Our sailing on the Celebrity Summit was our first ever Christmas Cruise with Aaron's parents. It was also Aaron's parents' first ever cruise. We wanted to give them a taste of cruising with a 5-day itinerary. Aaron's parents are Catholic and wanted to attend Catholic Mass on Christmas, so we chose to sail with Celebrity because it is one of a few cruise lines that guarantees a Catholic Priest on its Christmas sailings.

This was also my first cruise on Celebrity. I am a Diamond Crown & Anchor Club Member on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, and I was excited to sail on RCCL's "more sophisticated" sister line. Also, Celebrity matched my Diamond status as Elite Captain's Club, so I was able to experience some loyalty perks, despite this being my first Celebrity cruise.

The rating system is based on ten nine (you'll see) components of a cruise vacation which I find important - itinerary, ship novelties, pools, activities, dining, bars and lounges, service, design and aesthetics, and stateroom.

Good morning, it's Christmaaaaaassss!!!

Unfortunately, Aaron's mom still wasn't feeling so well, so she wasn't able to go to Catholic Mass at 8:00 AM in the theater with Father Gallagher. Aaron's dad said that it was a complete Catholic Mass with communion, and there were about 100 people in attendance.

We ate breakfast that morning at Ocean View Cafe and sat outside where the Sunset Bar is. We had a lovely table in the corner, but while we were eating breakfast, this large family decided to start taking photos on the rail behind me and kept switching out people in the photos... all the women, all the kids, this family, that family... they were right behind my chair, and there's no way I wasn't stuffing my face with eggs in their family photos.

Originally, I booked the "Queen Elizabeth II Royal Botanical Park & Pedro St. James" excursion through Celebrity. We were going to visit the botanical park and gardens, then enjoy an afternoon tea service at the Great House. It sounded like the perfect excursion for our group.

May 13, 2014 - Grand Cayman

Rachel had gotten up early that morning to run laps around the promenade deck and do her own yoga.  I was waiting for her to come back, but she had been gone for over two hours, so I figured that she must have gone to Mom and Dad's.  I called their room to see if they had her, and then asked them if they wanted to go to Disney Animation class with me.  Rachel was still nowhere to be found, but we went on to the D Lounge for animation class.

Disney Animation - Persistence of Vision

There was a series of four animation classes offered throughout the week, and I had missed the first two (that's okay... I can draw Mickey Mouse on my own time).  The class we attended was entitled Persistence of Vision and covered how Disney animation has evolved over the past 85 years.  We learned how to draw Buzz Lightyear.  The cast member (on the entertainment team... I forget his name, but his slogan was, "Whoop! Whoop!" which you were supposed to call out to him whenever you saw him on the ship) prefaced the lesson by making us swear that we would not judge our own drawings or anyone else's - his included.  Buzz Lightyear is also a very challenging character to draw, especially since he is a three-dimensional character that we were drawing two-dimensionally.

Throughout the class, the instructor draws on a giant sketch pad with a black marker, and his sketch pad is projected onto a large screen, much like at Animation Academy at the Magic of Disney Animation at Disney's Hollywood Studios.  However, unlike Animation Academy, the characters change between each class (unless it is a repeat of the class later that day) and progress in difficulty throughout the week.

My annoyance with the Disney animation classes is quite similar to my annoyance with my freehand drawing class (which I took last semester in architecture).  It frustrates me to do step-by-step drawings.  In freehand drawing, I wanted to draw the landscape/building in the order that I wanted.  And in animation, I really just wanted them to flash up the final drawing of Buzz so that I could draw him.  I think that also may be why I much prefer written tutorials as opposed to video tutorials... I can just scroll to the bottom of the page and see the final result, then go at my own pace.  Now, that being said, there is great value to step-by-step instruction and breaking down drawings into little steps.  I learned a lot of great technique, as well as method, in my freehand drawing class.  As painful as it was for me to wait for the next step, drawing (what felt like) blindly, I'm really glad that I endured it (it was an elective I chose to take that I considered dropping) because now I have a new perspective on how to construct a drawing.... just like I now know how to set up the guides for Buzz.

I know I promised not to judge, but I don't think that my Buzz Lightyear looks much like Buzz.  I mean, maybe there is a slight resemblance.  But his mouth is far too large and crooked.  I was also really wishing that I had a thick pen... like a Pentel sign pen... to draw with.  But in all honestly, I'm not the best in drawing characters or anything that is supposed to look how it actually is, for that matter.

Grand Cayman was the only port we had been to before (back in 2008!). We knew that we wanted to go shopping, to Hell, and then Seven Mile Beach.

