Disney Magic B2B Western Caribbeans, April 12-26, 2015 Trip Report, Navs & More!

[AAshleySEG]

Just got off the phone with DCL and booked Disney Magic for March 2016 with a Welcome Back offer, Woohoo!!!

That is so exciting!! I think it deserves a Banana Dance!! I know you will have a great time! Let the countdown begin right!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Oh those Black bean chipotle cakes look sooooo good!

Omigosh, they are really good! That is the one thing I remembered from my Dream cruise, food-wise, that I wanted again 3 years later on the Magic! I was so excited when I realized that they had them on the menu!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 - Part One
​

I woke up this morning a little bit before my alarm went off and started getting ready. By 8:00 we were both up and heading to Cabanas to grab a small breakfast. We were going on a food tour later, so we didn't want to eat too much food. I just grabbed a croissant and some fruit, this was going to be a pretty typical breakfast for me during the remainder of the cruise. And I don't know what was going on with the grapefruit on this day, but oh my gosh...it tasted like rotten...I don't even know. So needless to say, I did not even get any grapefruit for the remainder of the vacation!

We had a very slow, leisurely breakfast. Our food tour we had booked (Cayman Food Tours) didn't start until around 11:00 so we had plenty of time to enjoy breakfast and everything before we needed to go down and catch a tender.

Every morning it seemed that I would get a glass and 1 or 2 cartons of Skim Milk to drink, Or Jeremy would usually get cereal, so I got 1 carton, and he would get a carton, then I would drink 3/4 of his because he doesn't like milk. He just pours enough on his cereal so that he can tell it is wet...haha! I love milk though, so I would gladly drink his leftovers!

Once we were finished with our breakfast we decided to go ahead to the Buena Vista Theater to get a tender ticket and catch the tender over to Georgetown! They said to allow like 45 minutes or something to get there, and as we were walking up to grab our ticket we didn't even have to wait at all, we were immediately taken to the next waiting tender. It only took a few minutes and we were on our way across the water looking back at the Disney Magic!

Once we made it to shore we had two and a half hours to kill before our tour started. We knew that we needed to grab a magnet from somewhere here so we started walking around and browsing for one. We stopped in quite a few stores and then ended up in the Guy Harvey shop. It seems no matter how far away we go from North Carolina, there is ALWAYS Tar Heel merchandise where we end up!

I mean really...we are in Grand Cayman. We were supposed to meet for our tour at the Church of God on the main street so we wanted to walk over and make sure we knew where it was so we would know when the time came. Everyone remember the chickens in Key West? Well, the same thing applies here in Grand Cayman...chickens are everywhere!

Once we found the Church of God, we walked across the street to take a selfie of us together with the ships in the background, the water was gorgeous here, and while on the tender you could really see all the way to the bottom of it! It also was starting to get a little on the cloudy side, we were hoping that the rain would stay away!

While we were standing on the rocks on this side of the harbor I started noticing all of these birds, it was so cool because you could barely see them because of their camouflage! See if you can find them in the photo!

After a few minutes the sky had turned from light gray to a really dark and stormy gray. We made it back across the street and under the alcove at the Church of God right before the bottom dropped out and the rain storm started.

I think the rain lasted for about 10-15 minutes total and then just as it had suddenly come up, it was gone again! After we had looked at all the shops we knew which one we wanted to run back to for the magnet, so we quickly did that and then went back across the street to get a few more photos before we were supposed to meet up for the tour!

Next Up: Grand Cayman Food Tour! Red Snapper, Roti, Rum Cake, and More!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 - Part Two
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We were standing at the Church of God by 10:45 and two other couples were standing there as well waiting on the tour. Our guide Marzeta showed up early and so we actually started the tour a little before 11:00, we walked around the corner to stand in the shade while she gave us a little background on the Cayman Islands, here are just a few facts from what we learned!

• Capital: George Town - Official Language: English
• The territory is comprised of three islands: Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman. The name 'Cayman' derives from the Carib word for crocodile, 'caiman', and appeared in the log of Sir Francis Drake, the first English visitor to the islands, in 1586. Prior to that, they were called 'Las Tortugas' ('turtles', in Spanish) by Columbus, who discovered the islands in 1503. Cayman Brac ('craggy bluff', in Gaelic), was named for the limestone bluff running down the middle of the island.
• Grand Cayman (76 square miles), Cayman Brac (14 square miles), Little Cayman (10 square miles). The population from the 2012 census showed 57,000 people from 135 countries around the world!
• Politically it is a British Overseas Territory and they have their own currency the Cayman Islands Dollar.

