Now that the ultimate goal of this cruise – the Panama Canal – was over, we planned to enjoy a easy excursion in Grand Cayman and a relaxing sea day. For our last port of the Carnival Pride Cruise, we booked a Grand Cayman By Land and By Sea tour featuring the Nautilus semi-submarine. The last few days of this cruise were relaxing and a bit of relief after some exciting days in the middle.
Missed the story of the Panama Canal? Check it out here.
Day 7: A Grand Tour of Grand Cayman?
Before this cruise we had been to Grand Cayman once before, but we did not book an excursion and we did not make good use of our time. We were determined to do better this time.
Read about our very boring first trip to Grand Cayman here.
Since there were only two ports on this particular cruise, we chose to do an excursion in both. Not saying that you can’t visit Grand Cayman on your own because you can but…again see the review of our previous trip.
We booked the Grand Cayman By Land and By Sea excursion through Carnival. It seemed like a good way to get a feel for the island without doing anything too expensive or too taxing.
Let’s All Head To Tender!
Our shore excursion tickets said to meet in the Taj Mahal Lounge at 9:00 for our Grand Cayman By Land and By Sea excursion. We showed up at the lounge just a few minutes after 9:00. The shore excursion team had already cleared everyone out of the lounge and had them all loaded onto a tender. They were just waiting to see how many more people could fit on that particular tender. There was room for us so we hopped on the tender and it took off.
Once we got to shore, we followed the signs for our excursion and waited under the tent they directed us to. It felt like we were standing around for a quite a while. Finally they got us organized and headed in the direction of some mini-busses.
The bus driver / tour director introduced himself and we were off headed to our first stop of the Nautilus semi-submarine.
Nautilus Semi-Submarine
Our bus driver / tour director had hardly finished giving us an outline of the tour and a description of our first stop before we arrived. The Nautilus Semi-Submarine was parked very close to the tender port.
The Nautilus semi-submarine was actually really cool. It was basically a boat but the underwater portion had windows all along the sides. We went straight down the stairs (there is really no upstairs portion) and sat on the next available bench and waited.
We were one of the first cruises back in Grand Cayman (in April 2022) so we were one of their first tours in two years. Even so, everything went really smoothly. We started seeing fish even before we left the dock!
On our short ride on-board the Nautilus, we saw two shipwrecks and a bunch of fish! This excursion would be great for someone who wants to see the wrecks and the ships but is unable to scuba or snorkel.
We snorkel, but I always feel like I’m more focused on how badly my mask fits or where the current is taking me. I can never focus on what I’m supposed to be looking at when I snorkel. Since we were not in the water, I could look around and just enjoy myself!
I highly recommend the Nautilus portion of this excursion for anyone interested in seeing the underwater sights in a relaxed environment!
The “By Land” Portion of the Tour
After about 30 minutes on board, the Nautilus crew herded back up to find Walter on bus #12. We then went for a tour of the island. The bus driver / tour guide was entertaining and gave us good information about the island as well as a few good jokes. We saw a few sites from the bus windows then stopped for 10 minutes at 7-mile beach. We walked down a mat to the water and took a few photos then headed back up to the bus.
The tour guide / bus driver gave us 10 minutes in Hell. We really booked this excursion for two things – the Nautilus semi-submarine and Hell. And 10 minutes in Hell was really not enough time!
We wanted to look at the rock formations, which were really cool but we also really wanted to buy our postcards and mail them to get our Hell postage stamps. I think we were there closer to 15 minutes and we weren’t the last people on the bus. We really needed 25 minutes to really have enough time to go shopping, see the rocks and mail the post cards.
Helpful Hint for Hell: You have to buy your Hell postcards from the shop and then take them to the post office to mail.
Our next stop was 10 minutes at a rum tasting souvenir store. We had a couple of sample shots, discovered they didn’t even have any rum cake and got back on the bus. 10 minutes was plenty of time there.
The excursion did not exactly end on a high note
The last stop in our Grand Cayman By Land and By Sea excursion was weird. The stop was a new-age, mixed use shopping/dining/living area where the guide took us up a tower with some mosaics of the ocean and a view of both sides of the island. The view was fine, the mosaic was fine but we were given about 25 minutes there – which wasn’t really enough time to do any shopping or go eat anywhere, but too much time to just look up the tower and walk back to the bus.
Everybody but one lady was back on the bus over 10 minutes early. Her husband went to look for her. He came back a few minutes later and asked if he had returned. Finally she showed back up at the very last moment and she discovered we were all waiting on her. Her response was, didn’t he say 11:50? She was right on time and we could not fault her for it.
Our tour guide then told us this was the last stop and he was going to drive us back to the port.
A quiet outrage happened in the bus then. “What about the turtles!” “I thought we were going to the turtle farm!” “I booked this excursion only because it went to the turtle farm!” “It was in the description! I have screenshots!”
