Grand Cayman Trip Report - June 2010

Sunday, June 13^th

Our flight left Knoxville for Charlotte at 9:20a.m. I so love both of these airports because they are so easy! Our first stroke of luck was that all of our planning and weighing paid off – we only had to pay for 2 pieces of luggage and the big one I was worried about weighed in just under the 50 lb limit at 49.5 lbs! After a very short layover, we were in the Caribbean by 1:00. Because we went through customs quickly and our hotel was only 10 minutes from the airport, we actually made it there prior to check in. The staff and hotel were great and let us check in early. We were in the water by 3:00. The sand was soft and white and the water was turquoise. Absolutely wonderful in every way!

For dinner, the kids had Burger King and we treated ourselves to a meal at the hotel restaurant, Hemingway’s. I went with scallops and shrimp & I think DH had the filet. By 8 or 9p.m., we were all ready for a good night’s rest and called it a day.

About the Hotel

We went through Expedia and got a good deal* on a room at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites (formerly a Hyatt.) We found out after we’d paid, but before we left, that the Tom Cruise move “The Firm” was filmed there back in the 90’s. The selling points of this hotel over our other considerations (the Marriott & the Westin) were that all rooms are suites with ocean views. We were very pleased with the size and condition of our room and the hotel overall including the workout facility, pools, and restaurants. We could even watch the kids play in the pool from our room.

The location worked well for us. It’s about halfway up 7 mile beach, a short bus ride from downtown Georgetown and there’s a nice shopping center with a grocery store within walking distance. (Tip: You can bring your grocery cart back to the hotel and leave at the street for pick up). We weren’t too far removed from necessities, but had easy access with the buses (mini-vans) running daily up and down the strip every 10 minutes or so.

Needless to say, the beach was awesome and though we found the near-shore snorkeling limited in coral, the variety and quality of fish and other animals more than made up for it.

With June being a lower season, we found not only our hotel, but the entire area to be at less than 50% occupancy. In fact, a number of the hotels appeared to be closed. The Colonial Club to our left was for sure and construction was just beginning on another hotel to our right. The scarcity of people totally enhanced our experience.

Monday, June 14^th

We did not know this until yesterday, but today was a holiday in GCI - the Queen’s Birthday. This meant that no cruise ships would disembark and that store hours would be limited. Though we never experienced crowd problems from the cruise ships, we took advantage of this and scheduled our trip to Sting Ray Sand Bar today.

We could not have asked for a more perfect day! We booked through CPT Marvin’s who picked us up at the hotel. Our 3 hour excursion included a beautiful boat ride to the Stingray City Sand Bar along with 2 snorkeling excursions. The Sand Bar was thrilling, to say the least. We could not believe how many stingrays there were and how they swam right up to us! (In fact, a book I’d checked out states that the stingrays have trained humans to bring them frozen squid!) The water was only 3 feet deep and TR probably enjoyed it the most. As you can see in the pictures, he was constantly trying to catch one. Inch liked looking at them and feeding them, but she didn’t want to try to look under the water at them or touch them.

The snorkel excursions were o.k. They took us out to what I believe they called Coral Garden’s and Governor’s Reef. I think that we would have enjoyed them more if we’d been before the stingrays. But by this time, we were tiring and Inch had made it clear that she was not going to snorkel, so that left one of us on the boat with her at all times.

Upon our return, we made our way to Foster’s grocery store. We were thrilled with the selection and cleanliness of the store. We expected prices to be high and they were. Most everything was about twice the price we’d pay here. But it was still cheaper than eating out every meal and we found everything we’d find at home (Eggo Waffles, hot pockets, Yoplait, cokes, etc.) We enjoyed the convenience of eating in the room since we didn’t have to spend additional time getting ready or making our way to and from the various restaurants along West Bay Rd.

