Two weeks ago, I shared the first of a planned series of posts about my week aboard Carnival Magic. I had fully intended on continuing the tale the following week, as promised, but instead, I took a break to publish two articles for International Women’s Day. This week, I’ll return to my planned travel blogging.

We pick up on Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. However, before we continue, please note that the dates on the pictures are incorrect. Those pictures were taken with a camera specifically bought for the trip, and having never used it before, I didn’t see the time-stamps until it was too late.

Now, we continue!

Day at the Beach

The biggest attraction on Grand Cayman from what I gathered were the stingrays. However, stingrays didn’t rank too highly on any of our lists on the trip, so we decided to spend a quiet day at a free beach instead.

This was my first time visiting a non-Jamaican beach in the Caribbean. In the past, when asked why I had not visited other Caribbean Islands, I often replied with, “Why? So I can experience Jamaica in another country?” However, after this Carnival Magic cruise, I can safely say that not all Caribbean beaches are created equal.

The beach was beautiful, but there was nothing truly special about it. The water was murky because the sand particles were so small, so that made snorkelling mostly uneventful for me.

The last time I went snorkelling before this was in Jamaica and I saw a stingray and so many colourful fish! What I would have given to have my badly-time-stamped camera that day. Instead, here I am using it to film empty waters in the Grand Cayman.

After that, I returned to shore to do some reading. However, after a while the others in the group called me back into the water to point out fish jumping on top of the waves. Apparently, they had heard my underwater eye-roll from miles away and had come to show me that Grand Cayman did indeed have underwater critters to share.

As you can clearly see, it was a vicious attack. I haven’t decided if I want to sue yet, but it was wonderfully frightfully to be rushed by those silver fish. I’ve never experienced that before—not even in Jamaica.

Seafood Buffet Lunch

Grand Cayman’s snorkelling views hadn’t been my only disappointment since the start of the cruise. The day before, while dessert was delicious, it was tough finding seafood. I’m a pescetarian, so I was beginning to worry I would need to spend the cruise eating grass.

I was pleasantly surprised to return aboard to find mussels on the buffet menu. If you’ve been following my travel blogs for a while, you know I am always in search of mussels and most times this quest fails, even in fish towns like Juneau, Alaska. Until this pivotal moment in my travel history, New Hampshire had been the one exception.

And, to boot, these were delicious!

A Night of Country

After a long day of snorkelling and stuffing our faces, I was ready to spend the night working on my upcoming novel, Alanis, Land of the Undead. However, my parents talked me into joining them for a show that, if memory serves, was called Country Roads.

I wasn’t too excited about going, because I’m not a big fan of the southern drawl or country music. Yes, I know; I live in the south. How does that work? Most Atlantans are not from Atlanta, so I rarely do hear it.

Still, the performance was good. Not liking the genre of a thing doesn’t mean you can’t give credit where it’s due. Here are two clips from the show. The first shows a little bit of dancing and the second shows one of their stage transitions. Their transitions were so smooth!

When we returned to our room, we found a new friend awaiting us. I lent him my hat for the final touch! Isn’t he handsome?

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Next week—provided there are no patriotic or feminist soap boxes for me to shout from—I will continue with our arrival at Mahogany Bay in Isla Roatan. This was one of my favourite stops on the cruise because I got to ride a lift all by myself over the sea, and it was beautiful!