We realized we weren’t going to the turtle farm as we were waiting by the fountains at that last stop. When we got back on Carnival’s Wi-Fi and were able to look up the tour, the description clearly did NOT say anything about the turtle farm, but the pictures DID have the turtle farm as multiple of the pictures.
I felt bad for the driver. It wasn’t his fault – he took us exactly where he was told to take us. People were not very happy when they got off the bus and don’t think he got the tips he probably deserved from that bus-load of people.
How many people do they have to stuff on this tender?
We were in the bustling port area, but we were ready to get back to our free food on board and headed for the tenders.
There was no tender there when we showed up so we waited for a couple of minutes and then one showed and we were sent out to get on it. We got a nice spot up top and we waited.
And we waited.
And
We
Waited.
And then we waited a few more minutes.
Finally we were headed back to the ship just as it started to rain.
Back on board
We dropped our stuff, washed our hands and then headed to Guy’s for a burger.
I hope you’re not counting the Guy’s Burger’s because it was 4 over the course of this 8 day cruise. (In my defense, the next two cruises we have booked are on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity and their burgers are just lacking in comparison. I mean, sometimes I think we take Carnival Cruises just because we have a hankering for a good Guy’s Burger!)
After lunch, it rained. Our plan was to walk around the ship and take some photos and play some mini golf.
We did both of those things, but it was very rainy and very blustery. We played a little ping-pong. After it started to rain again, we decided to go inside and get some coffees from the coffee shop and sat in the lounge to drink them.
We had a lovely dinner at 8:00. Every time the crew would do the dinner show an elderly gentleman (I would guess he was around 75) would get up from somewhere in the middle of the dining room and dance his heart out. I think everyone in the main part of the dining room was taking his picture instead of the waiters and the matra’d kept saying he needed to put the man on payroll because was doing their jobs.
Day 8: The Last Sea Day 🙁
The last day of the cruise sadly started with a typical cruise breakfast of omelets, bacon, hash browns, and of course breakfast desserts – I discovered Carnival’s muffins on this cruise and they turned out to be super tasty and strangely full of flavor.
After breakfast we went out to the main pool and lounged with the towel animals that Carnival puts around the pool on the last day. I do love the towel animals.
It was too cold to get in the pool so we sat around it for a while. Eventually we migrated to the Serenity pool and curled up together in one of the clamshells that was at least sheltered from the wind.
We left at lunch time and found the buffet very crowded! We grabbed some pizzas and salad and then made the rounds of the chocolate cake for the Chocolate Extravaganza! No chocolate fountain today, but they did have some chocolate sauce they would ladle over some items if you wanted it. They also had multiple types of chocolate cakes and we were pretty pleased with our choices.
Check out the best things to do on a sea day on Carnival here.
The after lunch plan was to go ahead and clean up early so we could go to afternoon tea and then the Diamond and Platinum Party!!
Trying to keep it classy for the last afternoon: Tea and the Diamond & Platinum Party
Tea was actually really disappointing. It was the last day of a long cruise and we showed up towards the end of tea time. They were out of the type of specialty tea we wanted and they were out of scones. So we munched on some cucumber sandwiches, macaroons and multiple types of chocolate cakes and sipped our tea.
Interested in Afternoon Tea on Carnival? Read more about it here.
We split up again until it was time for the Platinum Party. I tried to pack, but the ship was rocking so badly that I kept getting slung across the cabin and it was making me really sea-sick. So I just quit and sat down to read until the party.
We had to stand in a very long line to get into the Diamond and Platinum Party, but there were plenty of seats on the floor once we made it into the Taj Mahal Theater. The drinks were free-flowing and waiters were plentiful. The cruise director made some comments and we watched a little video with all the Carnival ships, past and present. That was it. The crowd slowly made its way out of the lounge and back to what we were doing.
I dropped Emily back off at the casino and I went back to read on the balcony until I got cold and it was time for dinner.
We enjoyed our last dinner. Our last time with our friendly nearby table and our dancing old man. That is one great thing about long cruises. You can actually get to know the people around you when you see them every day for over a week.
And then it was time to go back to the room to finish up the last packing. Finally, we climbed into the big comfy bed for the last time until we don’t know when.
Day 9: Driving Home
As usual, getting off the cruise ship was early.
They asked us to be out of the rooms by 8:00 (I swear it used to be 8:30) so we went up for a quick breakfast and then did the last of our packing. We were out of the room by about 8:10, which is pretty good for us!
We took our luggage and just walked right off the ship. There was a slight line outside on the promenade deck to get off the ship. We really appreciated that it was outside rather than snaking around and around the lobby and staircase. Debarkation can be such a headache, but it really went very smoothly on the Carnival Pride in Tampa!
We quickly made our way out of the terminal, across the street and to the car. Other than the very slow elevator in the parking deck it was actually a pretty smooth process.
We were then on our way home!
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