First mom and I did some shopping. We're girls so that's our specialty. :) We picked up some Piranha Joe shirts and hats for the family, then I spotted Margaritaville. Wait, Margarittaville? Like as in "wasted away again in Margaritaville"? The Jimmy Buffet song one? For real?

Yes!

Oh wow, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Surely this can't be exactly like the song. Is Jimmy Buffet aware of this plagiarizing of his work? The inviting party atmosphere tumbled out onto the cobblestone sidewalks we were pounding.

I have to check this out. "Mom, let's go!". I took off in a fast trot towards this beautiful Caribbean mecca and sure enough. Yes, to my delight there is an actual "Margaritaville" bar and restaurant (and gift shop) chain, and Jimmy Buffet owns it! Way to stretch that one big hit wonder into something sustainable!

Mom's a pretty easy going traveler and was totally game to check this out. Like all well-planned venue layouts, we entered into a store area first. We grabbed more Margaritaville t-shirts. "This one will be my camping/party t-shirt!". Then we wandered with eyes wide into the bar area. I couldn't believe what I was seeing: to the left was a quaint thatch hut with a DJ inside, with a line up stretching around the pool area. The leader of the line was tipping their head back

under the thatch hut while the DJ poured a shot into their mouth. "FREE SHOTS". Holy geez, it's barely noon! The place was buzzing with patrons from the Carnival cruise ship already docked beside us. Looks like they had a good early start!

In front of us was the largest most amazing pool I'd ever seen! It wound around the area that was filled with beach chairs, umbrella tables, and lots of sun! There was a wave runner surfing pool, and my favorite: a swim-up bar! Oh my gosh, I just found my home!

Mom and I parked in at the restaurant to the left and ordered the most amazing nachos and what else? Margaritas! The food here is amazing, but you will want to bring your wallet because it's pricey!!! But it's worth it. Obviously we didn't choose to do any excursions here so the pricey lunch was okay for the afternoon we were about to have instead. After lunch we grabbed some beach chairs by one of the bridges over the swimming pool and that's where we spent the rest of the day. Now, anyone who knows me knows I hate water. I hate being wet, splashed, rained on, whatever.

Outside of a shower or a glass, keep water away from me. But I spent the entire afternoon in this pool! I paid a couple visits to the swim up bar where more margaritas ensued. A word of caution: these are pricey too at $10 dollars a pop, but they go well with the pool! I'd recommend bringing lots of ten dollar bills and a few $1's for tipping. By the time you swim over to the bar and get your drink, you don't want to be lugging around change. Especially American $1 bills that would get soppy and wet in the pool.

We had some good laughs watching people try to man the wave runner too. It's basically a simulated wave pool that you surf on...until you fall off which can happen pretty quick.

After soaking up lots of vitamin D, we decided to reluctantly call it a day and head back to the ship. On the way out, we swung by the Diamonds International store where I went against everything I stood for and fell in love with a yellow citrine ring flanked in a semi circle of "diamonds" followed up by a beautiful silver titanium ribbon. At $115, I didn't feel I was breaking the bank. It was a fun treat purchase to help remember my day.

By the time we got back on the ship we were exhausted. We grabbed an early dinner (complimentary room service of shrimp cocktail for this tired fish), and watched on our balcony together as we silently glided out of port as the sun set on our happy little island. This was definitely a day I will never forget.

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