Live the Life: Cruise Installment Five

September 30 - Day 5: Today, we stopped at Grand Cayman. We awoke on this day to see a pirate ship making it's way around the cruise ships docked (anchored) there. That was very appropriate with Pirate Night scheduled for that evening.

The pirate ship that greeted our ship.

Becky and Dusty decided to go ashore to see the island. I think they took an island tour. The rest of us, however, chose to stay on the ship. That was partially because our personal tour guide for Grand Cayman (Sandra!!!!) was unable to get out of her commitments here in the States for the day. The thought of just hanging out on a very quiet ship sounded really good, too. Most people went ashore, so we really had the ship and the ship's crew to ourselves.

Grand Cayman. Isn't the cloud interesting? A triangle. I've never seen a triangle cloud before.

Grand Cayman.

The boys, of course, took off to their own places, and Jaydin announced that she wanted to go to her club. Oh ... FYI - some of you have asked what The Stack is.

It's actually the teen gathering place on the ship. It takes up the '11th deck' on the ship and is in one of the fake stacks. It has events and activities especially for kids 14 - 17, and it was where Jared spent the majority of time.

After we dropped Jaydin off at her club, Mom, Mark, and I wandered around deck 10. We even saw where the captain (Captain Thord on our trip) stands to dock the ship. It's very interesting because there are clear panels in the floor of the overlook so that the captain can see exactly where things are below him when he's docking. We also saw the Mickey ears on the bow, the crew pool, and Vista Spa (where I would be going later in the week!). We had a nice time walking slowly, taking pictures, and wandering.

The captain's spot to dock the ship.

A quiet - almost empty - ship.

The bow of our ship.

At noon, Mark, Mom, Jonah, and I met in the Promenade Lounge for the Paper Plane Making event. That was ... fun. LOL! Always remember when making a paper airplane that the LINES are important! Right Mom??? It may have been the most complex plane we've ever made, but it was fun doing it together. Oscar was our leader for this class and was very patient. Once the planes were made, we had a distance contest. The kids flew first; then the adults flew. Jonah won the kids' contest!!!! :) The rest of us didn't even come close. But that's ok. We had a good time.

Not long after the class, I picked up Jaydin so that she could rest a bit before the activities of the evening. Along with Pirate Night and the pirate-costumed characters, we had a concierge reception to attend, too. Before we left the room for the reception, we got Jaydin all dressed up for her pirate evening.

Oh ... and Mom found another cute guy with whom to get her picture taken.

The reception was at 4:45 that afternoon, and it was very nice. There was food there and free drinks. We even had a private visit with Donald Duck! Our Concierge staff was there, as well as a photographer. We had a good time. All of us made it up there .... except Jared who, I'm guessing, was *stuck* in the Stack .... probably in 'da corner.' :) On the table of food, there was a cool pirate ship made out of watermelon, cucumbers and such. Below it was some yummy boiled shrimp - already shelled!

:) Life was indeed very good.

We visited with some of the pirate-clad characters before dinner. One of the most interesting .... characters ... that we met was a young boy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. He was probably 6 or 8 years old and was FULLY into the character. In fact, he was so into his character that he had a little issue with his language at one point (he looked at his parents and said - in his best Jack Sparrow accent - "I've never in my life seen so many damn pirates!" It was HILARIOUS coming from a kid his age.). He did get into a bit of trouble with his language, though. LOL!

Dinner was at Parrot Cay that night, and what a great place that is for Pirate Night! The tropical atmosphere there is perfect for the theme. At each of our plates, we had an official Pirate Night bandanna, and our menus were rolled up like a pirate map. Really cool. Our server came by and put our bandannas on like pirates, and a photographer came to take pictures. I really liked the picture of the whole family that night. It was a pretty good one.

Our pirate night menu.

Even our staff was in their pirate attire. This was our head server, Jeff, with Jaydin.

The pirate party started at 9:45, so we had to rush a bit to get up there after dinner. We could have joined in around the stage - there was plenty of room, but I knew that we wouldn't be able to see everything very well. So, we went up to deck 10. Mom decided to stay in the room instead of going to the show. Becky and Dusty were down near the stage, Jonah and his group from the Quest were down there somewhere, and Jared was .... somewhere. After the 'show,' there were fireworks off of the ship ... yep, *real* fireworks off of the side of the ship. Mom watched them from her veranda.