[2016]
[Sunday 31 January 2016]
Thomson Dream Cuban Revolution[i]
07:00–17:00 Georgetown, Grand Cayman (tender to shore)
08:45[ii] Cayman Cultural Express — Half Day takes 3hrs
- [i] Between our booking this cruise and actually going on it, the name changed from “Cuban Revolution” to “Cuban Fusion”.
[ii] Meet in the Broadway Show Lounge 10 minutes before tour departure.
Cruise News, Monday 1st February 2016
I got up at 6.45am;… We went up to the Sirens Restaurant, deck 11, for breakfast. Despite being taken to task yesterday, the “white with epaulettes” was poking food items with ungloved hands again and telling the staff what to do, even though they were already performing efficiently — and, unlike him, hygienically! As he passed I noticed his name badge, with a forename which I couldn’t remember with that brief glance, and a surname which I could: it was “Stolnoyev” or something like it. We went back to the cabin, then off
ca.8.30am down to the Broadway Show Lounge. When the Destination Services team member called for those on the “Cayman Cultural Express” excursion, we filed out, down to deck 4, and out and down the ladder to the
tender.
Monday 1 February 2016 09:09:58
The Thomson Dream, anchored off Georgetown, Grand Cayman
Monday 1 February 2016 13:30:56
George Town, Grand Cayman
When we got ashore there was a long queue of people for excursions, and even for our chosen one, “Cayman Cultural Express”, there must have been fifty or more. However, we were allowed forward
ca. ten at a time, and that group which we were in boarded one of the waiting
dolmuş-style vehicles which was driven by a Jamaican character called Leroy.
- CAYMAN CULTURAL EXPRESS
This half-day tour lets you get to grips with Grand Cayman’s main cultural hotspots in one fell swoop. After leaving from the pier in an air-conditioned coach, you’ll take a scenic drive along the south coast as your guide fills you in on the history of the island and its people. Your first stop is Pedro’s Castle — an 18th-century plantation house that went on to serve as the meeting place for Grand Cayman’s first elected parliament After a guided tour, you’ll head on to the original capital of the Cayman Islands — Bodden Town. Here, you’ll stop at the Botanical Gardens. This real-life Garden of Eden is bursting with exotic plants and reptiles — even the endangered blue iguana lives here. Once you’ve had a good stroll around the grounds, it’s time to head back to the pier and meet your ship. Minimum age is 6 years old.
Driving on the left, and identical road signs to those in the UK, gave the place a “homey” feel; though the intense heat, tropical vegetation, and other things such as iguanas crossing the road, all gave a different impression of exoticism. Oh, and as everywhere else on this cruise: overhead electric power-lines carried between wooden poles — we hardly ever see those in the UK. There seemed to be many, many churches, with every shade of evangelical Protestantism represented: Baptist, Pentecostal, Adventist, Latter-Day Saints… We actually went first through Bodden Town and on to the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, some 17 or 18 miles, visiting that before retracing our route 11 miles to Pedro St. James. Leroy’s tending-to-patois Jamaican speech was a bit hard to comprehend as he told us about the Cayman Islands and pointed out features en route,
e.g. Owen Roberts International Airport. Repeatedly he pointed out the coral limestone out of which the island was formed. And the extensive mangrove swamps. He told us how bad the mosquito infestation used to be, and how that had made it impossible to raise cattle there, till a man whose name he couldn’t remember came from London and dug ditches to replace the brackish swamp water with
salt.[iii] We saw feral domestic fowl here and there; and the extreme length, with which Leroy described how tough, teeth-breaking and rubbery their flesh was, indicated how bitter his disappointment was following an attempt to cook and eat one! Unlike all the other locations we’ve visited, we saw no evidence at all on Grand Cayman of any poverty; all the dwellings and other buildings that we passed were smart and well maintained.
- [iii] He was Dr. Marco Giglioli (1927–1984), who, coming to the Cayman Islands in 1965, “was able to achieve and maintain ascendancy over the mosquitoes through a programme of physical flood control of breeding sites and by aerial application of insecticides”
(The Cayman Islands: Natural History and Biogeography, edited by M.A. Brunt,
Janet.E. Davies).
