Our second port was Grand Cayman. One of the most popular excursions in Grand Cayman is Stingray City. Paul and I have done it before and it is really fun so we showed the kids some videos of it and none of them were interested (they were all scared about swimming with stingrays). So instead we did the Turtle Farm. When we were at the beach this past summer the kids got really interested in turtles so we thought they'd love it! Disney doesn't offer this excursion so we booked it through Discount Excursions. They were wonderful and I would absolutely use them again! When we did our excursion with Disney it was a large group and lots of feeling like you were being herded. With Discount Excursions we walked off the ship, stopped at the kiosk, and within 10 minutes they had us in a van headed to the Turtle Farm. We were able to explore the farm at our leisure and we met our driver back at the front at the designated time. It was a really good excursion for the kids. It was not crowded at all and there were many options for what they could do.
They have an area where you can snorkel with the turtles and Ellie tried that out with Paul and me. She had trouble getting the hang of the snorkel but we were able to get out to where a few turtles were so that was fun! They also had a pool with a water slide and a small waterfall and the kids LOVED that. They spent most of the time there.
There was also a "touch tank" area where you could hold the turtles and they had a tank you could climb in and hang out with the turtles which was really neat. Emmie was obsessed with the touch tank area and spent a lot of time over there.
They have a restaurant at the farm but we didn't even go check out the menu so I have no idea what it is like. We had ordered Uncrustables from room service (and asked them to leave them in the package) and had grabbed some cereal from the breakfast buffet so we just sat at the pool area and ate what we brought. I'm really glad we did this beceause it allowed us to eat quick and the kids didn't really have to stop playing!
My number 1 tip for Grand Cayman: BE EARLY! Grand Cayman is a tender port so the ship anchors and then the tender boats take you to the port. We got to the waiting area on the ship over an hour before our excursion time and we were still a few minutes late for our excursion so I recommend giving yourself plenty of time! (It didn't help that they were about 30 minutes late letting the first group off the ship so it had backed up pretty good in the waiting area.) Grand Cayman is a very safe island so if you get to the port area early you can always explore on your own.
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| The kids loved riding the boat to and from the port. |
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