A Grand Adventure at Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands, 2016)

We had a 1-day expedition into Grand Cayman Islands as part of a cruise, the Carnival Freedom. We set off from Galveston and headed to Jamaica (did not dock due to weather), Grand Cayman Island, and the island of Cozumel

First, the cruise. The elevator and room area were HUGE, it reminded me of the TVA from the Marvel Universe (retroactively, since this did not exist in 2016). It was pretty fun, but I was at that awkward age where I was too old for the kid’s activities and too young for more 18+/21+ fun. Nevertheless, I had fun hanging with my sister, playing trivia (where my dad got a question about simple sums wrong!!), enjoying the buffet, and hanging in the pool with unlimited pizza next door. A picture of my dad and I was featured in the photo gallery out of thousands of pictures, which is probably one of my greatest achievements to date. Overall, pretty great, but I couldn’t really take advantage of all they had to offer.

Now onto Grand Cayman itself. We got a driver at the disembarkment area who was chill and knowledgeable about the island. One line he said really stuck with me: something like 80% of the island has their livelihood directly or indirectly linked to the tourism industry. Crazy to think about the pandemic impact on these places for about 1-2 years.

Our first stop was at an aquatic preserve with many sea creatures you could see up close. We all got to hold sea turtles, which were heavier than expected but soooo cute. There were other creatures, but we saw them at a distance and headed out to Hell (what!!!). Hell was an area with short black rock formations poking up from the ground that made it seem like an alien (or hellish) landscape. They really leaned into the naming, with postcards like “Go to Hell” and “Welcome to Hell” that the tourists absolutely ate up.

To wrap up our expedition, we headed to the beach and swam in the teal waters of the Caribbean. I’m drawn to water and I always go fully into the water at any beach I go to (some people say it’s because I’m a cancer). We headed back to our ship, where we had a fancy dinner that night.

Overview

• Grand Cayman Island is a great slice of the Caribbean with cool aquatic and natural sights to see
• Tourism (and as I’ll come to learn, offshore banking) really keep this country afloat
• The few locals we interacted with were super nice and ensured we had a great experience

As a side note, I started taking my stuffed bunny, Fuzzy, on my trips and took photos as if Fuzzy was the one on vacation. It lasts a couple years and was a fun little trend