Monday 1 February 2016 09:56:36
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — entrance
Monday 1 February 2016 10:02:18
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — car park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:03:06
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:03:22
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Leroy guided us through the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, pointing out interesting features,
e.g. a palm whose fronds were so strong you couldn’t break them with bare hands, which was used for making rope and for thatching.
Monday 1 February 2016 10:08:00
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:09:10
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:10:12
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:10:26
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:11:32
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:13:00
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — coral limestone, the bedrock of Grand Cayman
Monday 1 February 2016 10:17:04
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:18:08
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
During the visit we saw two or three examples of an endangered species: the indigenous-to-Cayman Blue Iguana.
Monday 1 February 2016 10:19:16
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Blue Iguana
Monday 1 February 2016 10:19:28
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Blue Iguana
Monday 1 February 2016 10:20:42
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Blue Iguana
When we passed one of the other “Cayman Cultural Express” parties, Leroy “warned” each of them, “Your driver is crazy!” There was an American guy visiting the park, who reminded me of
Alan Alda — perhaps not quite as old as he — and he told Leroy where he had just seen some Cayman Parrots, so we went to see.
Monday 1 February 2016 10:23:36
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Cayman Parrots
Monday 1 February 2016 10:23:36 (detail)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Cayman Parrots
Monday 1 February 2016 10:26:30
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Calabash
Monday 1 February 2016 10:26:30 (detail)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Calabash
I had my second experience of the fragrance of crushed Allspice leaves.
Monday 1 February 2016 10:27:24
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Pimento/Allspice
Monday 1 February 2016 10:27:52
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Pimento/Allspice
Monday 1 February 2016 10:28:40
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Pimento/Allspice
Monday 1 February 2016 10:29:22
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Blue Iguana
Monday 1 February 2016 10:29:22 (detail)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Blue Iguana
Monday 1 February 2016 10:29:32
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Blue Iguana
Monday 1 February 2016 10:32:38
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Silk Floss Tree
Monday 1 February 2016 10:32:52
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Silk Floss Tree
Monday 1 February 2016 10:32:58
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Silk Floss Tree
Monday 1 February 2016 10:33:08
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:33:44
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:34:32
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:34:42
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:35:26
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:36:24
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Ylang-ylang
Monday 1 February 2016 10:36:48
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Ylang-ylang
Monday 1 February 2016 10:37:44
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:38:44
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:39:42
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:40:02
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:41:06
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:41:06 (detail 1)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:41:06 (detail 2)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:41:06 (detail 3)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:42:10
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:44:00
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Talipot Palm
Monday 1 February 2016 10:44:38
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Talipot Palm
Monday 1 February 2016 10:45:24
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park
Monday 1 February 2016 10:46:38
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Iguana (not blue)
Monday 1 February 2016 10:46:38 (detail)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Iguana (not blue)
Monday 1 February 2016 10:51:12
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Cashew
Monday 1 February 2016 10:52:00
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Cashew
Monday 1 February 2016 10:53:00
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Seville Orange
Monday 1 February 2016 10:53:26
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Seville Orange
Monday 1 February 2016 10:53:44
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Seville Orange
Monday 1 February 2016 10:54:40
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — woodpecker holes
Monday 1 February 2016 10:56:02
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — outside kitchen
Monday 1 February 2016 10:57:18
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Tamarind
Monday 1 February 2016 10:57:38
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Tamarind
Monday 1 February 2016 10:58:02
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Tamarind
Monday 1 February 2016 10:59:20
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — White Sage
Monday 1 February 2016 11:00:06
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Fever Grass
Monday 1 February 2016 11:00:06 (detail)
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Fever Grass
Monday 1 February 2016 11:00:22
Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park — Aloe Vera
At the end of the tour through the site we went back to the visitor centre/gift shop, which we had gone though at the start of the visit. We bought a can of diet cola for
Janet and one of unfamiliar-tasting root beer for me, and visited the “rest rooms”. That’s the usual term in English out here (“baños” in Spanish-speaking countries); one never sees “toilets”, though once or twice in both English and Spanish countries I saw “W.C.” But the “rest rooms” have no place to rest, and I never saw any bathtubs or even showers in the “baños”! In the adjoining garden I got talking to “Alan Alda”, and I pointed out to him that the recycling — “can”, he finished for me — was “bilingual”, for it had “aluminium” and “aluminum" on separate labels. He suggested that they would also say “aluminium” in Canada. He’d been coming to the Cayman Islands for many years, he told me, and marvelled at their recovery from Hurricane Ivan in 1974. At the time, so many trees were destroyed that they put up tubes with holes in for parrots to nest in. I mentioned that the blue iguanas that I’d seen had tags, but I had the repeat the word more than once before he recognised it. “/tagz/” I kept saying. “Oh, /tɛɪgz/!” he finally exclaimed.
