MSC Seaside - Live Journal Day 4

MSC Seaside – Live Journal Day 4

Today we are arriving in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We have another excursion through MSC. We will be touring the island and then enjoying a few beers at the Cayman Islands Brewery. Should be a fun day.

Georgetown is a tender port, which means you hop in a smaller boat from the ship and the smaller boat takes you to land. We absolutely hate tendering. We typically do not get off the ship if we need to take a tender. But we have an excursion so time to head to the tender boat.

We again met in the Top Sail Lounge and waited for a butler to take us down to the boat. One great thing was we didn’t have to wait in the big tender line or grab a ticket to get off the ship. We simply waited in the lounge and when the tender was ready, we were escorted down.

Once on the ship, we waited until the entire boat was full and off we went.

The one good thing about tendering, the absolute best view of the ship.

Shore Excursion:

Once we exited the tender boat, we were directed to a sea of people wearing pink stickers. This was the biggest group of people for an excursion we have seen in a long time. Once everyone was there, we were led to a group of busses. Everyone was split into groups of 20 and led on to a bus. The bus was comfy and would be our home for the next 3 hours.

First Stop:

We drove to the west side of the island and along the way heard lots of facts and historical references about the Grand Cayman islands.

We eventually made our way to Hell, a very touristy location where you can send a post card that will be postmarked from Hell. It’s an interesting place because there are these crazy rock formations. If you are in Grand Cayman, it’s a cool place to visit for a few minutes. We had a 15 minute break to look around, take pictures and buy souvenirs. We bought our magnet and back on the bus we went.

We drove around the island and heard more stories about the history and culture of Grand Cayman. We stopped once more at a rum cake shop. While everyone was trying rum cake, I saw that our driver was eating something that looked really delicious. I asked him what it was and he told me it was a Tastee Pattie. He said it was a local thing and I knew I had to try it. I went over to this little counter and saw that there were 3 different kinds of these patties – beef, chicken and veggie. Our guide was eating a veggie pattie so I thought, let’s do as the locals do, lol. The pattie cost $5 and it was the yummiest thing ever. I would describe the filling as something similar to a spring roll (cabbage, carrots, onions) and there was a spicy sauce in there as well. The outside was a cross between an empanada and a fried taco shell. It was soft and oh so tasty. If you are in Grand Cayman and see one of these Tastee Pattie stands, definitely grab one for everyone in your party.

Last Stop – Cayman Islands Brewery

We spent another hour in the van touring around Grand Cayman. Our last stop was the Cayman Islands Brewery. We each received a wrist band with drink tickets on it. You ripped a ticket off for each beer. There were around 20 different beers to choose from and all the ones we tried we excellent. My favorite was the Mango Beer and Sean’s favorite was the Nitro Stout. Both were excellent. We had a total of 5 tickets a piece but we only used 4. It was a great way to end the day.

Overall Thoughts on Excursion:

This was a good low key excursion. A great way to see Grand Cayman without any exertion. The van does all the heavy lifting. For us, we prefer to see a place on our own and we would have liked doing this tour on our own time schedule. Going with a group is always hard because people are late getting on the bus, there are bathroom stops, etc. You could easily rent a vehicle and see all of these places but it’s nice sometimes, when someone else does all the work. We would recommend this for anyone that has mobility issues. The van is easy to get in an out of.

Back to the Ship:

Once again, we were greeted by a butler and escorted to the tender. There wasn’t a line at this point in the day but it would be great to have the escort when there’s a lot of people waiting in line to get on the tender boat. One short boat ride later and we were back on the Seaside.

Lunch for Sean:

I had my Tastee Pattie on the island but Sean didn’t eat anything so it was off to the buffet to grab some lunch. The pizza on this ship is fantastic. A few slices and a salad later, Sean was no longer hungry.

Dinner Time:

We went to the Yacht Club Restaurant for dinner tonight. It was Italian night and the restaurant was decorated with Italian flags and Italian flags colors.