Steve and Cathy's Blog

Insignia arrives in the harbor of George Town on Grand Cayman around 8:00am.  The 2,124-passenger Carnival Miracle is there ahead of us, so it will be a busy day in the little town. Almost every excursion involves snorkeling or diving, so we elect to not sign up for anything at all.  In fact, Cathy decides to just stay on the ship to stay out of the heat and avoid riding on the tender one last time.

Steve, on the other hand, has plans.  Brian O’Dell, Rich Rosenthal and he are going to meet with Tony Glander, the 28-year old that they met during “Cigar Time” on the segment from Sydney to Papeete that lives here.  Barbara O’Dell and Helma Rosenthal are going to the beach.  All of us ride the tender into the town around 10:30.  Tony happens to be on the dock at the time, so we get a warm Cayman greeting.

Tony has to work until noon, so we have a little time to wander around.  Grand Cayman has two real industries: finance and tourism.  That’s it.  But it has both of these in spades.  There are over 600 banks and trust companies in the Caymans, and Tony tells us that during the height of the tourist season, up to ten cruise ships per week will anchor in George Town harbor.  We are here in the off-season – the rainy season, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like when it’s busy in this town of only 29,000 people.

When we get off the tender, we are in the middle of a bazaar, with souvenir shops, tour operators, restaurants and the like.  Rich Rosenthal has been collecting refrigerator magnets at every stop and he finds a very creative one to add to his huge collection.  Both he and Brian are cigar smokers, so we find our way to one store on the second floor of a building and another one across the street from Tony Glander’s place of employment, Captain Marvin’s Stingray City, Fishing & Island Tours.  We are just waiting until Tony gets off work and can join us for lunch.

After we leave the second cigar store, we see Tony in front of his shop.  Three of the ship’s female crewmembers are flirting big time with him. He is such an engaging, pleasant individual that it is easy to see how these young ladies are attracted to him, and it’s fun to watch them.

Soon Tony comes across the street, and suggests lunch at the Cayman Cabana Oceanside Restaurant right next door to the store we were just in.  It’s starting to rain (we have seen dark clouds passing by all morning), so we choose a large table under cover but out of doors.

Joining the four of us are Paul and Sherri Johnson from Vancouver and Linda and Peter (whose last name I do not know) from England, all “Cigar Time” veterans and friends of Tony. We order drinks – mainly White Tip beer (Tony’s recommendation, of course) and then lunch.  Steve orders jerk chicken wings.  The service is a little slow, but we don’t care.  When the food comes, we are all astounded at the size of the portions.  We had gotten used to human-sized portions on the ship.  Now we are back to oversized American portions.  Almost everybody (except Brian, who has an enormous appetite) ends up bringing half of their lunch back to the ship.

So we all have a leisurely lunch and listen to Tony tell us what it’s like to operate a tourist operation on Grand Cayman.   I am especially interested in how many Celebrity ships call on George Town each week during the high season.  So many that they do not use the ship’s lifeboats for tendering but have a fleet of boats based on the island for that purpose.

Paul, Sherri, Brian, Steve, Linda, Peter, Rich and Tony

Alas, around 2:00pm, we head back to the dock to pick up the tender and board the ship, which is departing at 3:00pm.  Tony walks us there, we say our good byes and off we go.

As the ship sails out of George Town harbor, the End of the World Sail Away Party begins on the Pool Deck on Deck 9 and will run until 4pm.  The first order of business, however, is a Group Photo of all the ATW guests (which heads up this post).  This is an Oceania Cruises tradition.  That takes a few minutes.  Then all the ATW guests are invited to participate in another tradition – jumping in the pool.  Some of the officers also jump in.

It looks like fun, we suppose, but we do not take part in this.  Actually, we head back to our stateroom to get out of the heat one last time. We hang out there until 6:30 and go to the Grand Dining Room for the last meal we will have there as tomorrow, the last night of the cruise, we are having dinner with the O’Dells in the Polo Grill.

Naturally we forego the evening entertainment, and use Excuse #145 to go to bed early as there will be the last time change this evening where we move the clock ahead one hour. We are on our way to Miami, Florida, 650 nautical miles from Grand Cayman.  The end of this adventure is rapidly approaching.