Our first food stop was at Guy Harvey's Island Grill! We got to sit at a lovely table out on the balcony and get to know the other members of the group while we were waiting for our first dish!

Guy Harvey's restaurant is a very proud member of the Sustainable Seafood Program, what that basically means is that they do not serve fish that are over-fished or come from environmentally damaging practices! I think that is fantastic! They serve sort of West Indies/French flair style of food, all from local sources of fish. We were lucky enough to have some Red Snapper, served with Caribbean Rice and Beans, plantains, with like a roasted red pepper sauce. It was so delicious!!

After that delicious food we next went to the very first fresh water well on the island. It was a little odd because it is still there, however, it is in the floor of a store! So strange, but they have left a Plexiglas floor in that store to both preserve the well and so visitors can see it!

It was pretty difficult for me to get a good photo of it, one because there were so many people in that store standing around looking at merchandise and waiting to pay for their merchandise so they were basically just standing on top of it, and also the glass is pretty scuffed and such. You can see it really well in person, but my photo does not do this thing justice at all!

Our next stop was around the corner at the Cayman Islands National Museum Gift Shop, we went into the shop to see the inside of the building because it is one of the oldest buildings in George Town and it showed the way that it was built inside of the shop. For our next food items we were directed outside to a little covered concession area in the courtyard. We got to try some AMAZING Pepper Jelly from Cayman Pepper Patch!

The lady who makes this jelly has a pretty cool story, this is a truly local product. She grows the peppers, and makes small batches on the weekend. It is not some mass produced item and you can only get it here on the island, it is never shipped anywhere. If you want to find out more about Carol's story, just go to the website, it is awesome!

Another taste we had here was of Tea! From a local company called Tea Time. We were able to smell a few of their varieties and then taste one, I thought it was lovely, Jeremy thought it was ok, he said he probably wouldn't order it, it wasn't really the type of tea he prefers. Too floral he said! I liked it though, so to each their own!

We finished up here and continued our walk. Learning more history and seeing some sights along the way. We ended up at our next stop. Most people would probably just walk right past this place and not think anything about it. If I ever go back, this may be the first place I end up in to eat! Singh's Roti Shop & Bar! Such great Rotis!!! Also, if you were interested you were able to try some "Caybrew" beer. I am not much of a beer drinker, but I did try it, then gave the rest of my sample to Jeremy!

We were having such a lovely walk around George Town. I feel like most people that come here really stay on the main strip where all the stores are, or either head off to an excursion somewhere else on the island. It was really great to learn about it and see some local food places, and buildings around this area! One I really loved was the Library!

Next up was the Tortuga Rum Company. We got to sample a little bit of rum, rum cake, and Jamaican patties. Grand Cayman has a lot of influence from Jamaica, which is why these particular items were of interest here. it is a very large part of the culture. The rum cake is actually made in Grand Cayman, and let me tell you it was some of the best rum cake I have ever eaten in my entire life! We made sure to remember that we wanted to get some when we came back here next week!

The Jamaican Patties were also delicious!! Apparently if you go to Jamaica there are two very popular brands of patties to try Juici or Tastee. Marzeta our guide preferred the Tastee. We really loved the ones we had here so we made it a point to ask around when we got to Jamaica and try some there too!

We left there and continued our walk out back toward the main thoroughfare where we stopped by to have a look at the local fish market! It was set up on the beach and fisherman would just drive their boats up to the beach and unload their catch! I so wish I had somewhere like this at home. I mean how much fresher can the fish get!!

Sadly we were headed to our last location for the food tour. Strangely enough it was an Italian Restaurant!! It was called Casanova By The Sea! The owner of the restaurant had become quite beloved in Grand Cayman, when one of the hurricanes occurred he was in the middle of opening a restaurant and he was one of the first to get power and facilities back. For free, he fed anyone that needed food on the island until they got back on their feet. It was a great story and a huge reason why this particular restaurant is so important to the people of George Town! We had a delicious Chicken Penne Pasta Dish!! Oh my goodness, I was not expecting Italian food of this quality when we signed up for this tour!!

