Disney Magic - Halloween on the High Seas 5-night cruise - Day 3 - Grand Cayman

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Grand Cayman

I awoke early and couldn’t get back to sleep so I quietly creeped out to the veranda to watch our approach to Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman doesn’t have a cruise dock, but is instead a tendering port, meaning we had to take smaller boats from the Disney Magic out to the island. I ran up to Cabanas to grab a plate of food to take back to the room so we could eat and get ready to meet for our 7:15 excursion. Cabanas wasn’t open. Grrrr. So I grabbed a few pastries from the poolside quick service location that was opened and took those back. We got ready and munched those and then I headed back to Cabanas once open to grab more food we could slam down prior to meeting in D Lounge at 7:15.



At 7:15 on the nose, we were in D Lounge where we had to hurry up and wait for everyone else to show up. Finally, at little after 7:30 everyone had trickled in. I found this annoying. Not only were we not able to eat breakfast, but nothing really happened until 7:30. It seems to me, if you’re going to have an early excursion, the times should be accurate and breakfast should be open in enough time to eat prior to the excursion. Ahem, rant over. We were led to the tender boat where we boarded and made the quick trip to the Island. Our excursion was “Island Tour and Snorkeling with Stingrays.” Our driver took us around the island and told us about it. It’s a beautiful and clean place (much much nicer than Nassau). Our first stop was the Turtle Farm where they breed, raise and then release sea turtles. Emmaline had a great time there holding baby turtles and seeing the big turtles in their tanks with their beach to lay eggs (which are then collected to hatch indoors in a controlled environment). We were there for about 45 minutes which was just perfect. Next we stopped at “Hell” a unique rock formation. I expected it to be bigger. Anyway, we were there for perhaps a bit longer than was really necessary. Back on the bus, we headed for our final destination, Stingray City. We boarded a boat and made our way out into the ocean to the sandbar where wild stingrays gather.





Due to weather and the tides, the water was much deeper than usual and we put Emmaline in a life jacket so that she could float and wouldn’t have to continuously swim since she couldn’t touch the bottom. The stingrays were big and everywhere. We interacted with them and they gave us squid to feed them. It was a really neat experience. Emmaline really loved it and I’m glad we did it. We were there for about an hour and headed back to shore, then the bus back to the tender docks and back to the Magic where we headed to lunch, this time at Lumiere’s for sit down lunch. I had a fantastic meal that day. Definitely my favorite lunch on board and I vowed to eat lunch in the main dining rooms as much as possible from that point on.





After lunch we were exhausted. Between the late Halloween night and the early excursion, we all needed naps. We went back to the stateroom and all had a good nap. After napping, we got up and got Emmaline into her pirate outfit to take her for her appointment at the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique where she got pirate makeup done as well as some additional pirate accessories. She loved it and came home with some really fun stuff.



After that, Roger took Emmaline to grab some pizza for dinner from Deck 9 near the pool while I started getting ready for dinner at Palo, the adult-only restaurant. We dropped her off at the kid’s club and headed for our 6 PM reservation. Palo is beautiful and we had a wonderful server named Mo. Dinner was good. It wasn’t amazing, but it was good. Dessert was pretty amazing though. The chocolate soufflé is the best dessert I’ve had onboard DCL.



After dinner, Roger and I put on our pirate garb, picked up Emmaline from the club and headed down to the atrium to take photos in our pirate outfits. After photos, it was time for the show, which was the full-length all ages show by Lynn Trefzger. Her show was funny, perhaps not as funny as her adult act, but we still enjoyed it very much.



After the show, we headed up to Deck 10 to check out the pirate party/show going on at Deck 9. I thought overall that this was the only place that the Dream outshone the Magic. The pirate shows on the Dream were much better than the one show the Magic had. After the show were fireworks (which were just as amazing). Emmaline was practically a zombie by this time so we took her back to the room and got her to bed.

Click here for Day 4. 

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