Spring Break - Grand Turk, Part One

Day three of our cruise adventure brought us to the Turks and Caicos Islands, specifically to the capital island of Grand Turk. While we were still getting ready in the morning, the boys got the opportunity to watch from our room as another ship docked next door to us - the Seabourn Spirit. They were of course thrilled that our ship was much bigger! We ate breakfast on the Lido deck that morning so the that the boys could see the island while we ate. Visibility wasn't super great as it was a bit cloudy, but it was still a very nice view. We signed up for a shore excursion that began at 9:45am and we got off the ship about 9am to explore.


At Grand Turk, you walk down a small pier to a main building that is a duty free gift shop. Going through this building you emerge into an area maintained by the cruise lines that is all retail: shopping, bars, restaurants and public beach.



There's also an area dedicated to the Friendship 7 capsule from the Mercury space program. John Glenn splashed down near the island of Grand Turk in 1962.

It started to rain a bit while we were waiting so we ducked under cover to wait for our tour to start. Then we boarded a bus with driven by John with about 10 other people. Our tour was 90 minutes long and went all around the island with three stops - 1) The Salt Museum; 2) The Lighthouse; and 3) and a private beach.


Parker showing off all of his bracelets. There's the gray seasickness bands he picked up after he got sick the day before. There's his green Road ID with our cellphone numbers on his left hand. Plus on his right hand are the Carnival band showing his lifeboat station and the bracelet he wore for our tour.

Our first stop - The Salt Museum, called "White Gold." For centuries the Turks and Caicos supplied much of the salt to the Western World. We explored inside the museum a bit and wandered around outside at one of the old salinas (salt ponds)