Lastly, we had THE BEST Tiramisu on the planet. I have had lots of tiramisu before, and this was on an entirely different level. Jeremy dislikes tiramisu and even he wanted more of this one!

It was sooo sooo good! If you ever go to Grand Cayman, seriously...you have to go to this restaurant and get this Tiramisu! Once we finished eating we got to sit around and talk with Marzeta and enjoy this lovely view of the Disney Magic from the restaurant before we parted ways with everyone to head back to the ship.

I would highly recommend this food tour to anyone who loves food, history, walking tours, or just exploring a new destination! It was truly a memorable experience for us, and I definitely know some restaurants that I want to go to if we ever find ourselves in Georgetown again!

Next Up: Back to the Ship for what...oh right, more Trivia!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Another great update! I enjoyed reading about the food tour and seeing the pics.

 

[Linda67]

Great updates!
Firstly well done for such a great showing in the various Trivia sessions. I've only tried it once and I sucked!
That food tour looks really great, would love to do something like that if we ever get back there
By the way - I love both of your hats!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Another great update! I enjoyed reading about the food tour and seeing the pics.

Thank you so much! We love trying new foods from different cultures! It is really fun for us now, when we travel, to look for food tours around different areas! They also usually include sort of a walking city tour which is lots of fun!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Great updates!
Firstly well done for such a great showing in the various Trivia sessions. I've only tried it once and I sucked!
That food tour looks really great, would love to do something like that if we ever get back there
By the way - I love both of your hats!

Some of those trivia questions are crazy difficult! I can't believe we knew as many as we did! I was really proud on some of them answers!

I would definitely recommend doing a food tour, we did that one in Seattle (well two) when we went on our Alaska cruise, and then the one in Grand Cayman, and on this trip we also did one in Cozumel, which was AMAZING. We have never had a bad time on a food tour, and usually the people giving them are very passionate both about the food, and their area or country!

Aww, yay! We have just recently, (in the past few years) started wearing hats a lot. Once I got my sun hat which you will see on Castaway Cay day, I have sort of become addicted. I wear that little fedora you are speaking of all the time. It is my go to hat if I am having a bad hair day! I just put it up in a side ponytail and slap that on my head!

 

[Franklin family]

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 - Part One
​

I woke up this morning a little bit before my alarm went off and started getting ready. By 8:00 we were both up and heading to Cabanas to grab a small breakfast. We were going on a food tour later, so we didn't want to eat too much food. I just grabbed a croissant and some fruit, this was going to be a pretty typical breakfast for me during the remainder of the cruise. And I don't know what was going on with the grapefruit on this day, but oh my gosh...it tasted like rotten...I don't even know. So needless to say, I did not even get any grapefruit for the remainder of the vacation!

We had a very slow, leisurely breakfast. Our food tour we had booked (Cayman Food Tours) didn't start until around 11:00 so we had plenty of time to enjoy breakfast and everything before we needed to go down and catch a tender.

Every morning it seemed that I would get a glass and 1 or 2 cartons of Skim Milk to drink, Or Jeremy would usually get cereal, so I got 1 carton, and he would get a carton, then I would drink 3/4 of his because he doesn't like milk. He just pours enough on his cereal so that he can tell it is wet...haha! I love milk though, so I would gladly drink his leftovers!

Once we were finished with our breakfast we decided to go ahead to the Buena Vista Theater to get a tender ticket and catch the tender over to Georgetown! They said to allow like 45 minutes or something to get there, and as we were walking up to grab our ticket we didn't even have to wait at all, we were immediately taken to the next waiting tender. It only took a few minutes and we were on our way across the water looking back at the Disney Magic!

Once we made it to shore we had two and a half hours to kill before our tour started. We knew that we needed to grab a magnet from somewhere here so we started walking around and browsing for one. We stopped in quite a few stores and then ended up in the Guy Harvey shop. It seems no matter how far away we go from North Carolina, there is ALWAYS Tar Heel merchandise where we end up!

I mean really...we are in Grand Cayman. We were supposed to meet for our tour at the Church of God on the main street so we wanted to walk over and make sure we knew where it was so we would know when the time came. Everyone remember the chickens in Key West? Well, the same thing applies here in Grand Cayman...chickens are everywhere!

