Vacation Wrap

There were many possible topics for this blog post. I thought about 'Vacation's Over, Back To Work' or another Ori Diaries segment. (He was not the best behaved while we were gone.) Or even something to do with the cats. Mostly what I could have done was drown you in images of my trip. (Which I might add to this post at a later date.)

I'm not doing any of that. Some of it requires too much effort, and others are just boring. Instead, I'm going to talk about my vacation. Obviously. In the process, you're going to get a play-by-play of the diving portion of the trip, and maybe some highlights of Florida experiences. What you're mostly going to hear about is the dive resort we stayed at. Settle in.

First off, Stephanie from Great Lakes Divers (aka the woman who trained us) organized this trip, and damn did she do a good job! It included a week-long stay at Cayman Brac Beach Resort with shuttle service to/from the airport. During this week, we were guests of Reef Divers Valet Diving, who are based out of the Cayman Brac Beach Resort. I mean, the three dive boats are right there on the private dock, just down the drive from the dive shop. It was great.

When we first arrived, we took a bit to settle in, but then we were summoned to the dive shop to get our instructions as well as some numbered mesh gear bags (despite our gear already being in its own bag). We were told to put ALL of our gear in the bags and then leave it outside our room before 7am Monday morning. Then, at 7:30am, we would have the boat briefing before heading off for our first dive of the week.

Until we reached the boat, I had no idea what 'valet diving' meant. Well, what it means is that these incredible people set you up in your own personal station on the boat, hook up your regulator and BCD to one of your tanks, and neatly tuck the rest of your gear underneath the bench below your station. Not only that, but these people will also swap all of your gear from one tank to another between dives. And HUGE shout out to Barbie (yes, that's her real name) and Arno (pronounced Arr-new) for their incredible efficiency. They were so quick with those tank changes, that you didn't even notice it had gotten done half the time.

For the week that we were there, the schedule looked like 2 morning dives Monday - Friday and 1 afternoon dive Monday - Thursday. You could skip any dive you wanted. If you wanted to sleep in, you skipped the two morning dives, then you could still dive in the afternoon. Or, like me, you decide that you're onboard with the two morning dives, but you're NOT struggling back into that wetsuit for the afternoon dive. And considering I wear a 7mm suit no matter where I'm diving, it IS a struggle to get back into it once it's already wet.

Unfortunately, I was still recovering from a cold when we arrived, so I missed the first 4 dives of the trip. However, I did snorkel for all four, and the visibility was INCREDIBLE. Everyone who was diving was easily 40' below me, but I could see almost everything they could see. (And my surface-height advantage even allowed me to see some things they didn't.) The only downside to snorkeling was that I didn't realize that my wrists were that exposed to the sun on that first day and I got pretty badly sunburned on my wrists where the wetsuit didn't cover.

Once I finally forced my ears to clear (bad idea; don't force your body to do anything unless you know it can handle it; forcing ear clearing CAN lead to ruptured eardrums), I was able to dive every day for the rest of the trip. It was incredible. I got to go on my first wall dive, where the reef drops hundreds of feet into the ocean, and you can literally be staring at all kinds of little fishies on the reef, turn around and stare into the abyss. The abyss was awesome. Me likey the abyss. I'm definitely going to want to do more wall dives in future.

Overall, I think we did two wall dives, a wreck dive, and a ton of reefs. Also, as soon as I got over my ear issue, my dive computer decided to be a bitch and quit on me. Turns out, when I changed the battery, I didn't tighten it enough and water got into it. A couple of days later, it did come back to life, but it will need to be professionally serviced because there's brown gunk inside the compartment and all over the battery, so just changing the battery isn't really an option.

So, overall highlights from the trip:

• Barbie and Arno were the best crew, and we all love them dearly. When we go back, I definitely want to hang with them again.

• Excellent dive sites with tons of life, color, and movement.

• Lots of stingrays

• SHARKS! (I even got to stalk a nurse shark for a bit. Though I couldn't get close enough to the reef shark.)

Honestly, the sharks were probably my favorite part of the trip, as it's so, so, so rare for them to hang around where divers are. (Case in point, we only saw two of them because they were trying to get tf away from us.) After them it's definitely the wall dives. Don't get me wrong, I love wrecks, but the contrast between reef and abyss was breathtaking.

Anyway, the way our trip was organized, it paid for a room and all of our meals and spectacular valet diving service. We also got to know a bunch of other divers and learned tips and tricks from one another as we went. It was a great time. The bf and I are definitely planning on going back to Cayman Brac Beach Resort. Just not anytime soon.

And the next dive trip Stephanie has planned is in the Phillipines in February of 2027. We're still deciding if the travel time is worth it...

Now, of course, we went from Cayman Brac to Orlando, as we had back-to-back vacations planned. Due to a delayed flight off of Cayman Brac, however, we missed our connecting flight on Grand Cayman. And after United did all they could to get us on the next flights (that took us up to New Jersey of all places before taking us back south to Florida), Cayman Airways comped us taxi fare, a hotel room, and a couple of meals. So, while we missed a whole day in Florida due to travel, we did gain a night on Grand Cayman.

At least we didn't miss the important parts of the Florida trip. A mere six hours after we arrived at the house, the bf and I had to wake up and get ready for Epcot. And that is the busiest we have EVER seen Epcot. Usually, it's the dullest of the Disney parks. (Except maybe ESPN, which we have no desire to go to.) However, this trip it was fairly packed. To the point that we outright skipped the TestTrack ride, which we normally enjoy. We did get to go on the new Guardians ride twice, though, so definitely worth it. (Yes, the Guardians ride was the ONLY reason we wanted to go to Epcot, and our nieces agree it's the only reason they'd want to come back.) Oh, and the two other awesome things about Epcot: the donuts from the stand before you hit Mexico when you first enter the World and go to the left. And the seasonal orange-lemon smoothie. OMG that was so good, I looked up the recipe. (2 cups orange sherbet to 1 cup lemonade. Blend until smooth and freeze for 1-2 hours to achieve a thick, creamy consistency.) I made it the day after we got home, but I didn't freeze it, so the lemonade kept separating from the ice cream after blending. So yeah, gotta try that again. Oh darn.

Our other reason for choosing to go to Florida again this year was to go to Epic Universe. It did NOT dissapoint. Because they limit the number of patrons allowed in the park, the wait times were reasonable (and often much less than projected), and we were able to ride all but one ride in the entire park, but it was sacrificed so that we could go on our two favorites one more time before it closed.

The most enjoyable themed ride is Hiccup's adventure coaster in the How To Train Your Dragon section. It's not too rough, and it has characters and interactions similar to what you get from the Hagrid coaster in Islands of Adventure. That said, if you're looking for some Cedar Point-esque kind of coasters, then you need to ride Stardust Racers. All the drops, twists, and speed you could want. If you love the Hulk coaster in Islands of Adventure, then you'll want to ride Stardust Racers several times. (Which we did. Well, we got to ride it twice. WORTH IT.)

Overall, Epic Universe and Islands of Adventure are definitely the most fun parks for older kids/teenagers/adults. There's still the joy of familiar stories and characters, but the rides are more geared toward adrenaline seekers rather than small children.

Aaaand, I need to end this here because I have writing to get done before midnight. Anyway, that's the vacation wrap. Hope you enjoyed. Gotta go.