That morning, they had everyone go to the Bordeaux Ballroom to get a tender ticket, and you'd wait there until you were called. We were lucky enough to be handed a ticket and told immediately to go. Well, we were in line and two women wandered up behind us looking rather confused got in line. I wasn't sure if they knew they had to get a tender ticket, so I thought I would make sure she had one so she didn't stand in this line only to be told she needed a tender ticket. Well, instead of speaking to me, she gestures to a sticker on her chest that says #2. An older gentleman behind me butts in rather rudely and says, "She doesn't need one. She's on an excursion," as if I'm an idiot for trying to be helpful... I wasn't even talking to him. "Oh, you're in an excursion? Then I guess you're good to go! I just wanted to make sure because I'd have hated for you to wait in this line..." It was pointless. I was talking to a wall. She didn't even want to hear me apologize for trying to help her. Sheesh. Someone's panties were in a wad.

Once we got to land, our first stop was Margaritaville.



My parents are huge parrotheads, so it's always a must to purchase some Buffett souvenirs.

Next we went to the liquor store. I (err... actually my father) had promised my boyfriend that I'd bring him a souvenir. I had been checking the prices at other ports and on the ship (Princess's alcohol isn't as good of a deal as Royal Caribbean's), but Grand Cayman was definitely worth holding out for. A handle of Grey Goose was $45, liter of Absolut 2 for $20, liter of Bacardi 2 for $20 (handle 2 for $30), handle of Goldschlager for a remarkable $25. If you're on this itinerary and want to purchase alcohol, the best deals I saw were in Grand Cayman.

And then Rachel's store -



Every Christmas, she buys herself a ring. This year she wanted an even more extravagant ring because despite all efforts to steer him in the opposite direction, my boyfriend ended up giving me the ring that she had been wanting for my birthday.

It was actually an ironic story... my boyfriend was going to get me a Michael Kors watch for my birthday, but he felt like he couldn't anymore after Rachel's boyfriend got her a Michael Kors watch. So Rachel suggested he get me a ring and gave him some ideas of what to get me, but my size 5.5 finger is apparently difficult to shop for which really limited his options. So he ended up giving me a purple amethyst ring since we go to Clemson. When Rachel saw it, she was furious because she had wanted a purple ring because we go to Clemson. I'm actually not at all surprised because Rachel and my boyfriend have very similar personalities... I think that's why I like him.

While Rachel was jewelry shopping, Dad was checking out prices to go to Hell. He found a lady who would take us to Hell and then Seven Mile Beach for $12pp. Everyone else wanted to take us on a tour for $15pp which included a variety of other stops, such as the Turtle Farm. It sounded like a good deal, but Rachel wanted the beach, and I wasn't about to interfere with that again.

If you've never been to Hell, it's a quick little stop.








You can mail a postcard from Hell. I thought it was a cute idea, but I couldn't think of many people whose addresses I knew off the top of my head who I could send one to without someone in their household possibly being offended. We live in the Bible Belt.



I believe I mentioned already that Rachel is a geology minor. Well, she was really excited about Hell when she read about all its limestone rock formations.



The Devil is everywhere in Hell...



"Take a picture of me by the limestone!"





"Now take a picture of me looking excited about some limestone!"







Nice to know the Devil has some manners!






Sadly, this might be one of our only family pictures... Christmas cards from Hell, anyone?


The cab driver dropped us off at the party area of Seven Mile Beach (which is actually only around 5.5 miles in length if you were curious).

Awesome floating cabanas -



We were in port with two Carnivaly ships - the Glory and one I don't recall.



Now this is the kind of beach Rachel had in mind when she was envisioning Costa Rica beaches... not quite.



One of the local beers is White Tip Lager. The bartender described it as being a finer beer. I liked it because there were sharks on the can. I have a slight obsession with sharks.



Two-fisting it like a pro.



Random ADPi - she was walking along the beach and must have a great eye because the only ADPi gear on Rachel was her sunglasses... which she had burned the delta off with her curling iron on accident a few nights ago.



I called it the party beach because they had a DJ much better than DJ Mickey on the Island Princess, as well as many games. Such as this beer chugging competition between the cruiselines.

Local...



Throw it back, Island Princess!

1. 

These locals are crazy...


Winner in the house!


We happy.





Oh, okay... we have another family photo. An even worse option for the Christmas card.



Our friends from NC were on the beach with us, so we asked them if they'd like to split a cab back and eat at Margaritaville. We ended up packing onto one of the large vans that was taking passengers back.

My cute Greek family...





Rachel loves waterslides. That was one of the reasons she wanted to eat at Margaritaville.







This was an awkward late lunch/early dinner, so we decided to split entrees. Well, I ordered the quesadillas and Dad ate probably over half of them, and the food really just reminded me of how starving I was.

We were the last tender in. Scratch that off the bucket list!



NEXT: Day 10 - Sea Day