Once we found the Church of God, we walked across the street to take a selfie of us together with the ships in the background, the water was gorgeous here, and while on the tender you could really see all the way to the bottom of it! It also was starting to get a little on the cloudy side, we were hoping that the rain would stay away!

While we were standing on the rocks on this side of the harbor I started noticing all of these birds, it was so cool because you could barely see them because of their camouflage! See if you can find them in the photo!

After a few minutes the sky had turned from light gray to a really dark and stormy gray. We made it back across the street and under the alcove at the Church of God right before the bottom dropped out and the rain storm started.

I think the rain lasted for about 10-15 minutes total and then just as it had suddenly come up, it was gone again! After we had looked at all the shops we knew which one we wanted to run back to for the magnet, so we quickly did that and then went back across the street to get a few more photos before we were supposed to meet up for the tour!

Next Up: Grand Cayman Food Tour! Red Snapper, Roti, Rum Cake, and More!

Ugh! Hate the ever present Tarheels!! Go Pack!!!!!! Love the report!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Ugh! Hate the ever present Tarheels!! Go Pack!!!!!! Love the report!

So glad you are enjoying the TR!! I remember, back in the day, like I was 16 years old and in an airport in Germany, and I saw lots of people wearing Carolina stuff...it is really crazy to me how far-reaching college basketball can be!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 - Part Three
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After our tour was over and we were stuffed, we started the short walk back to where the tenders would take us back to the Disney Magic. It didn't take long at all and we were on a boat making our way back across the water!

It took quite a little while to get off the tender and back on to the ship, the security and everything usually didn't take that long, but for some reason it took around 20 minutes to get off the tender and back on to the ship. We headed up to our room to drop our stuff and went to O'Gills for another Ultimate Disney Trivia. We ended up getting 13 out of 25 questions, and I am not even sure what these were about! I do know that the winners had 15 correct. We left O'Gills and walked back to our room, this time when we arrived there was a bottle of Sparkling Wine waiting for us from Guest Relations?? There was also a message on our stateroom phone asking us to call them.

So apparently, they gave us this because our air conditioning was having those problems?? It was such a non-event that we had totally forgotten about it, but they wanted to make sure that everything was perfect now. I really don't understand anyone who complains about Disney service. They are dedicated to making sure everyone enjoys their vacation!

We went ahead and got ready for dinner while we were back in the room before heading back out to relax. First stop was of course O'Gills. We sat at a booth in the corner and played a little Go Fish and War, along with having some nachos, veggies, pig in a blanket, and potato cake! That sounds like a tons of stuff, bu really it was like the smallest portion of each and we split them. Our next stop was up on Deck 9, we went to the pool area and saw that Cars 2 was on Funnel Vision. We had a nice relaxing time just lounging and watching the remainder of the movie. The show in the theater tonight was Villains Unleashed, we had already seen it previously, so decided to skip it, at least for this week.

Once the movie was over we headed back downstairs and watched Greta Salome perform a little violin before making our way down to Carioca's, where our dinner for the evening was to be held! Tonight our menu was Prince & Princess!

Slow Roasted Duck & Cheese Quesadilla - Both
with Mango, Cilantro, and Red Pepper, Chimichurri Sauce and an Arugula Drizzle

Peppercorn Crusted New York Strip - Jeremy
Sauteed Green Beans and Corn, Whipped Yukon Gold Potatoes, and Brandy Sauce

Oven-Roasted Tom Turkey Breast - Andrea
with Green Beans, Sweet Mashed Potatoes, Rosemary Stuffing, Giblet Gravy, and Cranberry Relish

Vegetable Lasagna - Victor brought for us to sample
Served with Three Cheese Sauce and Tomato Sauce

​

We really enjoyed this menu and meal a lot. I can't seem to remember what they chocolate dessert is, it seemed like it was some sort of flour-less chocolate cake, but every time I try and find it on the menu nothing sounds correct. Victor also brought us the bread pudding to try, and then Jeremy had the Lemon Cheesecake. We had a pretty long day of walking around and eating, so instead of doing anything after dinner, we just headed back to the room. We were greeted with an awesome Sting Ray Towel Animal before we went to bed!

We were pretty much going to be doing the same thing tomorrow, food tour!! Woohoo! I was really looking forward to being in Mexico for the very first time. I will finally have both of Americas neighbors under my travel belt!

Next Up: Seriously, no thank you. The wave of vendors in the port of Cozumel.