As I said earlier, we then went to Pedro St. James. We waited a bit in the courtyard between the gift shop and the small museum-cum-theatre. I had the same brand of root beer as before. The assistant pointed out a box of drinking-straws on top of the fridge where the soda-pop cans were. After a short wait a young man in a yellow shirt took us out to see the house, originally built by plantation owner William Eden in 1780, though since then it has fallen into ruin and been reconstructed — more than once, not least after the devastation of Hurricane Ivan. The various names “Pedro St. James Castle”, “Pedro St. James”, and “Pedro’s Castle” weren’t explained, I don’t think: especially “castle”. I suppose, though, that a slate-roofed stone house with 18" thick walls would be thought a “castle” compared with the wattle-and-daub thatch-covered shacks inhabited by everyone else at the time.
Monday 1 February 2016 11:50:12
Pedro St. James Castle
Our guide led us in and showed us the ground floor rooms.
Monday 1 February 2016 11:50:42
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 11:52:00
Pedro St. James Castle
From the viewpoint of the above photo (“11:52:00”), behind me to the left was a door in the corner of the room leading to another small room which had evidently served as a jail cell. The guide did explain who had been imprisoned there.
Monday 1 February 2016 11:53:08
Pedro St. James Castle
Diametrically opposite that door, so off to the right of “11:52:00”, was another door leading to a small storeroom.
Monday 1 February 2016 11:54:50
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 11:54:58
Pedro St. James Castle
That was all we had time for just then; we’d been waiting for the next presentation in the theatre, and so we went back, briefly stopping in the small museum before entering the adjoining theatre. The presentation was a mixture of film clips and of sound-and-lighting and other effects. There were “thunder” and “lightning” before us, and the rattle of “rain” on the corrugated roofs above us, and water draining through pipes into barrels beside us. Videos of the island, the house, its builder and his first wife (who died in childbirth), plantation and house slaves (all portrayed of course by actors),
etc., were shown on a large screen which rolled down from time to time in front of a mock-up of the house. Decrees and proclamations by people in period uniforms and costumes were shown on a smaller screen to the left. (The photos on the wall of the museum, of Mr. and Mrs. William Eden, and of the plantation and house slaves, which I photographed before going into the theatre, were taken from the video.)
Monday 1 February 2016 11:58:24
Pedro St. James Castle — Visitor centre
Monday 1 February 2016 12:00:40
Pedro St. James Castle — Visitor centre
Monday 1 February 2016 12:01:08
Pedro St. James Castle — Visitor centre
Monday 1 February 2016 12:01:24
Pedro St. James Castle — Visitor centre
Monday 1 February 2016 12:30:16
Pedro St. James Castle — Visitor centre
Then we resumed the guided tour of the house, before the guide left us to walk round as we would and take photos.
Monday 1 February 2016 12:31:22
Pedro St. James Castle — environs
Monday 1 February 2016 12:32:16
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:33:54
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:37:40
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:38:34
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:39:20
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:42:30
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:42:40
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:51:00
Pedro St. James Castle — seat/commode/birthing-stool
Monday 1 February 2016 12:51:14
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:51:32
Pedro St. James Castle — semi-precious Caymanite deposits in the coral limestone masonry
Monday 1 February 2016 12:51:46
Pedro St. James Castle — semi-precious Caymanite deposits in the coral limestone masonry
Monday 1 February 2016 12:52:04
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:53:14
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:53:28
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:53:54
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:54:20
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:54:32
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:55:00
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:55:48
Pedro St. James Castle
Monday 1 February 2016 12:56:24
Pedro St. James Castle — kitchen
Monday 1 February 2016 12:56:42
Pedro St. James Castle — kitchen
Monday 1 February 2016 12:57:24
Pedro St. James Castle — kitchen
Monday 1 February 2016 12:57:44
Pedro St. James Castle
I think I had another root beer before we left. We took a diversion or two on the way back to the starting point,
e.g. Leroy showed us what he termed the “beer factory”, the Caybrew brewery. And he pointed out the numerous banks. At one point an iguana scuttled across the road and shot up a tree on the other side — not a blue iguana: these are ground-dwelling. And a bit later we stopped to allow another, which had stepped out in front of us, to cross. From the tender-boat the sea looked crystal-clear green, like water in a swimming pool.
