Things Aren’t so Bad When an Excursion is Cancelled

Author: Emily Bores
Date of Trip: November 2012

My husband & I went on a cruise of a lifetime to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We had selected a Panama Canal cruise feeling this is diferent and not your normal “Alaska” or “Hawaii.” We where correct in every sense of the word!

Our initial, uh oohs started the week prior departure with the onset of hurricane Sandy. First, we must tell you Labor Day we lost our beloved yellow lab of 13 years named Sandy. We took this as her farewell swim in the ocean and goodbye to us. She was never lady like or calm, although people kept saying “hang in, labs settle down after 2 years” Which turned into them correcting and adlibbling “3 years” “5 years” etc etc etc. Needless to say her goodbye was a whopper! This left us waiting patiently for our airport to open and catching our flight to Ft. Lauderdale to make our departure. As luck would have it all worked out well and we made connections with flying colors.

Our cruise started out with the smoothest sailing ever making our first stop in Aruba eight hours early. This gave us a wonderful restfull sleep and enjoyed our day on land to the utmost. All the other ports where exactly as expected and every bit as wonderful as we had read about and prepared for —-UNTIL…..the stop in Grand Cayman.

On Grand Cayman we had arranged for an excursion to snorkle with the stingreyes and view the reefs. Due to the aftermath of Sandy the waters on the reef where still too rough for small boats to take snorklers out to the reef. Our hearts sunk as this was to culminate our phenominal voyage. On to Grand Cayman we trotted and decided to just go with the flow. First we happened upon a taxi driver who for a mere $15 each took us to every part of the island we read about. We saw the turtles, the dolphins, the rum cake factory the beaches the town. You name it she took us and stopped where ever we wanted to take pictures or spend more time. If that wasn’t enough of a treat what we discovered in Georgetown was even more entertaining. As our luck was holding out it just so happened to be the final day of Pirate Week on Grand Cayman. Every one who lives on the island was dressed appropriately and spoke in pirate form. The oldest on down to the babies and even the pets where dressed in pirate wear. The town was closed for the major big parade of all the floats, music, beads(look out New Orleans the Caymans are catching up!) We witnessed street performers, musicians, steel drum bands even took in a couple songs from the high school band.

Our cruise was wonderful and consisted of everything we had read and prepared for. Of course our fondest memories are going to be of the day on Grand Cayman when we went with the flow and now truely believe “when one door closes another opens.”