 

[disney2mom]

Love your update and reading about the food tour! What a nice surprise to receive the wine! Disney does have the BEST service, that's why we will only sail Disney from now on!! The Villain show was my least favorite of the shows, we will definitely skip it on our next cruise. Looking forward to reading more!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Love your update and reading about the food tour! What a nice surprise to receive the wine! Disney does have the BEST service, that's why we will only sail Disney from now on!! The Villain show was my least favorite of the shows, we will definitely skip it on our next cruise. Looking forward to reading more!!

Well, I am glad you liked reading about the food tour, considering we went on another one the next day too...haha!!

We were so shocked when we got into our room and saw the wine!

I think the first time we saw the Villain show, we thought it was a good show for what it was, but definitely only needed to see it once!

You want more, it is coming right up!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Thursday, April 16th, 2015 - Part One
​

This morning we woke up excited for a day in Cozumel, Mexico! I am going to let you know now, that we only ever ate breakfast, this entire two weeks, at Cabanas! It was just so easy to head up there, grab some fruit and croissants and just enjoy the view! So of course, this morning, that is the first thing we did. We did end up eating outside where we were able to watch us getting closer and closer to Cozumel. After breakfast we walked back to the room to grab sunscreen and the backpack before walking down to Deck 4.

At the time we got to Deck 4, we were not allowed to go off the ship as of yet, because a Carnival ship was docking right across from us, so we had to wait until they were finished before we could go ashore. While we were watching the docking process for the Carnival ship, we noticed Donald was strolling around and we stopped to have a photo with him!

Another thing that was funny about this was the the people over on the Carnival ship were all frantically scrambling trying to get a photo of Donald...yeah Carnival people...book a Disney cruise, then you can have tons of character photos! I know Carnival is good for some people, and if you like it then AWESOME! I have been on a Carnival cruise though, and I am sorry to say that I am not one of those people that enjoyed my Carnival experience. With Donald gone, we were standing on the railing as the docking process was still going on and all of the sudden we heard this loud banging on the window behind us. We couldn't see inside the windows so we had no idea what it was, but it just kept going! Jeremy walked up and put his hands on the windows to see inside and it was GOOFY! He was trying to get our attention, we just had no idea because we couldn't see him! We didn't make it inside to catch him in time, so no photo unfortunately...

As the announcement started we were already making our way down to Deck 1 forward to head off the ship and out into Mexico! Once off the ship we walked ahead and to a nice vantage point to take a photo, even though the Carnival ship was blocking the Magic.

As we crossed over the street via a bridge and into the "Mall" type area, this is when all of the vendors started to overwhelm me. I know it is a part of travel, but I wanted away from it as soon as possible. I was having to say "No thank you" every minute. No thanks, I don't want a photo of you with me while you are wearing that outfit. No thank you, I would not like a photo of myself holding your bird. No thank you, I would not like to buy any jewelry. No thank you, I do not want to rent anything...on and on and on. I love to travel, but touristy things are not my favorite. I always want to get away from everyone else. I was so glad that we had booked a food tour, not through DCL, but of my own research today. So as quickly as we could, we got out of there! We started walking down the street where there were no tourists.

Our next stop was MEGA, which is like Mexican Walmart. They had everything you could imagine, we just wanted to walk around inside there and see what they had. It was also the location where we were to meet our tour guide for what ended up being a Private Food Tour of Cozumel!!

As opposed to a complete walking tour, we actually had a chauffeured van which was going to take us around the city, we did walk at some places though, like the market, but we will get there! It was so awesome to me that almost every single stop was a restaurant/store etc, in a part of someone's home. Welcome to Mexico people!! These little restaurants were usually in the front of someone's house, they work and serve in the front and live in the back. It is so awesome. Some people would be really afraid to eat food in situations like these, but we are not these people. The only time I have ever gotten sick overseas was a a really nice restaurant...in Paris. I have never gotten sick from street food carts, and did not in any of the places we went while on this trip!

So our first stop was a little restaurant in someone's home called Los Antojitos. It had maybe 6 seats total off to the side, and a little counter to order and a little cooler for beverages.

