Had a personal training session, which made my legs feel like rubber. We are not signed up for an excursion here, so there was no hurry about getting ready to go ashore. The ship was scheduled to anchor off George Town harbor and tender in, but there was a strong wind from the northwest, so the crew was worried about how the tenders would fare and our ship anchored south of the island at Fox Bay (?) instead. There was an interesting pirate ship anchored near us.

The excursion staff did yeoman duty setting up and negotiating transport into George Town . Apparently there is a very strong taxi association on Cayman, and at first they were not going to allow shuttles, but insisted on everyone taking taxis in. They were willing to give a special price of $5 per person each way, however. I suspect that someone made the point that there are 1800 passengers on the ship, and most of them would probably stay there if they couldn't get into town easily. It also turned out that Royal Caribbean had an even larger ship anchored next to us, which probably made the point even more persuasive.

We had lunch in the dining room. We were seated with two ladies who are real travel pros. One lady was on her eleventh world cruise with Holland America (and she also does other cruises). The other one sat down and proceeded to list all the cruises and travels she has been on. I sort of lost track, but she has apparently been everywhere in the world including Antarctica at least twice. The byplay was very amusing, and we were thoroughly put in our place . They both assured us we would love the cruise. After lunch, we went down to the tender to go ashore. They have a complete security setup for returning to the ship, although they don’t check anyone as they leave, only when they come back aboard.

Interestingly enough, even though the decision to anchor where we did was made fairly late, by 1:00 in the afternoon, there were half a dozen vendor stalls and as many ice cream trucks set up where the tenders were docking. Both ships had tents set up to see that their passengers got on the correct shuttles and tenders, with Cayman personnel seeing that passengers went to the correct ship’s tent. It seemed like most of the taxis in town were there, also, offering rides to and from town. One guy was selling conch shells and blowing them to demonstrate the loud sound.

David and I went into town on one of the shuttles. I had not realized that they drive on the left on Cayman. We looked around the town, took a few pictures and bought some post cards to send to the grandkids. I noticed that rays (the ocean kind) seem to be some kind of theme on the island. After I wrote the post cards, we went to the post office, bought some stamps and mailed the postcards, then returned to the ship.

Entertainment was a dance trio, very spectacular and energetic. Afterwards we listened to a string quartet in the Explorer Lounge, and then to bed.