Monday 1 February 2016 13:28:14
George Town, Grand Cayman
Monday 1 February 2016 13:30:56
George Town, Grand Cayman
Monday 1 February 2016 13:32:02
George Town, Grand Cayman
Monday 1 February 2016 13:32:48
George Town, Grand Cayman
Monday 1 February 2016 13:37:42
Approaching the Thomson Dream
Monday 1 February 2016 13:39:50
Approaching the Thomson Dream
On boarding the ship, we went up to Reception on deck 8 to complain about Stolnoyev, since he’d evidently paid no lasting heed to yesterday’s rebuke. Anna the Ukrainian receptionist led us to the nearby tables and chairs to hear what we had to say. We then went up one deck to the cabin, before going up to the Sirens Restaurant on deck 11. I had a couple of slices of pizza from the poolside counter, and we had a drink,
Janet a Fanta Zero and I an Old Speckled Hen ale (14:06:31). We went back to the cabin.
Janet packed the two big suitcases in preparation for leaving them outside the cabin for collection this evening.
…[I did this and that.]… A bit before 4pm, Janet was still busy but I was not, so I went down to deck 8 to the Coffee Port and sat there. I had two cups of
Americano (16:01:23, 16:28:18). The server took ten or more minutes between my placing the second order and the cup of coffee being made so I was away longer than anticipated, and
Janet was mad with me when I got back. We went to the Lido Pool Bar. Janet ordered two
Fanta Zero together, drinking one after the other, and I had an Old Speckled Hen ale (16:40:36). Later, she had a further
Fanta Zero (16:58:35). Despite the intense sunshine, there were loathsome, bloated, lobster-red, melanoma-seeking fools draped on the sun-beds. We returned to the cabin, where I fastened the tags and labels provided to the cases and we strapped them up, before going to the Lido Restaurant for dinner.
Janet had a Fanta Zero (18:22:27), but I just drank iced water. I can’t remember what I ate, perhaps soup followed by a stir-fry from the starboard-side counters.
Janet was served from the main port-side counter. “Richard did me two pieces of salmon,” she wrote, “and I again thanked him. I told him it was a real pleasure meeting him, and the way he had looked after me had enhanced my holiday. He was delighted.” As on
28
January 2016, members of the show team were at a table round the corner near the soup and stir-fry counters. I told Sebastian Kelly how excellent the show was yesterday evening, and that our standing ovation was completely deserved regardless of the fact that he had encouraged it in the backstage tour earlier. I also said that the show ran the gamut of the emotions, that the early routine of throwing the girl around had even upset me, yet moments later I was howling with laughter at his comic antics. He replied, “[So-and-so]” — one of the two men in the team specifically recruited as dancers, whose name I’ve forgotten — “did say that he thought he saw a tear in your eye.” When we left we had a turn round the promenade deck, braving the wind at the bow. Back in the cabin I lay on the bed. We went to the Broadway Show Lounge
ca.8pm to secure front-row seats. I had a Campari and soda and
Janet a Fanta Zero (19:59:36).
-
Dancehall Daze
Step back to the glamorous
days of the Roxy Ballroom with
the team.
That it was a show we’d seen before on a previous cruise mattered not at all. The present-day
Roxy Bingo was transformed decade by decade into a venue of that decade’s style, with songs to match. We stood and gave an ovation at the end. When we returned to the cabin
ca.9.30pm and put the cases out, passers-by commented on our preparedness. We were in bed
ca.10.15pm.
[Tuesday 2 February 2016]
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