While we waited on our first tasting we got to choose our drinks, Jeremy had a Mexican Coke...if you have not had one, you can get them in the US, and they are awesome!! I had a Hibiscus Tea. I had never heard of it but though I would try all of the different drinks that people have around here a lot. Hibiscus tea is made from dried hibiscus petals, steeped in boiling water, then sugar is added kind of like normal iced sweet teas. Let me tell you what...if you go to Cozumel...get this...it is DELICIOUS!!! I kind of wish I had one right now actually. Hmmm...I wonder if Amazon sells Hibiscus petals?? Anyway...

This place is famous for their Empanadas. I thought that I had eaten empanadas before, but I was so totally wrong. I had eaten some watered down version of Mexican food that I never want to eat again. If my previous Mexican food experience had been like a well done tough piece of steak which was like shoe leather...this was a piece of Kobe Beef. Something as simple as empanadas created the way these were, authentically, is something I don't think I could find anywhere at home. We got to try three varieties, shrimp and cheese, Poblano pepper with corn and sour cream, and a pulled beef.

They also had onion slices marinated in Sour Orange (sour orange looks like bumpy green oranges) there were also 3 types of salsa to put on the empanadas. The first one was just a basic tomato salsa, the second was like medium, and the third was habanero salsa. We tried all three of them, they were all fantastic and added different flavors to each of the empanadas!

We hopped back in the van ready for more! I savored that Hibiscus tea, it was in a plastic bottle so I was able to take it with me and sipped it the entire rest of the tour. It was so, so good! Our next stop was a little home convenience store and out front they cook and serve a local Yucatecan dish of slow-roasted suckling pig marinated in annatto and sour orange, wrapped in a banana leaf. It is so juicy and just yum!

They make little pork tacos with them, pretty much. Add a little marinated onion and habanero pico on top and it was delicious! You can really tell the care that goes into food like that. Yes, it is a little convenience store, run out of the front of someone's home. But they really know what they are doing. To drink here I tried the Horchata, which was in this version like a sweetened, spiced, rice water. Jeremy had a Cerveza, Mexican beer, Modelo. He said it was kind of comparable to like a Land Shark/Corona, He enjoyed it!

It looks so unassuming, most foreign visitors would probably never see this place, let alone walk in if they saw it. It really makes me so happy that my first impression of Cozumel...with all the street hawkers...and touristy-ness, has kind of faded away since coming to these first two places. You really never can judge a book by its cover. I was really looking forward to anything Erin was going to give us!!

Next Up: Mercado, Soups, Chocolate, and THE BEST FISH EVER!!!!!

 

[st37]

I leave a week from Saturday, myself and my 2 kids. My 9 y/o daughter is a huge foodie. I asked her what she's most excited about for the cruise, kids club, AquaDuck? No, "the food!!!" she says. Is there anyway we can connect about the locations for the Roti place (is it walking distance?) on GC and your experience in Jamaica? I don't want to ruin it for the readers but doubt you'll get that far before I leave. I'd love to do the food tour but if it isn't a chicken nugget my 10 y/o won't even look at it.

 

[Linda67]

The photo of you both with Donald is too cute!!!!
All 3 of you in your hats!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

I leave a week from Saturday, myself and my 2 kids. My 9 y/o daughter is a huge foodie. I asked her what she's most excited about for the cruise, kids club, AquaDuck? No, "the food!!!" she says. Is there anyway we can connect about the locations for the Roti place (is it walking distance?) on GC and your experience in Jamaica? I don't want to ruin it for the readers but doubt you'll get that far before I leave. I'd love to do the food tour but if it isn't a chicken nugget my 10 y/o won't even look at it.

That is so soon, I hope you guys have a fantastic time!! Singh's Roti Shop is definitely within walking distance of the ship. It should only take about 5-10 to walk there from the Terminal after you get off the Tenders. Here is a link to a google map of the walking directions. Singh's Roti Shop. Cayman Good Taste Magazine also has a nice write up about it and where it located if you have trouble with my google map link. Pretty much just google it and the magazine "should" be the first link. As far as Jamaica, we did an excursion so as far as the food, we only had one thing...but it was awesome! In the port area of Falmouth as you leave the terminal and make your way out to the shopping area, straight and off to the right hand side there is a little food kiosk for Tastee Patties!! If you don't see it when you get there, I'm sure any of the vendors or people around could point you in its direction, since is it right in the middle of the port area. I would highly recommend to grab a Beef & Cheese Pattie. They were really delicious. If you have any other questions at all please feel free to either comment or message me!! I hope you have a great time!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

The photo of you both with Donald is too cute!!!!
All 3 of you in your hats!!

