Special Day!
As we approached port for our next stop, our ship received a “water salute”. It was beautiful. In all of our sailings, I’ve only seen this one other time. However, the salute was not for us… it was for Rotterdam winning a final soccer game. The town went crazy! In the middle of town is a fountain. No one is allowed to go into the fountain… ever… except, the citizens of Rotterdam were told, if they win, the fountain is open. People jumped in and splashed around while cheering their victory. Quite a sight to see!
As this is a tender port, we were able to skip much of the lines with our excursion tickets. Sailing to shore was actually much easier than expected. Halfway across, I turned and snapped a quick photo of our “home away from home”. The waters were relatively calm so it was a nice trip across.
We arrived! Welcome to Grand Cayman! Sweltering heat, it was fine with us because we were about to jump on an air-conditioned bus and head to a fun time! First, we went to find our travel tree ornaments! Success!
Oh! My! Gosh! We have arrived! This is our “check-in” photo. Everyone had to wear a life jacket. One woman didn’t want to because she said it made her look fat. Safety is non-negotiable with this excursion. She eventually caved. As for the two of us… we were not trying to make a fashion statement! We just wanted to play with our “pets’!
YAY!!! Dolphine time! So, when we arrived, the guide offered us an upgrade that included a ride with two dolphins and all the photos. Figuring we would purchase at least a couple, we decided that was a great idea. It wasn’t until the end that we found out how great a deal the upgrade was. Each photo was $35… so we would have probably spent as much or more and not had the extra fun.
Roxanne was in heaven! This has been on her bucket list for forever! It was something I never thought I would be able to do, so it wasn’t really on my list. It was more of a pipe dream. My thought was I would finally swim with the stingrays. Roxanne felt bad… I didn’t. This is the chance of a lifetime! Seriously SO exciting! We did a ride with one dolphin first, which the photographer didn’t post for some reason. Then the rest of the group did a second ride with a boogie board. As they were doing that, we were told to go out kind of far in the water.
Originally, with one dolphin, our instructions are to, with a straight arm, point outward. This tells the dolphin to come up behind the guest on the right side. For the two dolphins, we had to float flat with both arms pointed out. Each dolphin went to its own side and lifted us up out of the water. We looked like professional performers hahahahaha!
It’s a dolphin love fest! They are so sweet… gentle little kisses. Now I want a dolphin for my pet!
It was time to do a little dolphin dance! So sweet and Roxanne was SO happy! What a great way to spend the afternoon :-)
Worried about hurting these gentle babies, I was a little awkward. Obviously, they do this all the time! We just made sure to be as gentle to them as they were to us. This is definitely something we will do again one day soon!
Unwinding after the second adrenaline rush of this trip… we visited Seven Mile Beach. The water was bath warm… I took a couple of photos and headed back to the safety of the shade!
Playing in the water, Roxanne met a very nice lady… in their casual conversation, it came out that Denise had read about the last person onboard. She read the blogpost. So funny…New name? Rockstar Roxanne… late to the ship.
Our stateroom attendant, Vilas, has created two adorable towel animals. Just realized how bad the first photo is! Dark… but cute. The elephant on the right is Roxanne’s favorite! Until tomorrow after our day in Cartegena… bye!
