Oceania Vista at anchor off of George Town, Grand Cayman. Photo © 2025, Steven Sande
As I write this, we’re freezing in the air conditioning of the Horizons Lounge aboard Oceania Vista. I’m not complaining; they just had a dance class for passengers who felt like learning how to “cha-cha-cha” (no, we didn’t participate), and they’re getting set up for the usual afternoon tea, followed by the traditional “day after embarkation Captain’s cocktail party”, so it’s probably an opportunity to cool things down before a bunch of people congregate in here.
Things went smoothly on Wednesday. We really enjoyed our stay at the Mondrian South Beach, as the staff at this hotel was consistently friendly and helpful, and the view from our room facing Miami was insanely beautiful. Dropping the car off at the airport was kind of odd (but easy) - we drove ten miles east to the airport, then had to take a cab about ten miles back to the cruise terminal. We knew we were going to get to the ship early, so we spent a bit of time at the car rental facility just to get closer to our “appointed” checkin time. It didn’t work; we still got to the ship an hour early.
Speaking of car rentals… After a couple of disappointing rental experiences on past trips, our travel agent pointed us in the direction of SIXT. We had a surprisingly good experience with this company. Getting the car took about 5 minutes, returning it about 30 seconds. And unlike the awful vehicles we received from Avis last year on one trip, this one was clean and in good running condition.
Here are some images from our departure from Miami’s Cruise Terminal B (the NCL terminal):
Vista is a beautiful ship! We are quite impressed with our stateroom (9012, Concierge Class), which is large, comfortable, and has a huge (by cruise ship standards) bathroom. We’re splurging a bit on dual internet packages for both our iPhones and iPads on this trip, as sometimes switching between devices with one account can be a pain. We decided to not get any drink packages on this cruise, as they were “out of” the standard package and the premium package was quite pricey. I only have one alcoholic beverage a day maximum, so it would have been really stupid for me to get any sort of drink package.
Stateroom 9012 on the port side of Oceania Vista. Photo © 2025, Steven Sande
We weren’t particularly hungry on Wednesday night, so we made up for not having our usual Monday night pizza at Big Bill’s NY Pizza in Centennial, CO by getting a pizza at Waves Grill on Vista — which turns into a pizzeria at night. It was an excellent, made-to-order pizza perfectly sized for two people and I think we’ll have to get at least one more pizza while we’re on this voyage.
We did find one odd thing about Vista; we can hear people talking in the next stateroom, which is something we haven’t heard on cruise ships for many years. It’s not particularly loud, but just at the volume where it can be heard. Fortunately our neighbors are not the partying kind, so we haven’t had any sleep interruptions!
Thursday (January 9) was a sea day, so we did a lot of relaxing — in other words, taking it down a notch from our usual slug-like behavior. The temperatures are getting warmer as we head south; it was in the high 70s on Grand Cayman on Friday. Dinner on Thursday night was at one of the specialty restaurants on Vista called Ember. This was a wonderful introduction to this unique restaurant (it’s not on their other ships), which serves a rather eclectic casual menu. I had a tasty and thick pork chop with a BBQ glaze on polenta, while Barb opted for fish and chips made with Chilean Sea Bass:
We opted to head back to our stateroom and sit on the veranda rather than enjoy any of the onboard entertainment; we might see a show on Friday night as there is a comedian who is supposed to be pretty funny!
Friday we had to get up a little early, as we had a shore excursion on Grand Cayman that required us to “check in” at about 8:30 AM. That gave us the opportunity to try one of the benefits of Concierge Class; the Concierge Lounge. It’s not that far away, serves light snacks, soft drinks, and coffee 24/7, and we were able to toast and consume a few bagels before we headed to the Vista Lounge to check in for the excursion.
We’ve been to Grand Cayman four times (including this trip), so we took a rather tame and short excursion that took a small group to Hell (a jagged rock formation and tourist trap run by an ex-US Merchant Marine and born-again Christian named Ivan who likes to ask visitors questions like “Where the hell are you from?”), to a place that specializes in mango rum and rum cakes, and finally to the place we really wanted to see, which is the Cayman Turtle Centre. It’s a place that breeds, raises, and releases green sea turtles in an effort to grow the species (they also raise some for local consumption).
Grand Cayman is an interesting place. Much of the island’s real estate is owned by the Dart family (started Rexall Drugs, invented the styrofoam cup, eventually merged with Kraft), which the locals seem to revel in telling everyone about. It’s now, of course, known as a finance center for the world with a ton of banks. It has virtually no poverty, no crime, and no homelessness. It’s also one of the few Caribbean islands that isn’t a horrible mess.
And now, a short little sea turtle video for you to enjoy:
More fun coming soon! We’re on our way to Cartegena, Colombia soon.