Note: You can see the daily navigators for this cruise here.
On day 4 we woke up as we were pulling into Grand Cayman. There is no dock at the island, so the ship anchors offshore and people get to and from the ship on boats called tenders. They are fairly large boats that have 2 levels and hold several hundred people. The ride to shore takes about 5 minutes. We were fortunate enough to be the only ship in port that day so our ship had all of the tender boats to ourselves and the operation seemed to be moving pretty quickly all day.
This was also the morning for our scheduled Princess Meet & Greet and Elsa/Anna/Olaf Meet & Greet. I thought it was strange that they would hold these on a port day but the times worked out okay for us. Our meet & greets were scheduled for 9:00 and 9:30 and all ashore wasn’t until 10:30.
Our oldest is officially out of the princess phase, so just our younger 2 participated:
Rapunzel was so excited that our youngest was wearing her wedding dress and that she had found Pascal. She said she had been looking for him all over the ship!
This was the only photo from the princesses that I purchased:
I put this in here to show you what the borders looked like for the DCL princess photos. The other princesses’ borders were just like this one at the top and bottom, only different colors with a different symbol in the crest at the bottom of the photo (Belle was yellow with a rose, Ariel was turquoise with a shell, and Cinderella was blue with a slipper).
After the princesses it was time for Elsa, Anna and Olaf in Animator’s Palate:
Next it was time to get back to the room and ready for our shore excursion. We changed into our swim suits, packed our stuff and called our concierge Joanne to come and escort us through the tender line off the ship. If you are not concierge, you have to get a tender ticket in order to exit the ship. The process for getting a ticket varies depending on whether you are on a DCL excursion or not and time of day. Here are the written instructions:
You can read all about our Grand Cayman excursion in a separate post here.
After our excursion, we got back to the port with about 2 hours to spare. We don’t like to cut it close when returning to the ship. Right as we got out of the taxi and entered the port area it started to POUR! Thank goodness there were a lot of covered areas to take shelter until the rain stopped as the walk from the port area to the tender boats is not covered. Here are some photos that I took as we returned on the tender:
Back in our room, we discovered this!
Our prizes for completing the scavenger hunt! They were rice crispy treats covered with white chocolate and edible stickers on top. They were just as delicious and moist as the Mickey shaped ones.
Then, we all immediately showered in order to get all of the sand out of our suits. It’s amazing how much sand gets trapped in there! During this time I looked out our window and saw this amazing rainbow! The second one of our trip!
It was even more stunning in person. I also took a picture of one of the last tender boats returning:
We relaxed in the room until dinner. Right before we left for dinner I captured this beautiful sunset from our verandah:
Tonight was our first night of the cruise in Animator’s Palate. Some people don’t care for the show on the Wonder and say it pales in comparison to the ones on the other ships (and it does), but our family still enjoys it. I liked how they had put up some subtle Christmas decorations. It was so dim in there that this was the best picture I could get:
These decorations were on most of the columns around the outer edge of the restaurant and the color of the ribbons varied.
This is where I get to eat my favorite menu item from any of the current DCL menus: the black truffle pasta pursiettes. These things are so good that I ordered them for both my appetizer and entree:
I think our waiter even brought out a 3rd plate that I ended up eating as well. I can’t even describe how good these are!!!
Towards the end of dinner Sorcerer Mickey made his appearance. I love this part!
After dinner we were all exhausted from our long day and headed back to the room to find these:
Inside the heart was a thank you note from the Frozen gang for attending the Freezing the Night Away party the night before:
It was at this time that we debated about whether or not to go to the evening show which was Toy Story: The Musical. We have seen it once before and the girls and I do not have fond memories of it and wanted to call it a night after our long day. However, my husband remembers it more fondly and thought about going. Once I reminded him we could watch it on TV in the room, he decided to stay in with us and watch it in the room. I think he was actually already asleep by the time the show started on TV, with me and our middle daughter (the night owl) being the only ones still awake. About 15 minutes into the show, my daughter actually said that she barely thought it was even worth watching on TV. I apologize to all of the Toy Story show fans out there and if you haven’t seen it yet, by all means give it a chance. But, for me, there is just something about that female actress playing Sid and her screeching voice and overacting that just kills the whole show for me. I also think the plot moves a little slowly and the show is a little too long but like I said, if you haven’t seen it, please give it a chance and try it out. I know that there are some people who really love it.
Even though we didn’t finish watching the show on TV, our middle daughter and I once again rallied and made it to family karaoke at 10:30. After one song we were spent and went to bed.
Toy Story is the one show we skipped on our first cruise and now I’ve heard they are getting rid of it in a few weeks so I guess we won’t get to see it on our next cruise on the Wonder (January 2017) Oh well, hopefully it’s replaced with something better 😉
Enjoying your trip report very much, your photos are great!
I’m so glad you are enjoying it! If you are curious about Toy Story, you can find it on YouTube. That may give you an idea about whether you would have enjoyed it or not.
Great stuff! How did you get the meet and greet times? Did you sign up for those?
Hi Sara! To get tickets for the meet & greets (only 1 ticket needed per family), you need to look at the daily navigator that you get when you check in at the port and it will tell you where to go once you get on the ship. It is usually guest services, but it can vary so double check the navigator while you are waiting to board. You should go straight there after boarding because there is a limited supply of tickets and I think they usually run out.