Aww, thanks! It is one of my favorites! It's so funny to me, it looks like he is on his way out to do some Mexican excursions or go and meet up with Jose and Panchito!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Thursday, April 16th, 2015 - Part Two​

Our next stop for the day was a local Mercado, or market. Every time I go into one of these markets in cities, it really makes me wish I had one where I lived. It would be so amazing to go down to the local market and pick up everything I needed to cook for the day, talk to some people, do whatever, but no...I am relegated to the mundane atmosphere of my local Walmart, and if I really want to get fancy I can go to Lowe's Foods, which is a little further away. So needless to say, these markets make me really happy! The first thing we noticed were a lot of restaurants that were not Mexican, but Thai, Vietnamese, etc. All of those restaurants have popped up because of the cruise staff! There are so many cruise staff that want to eat foods like they had at home, so people made the restaurants. Erin told us that they were delicious, very authentic, just not Mexican, which is what we came for...haha!

Our first stop in the market was a little produce stall, there were some things I had seen before, and a few things I had not. It was great to me that all of the spices they need for certain dishes were already blended together and crushed and everything was ready to go for whoever came in and wanted to make a dish for dinner that night!

You need spices, they have it, you need eggs, yep got those too, coconuts and bananas, they are your stall! There were fantastic meat counters, poultry, and even fresh huge fish!

After we finished touring the market, we started heading toward our next food destination. A great little restaurant which served some of the best Chicken and Lime Soup anywhere! I wanted to be sure to try yet another drink so I went with an apple soda. It was kind of like apple cider, juice, soda all rolled into one. It was very refreshing, I think Jeremy ended up having another Mexican Coke!

While we were waiting on the soup to be brought to the table, they brought us some delicious salsas and pico along with the most amazing fresh authentic tortilla chips! It is really unfair how what we have around us for Mexican food..is not really anything like real Mexican food at all. I think if everyone knew how amazing and fantastic what we experienced was, more people would beg for this type of food back home! I don't even have the urge to go eat at our local "Mexican" restaurant anymore, because the food doesn't even seem the slightest bit appetizing.

By this point, I think we were starting to get full, but we still had two more stops to make! The next stop was at the home/restaurant of a local very well loved stand-up comic! He performed all of the city and looked like everyone just adored him, he was so friendly and you just wanted to give him a hug! Even more so after we finished eating the food he had to give us! To start us off we got some more fresh tortilla chips and a large plate of Grouper ceviche!! I had only had shrimp ceviche before, so this grouper version was a REAL treat! Soooo good!!! I am drooling while I picture it now!

For our main dish we had something very simple...it was fried grouper. However, this was nothing like any fried fish I have ever eaten. It was so fresh and so flavorful, I don't know how I am keeping myself from flying to Cozumel, right at this very moment to go and get some more. The first thing my Mom said when she saw this photo was "Ewww, it has it's head still on" I know a bunch of people who feel the same way about that sort of thing. But really, if you don't want to eat any of the meat around the head...then don't. But also, DO NOT miss out on something like this because of your reservations. It was literally...THE BEST FISH...I have ever eaten. I have had Copper River Salmon in Alaska, Turbot at Victoria & Albert's. When I say this is the best fish, it has some pretty steep competition. What made it the best fish was how simple it was. There were no other ingredients trying to make it better or enhance its flavor. You just got pure, unadulterated Grouper. As fresh as no other fish I have ever had. Definitely worth trying!

After that, the last place was sort of a let-down. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, just nothing could top that for me. We went to a little chocolate factory where we got some samples of about 10-12 different varieties of the chocolate that they make there.

We left the chocolate factory and were driven back to MEGA, where we then took our time to walk back to the touristy shopping district of the port. We did still need to buy a magnet, so I found a shop, went in as quickly as I could and got myself a magnet for $1 and then called my Dad to check in on my dogs. Next we showed our IDs and Cruise Cards to the security guards and were making our way back toward the ship! We had a very interesting time in Cozumel. Originally we had planned to go back on an excursion next week...but now we were not so sure about that. We will see what happens!

 

[disney2mom]

Your picture with Donald is precious, I love taking pics with the characters!! The food in Cozumel looks amazing, love authentic Mexican food! How did you decide to book this particular food tour and where did you find it??