Grand Princess Cruise, December 2007 -- Day 3

Tuesday, Georgetown, Grand Cayman


There is no dock for cruise ships in the harbor at Georgetown so if you want to go ashore you have to be tendered. They use the life boats for this. The schedule had the Grand Princess arriving at 7:00 A.M.

At 6:45 we were startled to have the cabin filled with the loudest metalic screaming noise you have ever heard. I was sure we had run aground or something. I rushed to the balcony and saw at once that one of the life boat supports was right under our cabin. And it was extended so the tender connected to it could be launched.


All of the photos of the life boats were taken from our balcony.

SUMMARY OF THE CRUISE SO FAR
From Fort Lauderdale to Ocho Rios, Jamaica
754 nautical miles, 867 statute miles, 1395 kilometers
average speed 20.4 knots

From Ocho Rios to Grand Cayman
254 nautical miles, 292 statute miles, 470 kilometers
average speed 18.9 knots

TOTAL DISTANCE SAILED
1008 nautical miles, 1159 statute miles, 1865 kilometers

As always it was nice to have the ship to ourselves while the majority of the passengers were ashore. And of course if you leave the ship there is the danger of the Cayman pirates.

Coral Princess Cruise, April 2007 -- Day 7

Sunday, Grand Cayman

The Cayman Islands are very beautiful and we were almost tempted to take the tender ashore and explore Georgetown. The water is clear and there are lots of diving excursions. This was the only port on this cruise that the Coral Princess had to use tenders. Grand Cayman apparently has no dock facilities at all as we were the only ship there.

It is Formal Night again tonight. But we found if you eat in the Horizon Court buffet you still get the Beef Wellington sliced to order while dining in casual comfort.

There's a strong wind from the south and you could feel the sea a lot all evening. And through the night.

The tonight's entertainment was another production show in the Princess Theater. "Dance -- Music, Song & Dance from Around the World." As with last week's show, once again this was well done and it was a highly professional production. And the dancers had even more challenges from the rocking of the ship.

At the top of this posting is the flag of the Cayman Islands. I like it especially because it has the Union Jack on it plus a picture of a turtle with a pineapple on its back.


DISTANCES
From Fort Lauderdale to Panama Canal
1273 nautical miles, 1464 statute miles, 2355 kilometers
average speed 21.0 knots

From Panama Canal to Limon
187 nautical miles, 215 statute miles, 346 kilometers
average speed 18.2 knots

From Limon to Ocho Rios
650 nautical miles, 748 statute miles, 1203 kilometers
average speed 18.1 knots

From Ocho Rios to Grand Cayman
252 nautical miles, 290 statute miles, 466 kilometers
average speed 19.8 knots

Total distance sailed
2362 nautical miles, 2716 statute miles, 4370 kilometers

December 2006, Golden Princess Cruise -- Day 5

Wednesday, Grand Cayman

When we woke up this morning the Golden Princess had anchored close to the shore of Grand Cayman Island. Our life boats were going into the water to serve as tenders. The process of lowering the boats off our ship is complicated and fun to watch.

As is often the case we had little interest in going ashore and taking part in "activities." Been there, did that. Or to be a little more precise: Been somewhere very much like there, did something very much like that. We stayed on the ship and had a wonderful time.

There were seven other reasons to stay on the ship. Other cruise ships in port were: Carnival's Imagination, Inspiration and Carnival Liberty, Celebrity's Constellation, Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas and, of course, our own Golden Princess. That's a lot of tourists (at least 12,000) all trying to snorkel on the same beach. Yesterday the Golden Princess was the only cruise ship visiting Montego Bay.

In the weeks just before we left on our cruise there were reports of the Norwalk virus on several cruise ships. We decided to be extra safe and took Dial liquid soap, packets of Wet Ones, and bottles of Purell. The ship had dispensers of hand sanitizers at the entrances to all the eating areas and there were signs up on how to avoid contamination. Of course I am not sure how effective the anti-bacterial stuff is in fighting viruses, but washing your hands a lot can't hurt. We heard of no cases of illness on the ship.

At 5:00 P.M. we were on our way to Cozumel, 326 nautical miles to the northwest.