Tuesday, June 15^th

We kept it simple today and mostly just lazed around the beach and pool. TR surprised us by wanting to take Inch out to play a lot. This worked out well since they had 10 times the energy that we had. DH and I made our way down the beach to a spot in front of the Westin that was supposed to have a good reef system for snorkeling. We weren’t overly impressed, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. We got a kick out of walking past the Ritz. Some guests were actually attempting to eat a meal on floating tables in the ocean. I don’t think the idea matched the experience. 

For dinner, we ordered pizza from a local pizzeria. We paid $65 for 3 personal sized pizzas. They actually gave us a 4^th that they claimed to have messed up on. It was good pizza, but not that good. Later, we took a leisurely evening stroll back to the grocery store and stopped by the Haagen Daz shop. Just like yesterday, we went to bed around 9:00 or 10:00 which is much earlier than normal for us.

Wednesday, June 16^th

Dolphins and turtles were the agenda for the day. TR found some friends to hang with so it was just DH, Inch and I off to Dolphin Discovery* & the Turtle Farm. We took a 15-20 minute bus ride north with plans of hitting some of the snorkel spots on way back. The dolphin experience was great. We each kissed, petted and danced with a dolphin. We were told that ours had learned something that most don’t naturally do and that was to blow giant air bubbles underwater. Inch enjoyed every minute of it. We were also taken to a separate tank with stingrays and starfish. On the bus ride back, a British bloke who runs the dives out of our hotel’s sports shop was on the bus and advised us against snorkeling out to the spots we’d planned to hit because they were too far out to swim to. We’d had a full day already, so we took his advice and headed for the hotel. We later regretted taking the guys’ advice as his idea of what was swimmable (see Eden’s Rock below) and ours were entirely different.

After a good nap and dinner in our room, we took the kids up to the top of the hotel. It was very nice with wonderful views of the ocean, the island and the other side of the island. I’d read that they sometimes conduct morning yoga classes up there and it obviously had other potential uses. After getting the kids settled for the evening, DH and I headed back over to Hemmingway’s for dessert and a stroll up the beach.

Thursday, June 17^th

DH, Inch and I took a bus into Georgetown this morning. We’d been advised to check out Eden’s Rock for snorkeling. Turns out that it is literally right off a main road. There’s a little restaurant with lockers, a shower and some sand where people were changing into their swimsuits and jumping in. The area was teaming with marine life from the moment we got in the water. There were all sizes and colors of fish including giant tarpon that would swim right up to us. We tugged Inch out to an anchored floating trampoline where we spotted a 4 foot long barracuda hanging out beneath it. I got some pictures of it along with some of a stingray with the black companion fish. After we were done snorkeling, we did some light shopping, had lunch at KFC and headed back to the hotel.

Later in the day, DH found a great little reef system with a giant lobster and dozens of big, black sea urchins. It was perfectly situated about 5 minutes out from the hallway in the middle of the Colonial Club next door, right even with an orange buoy. When he took me back out there, we also spotted a flounder (I had no idea they looked like that!) and some other cool fish including one that looked like a side-swimming stingray.

We wrapped up our evening with a family meal at Agua. It was a very modern seafood restaurant with very “modern” prices as one person put it. Overall, the food was good. Unfortunately, Inch was not feeling well, so I ate quickly and left early to take her back to the hotel.

Friday, June 18^th

Having a noon checkout was icing on the cake with our hotel. With our flight out not being until 2:20 & with the airport so close, we made the most of our last day. We got up at 6:30a.m. and fit in 2-3 final snorkel trips each. We revisited the lobster home and realized that there was an entire family of them tucked under other parts of the reef. During our final swim back to shore, DH and I spotted and chased a baby turtle. A giant turtle swam past us as well and I’d swear he came within a few feet of the shore. We also spotted another stingray with his companion fish. It was such a great way to end our trip!

*Money Matters

We’ve found early June to be the best and cheapest time to travel to the Caribbean. Total airfare per person before discount was $588. We purchased directly through U.S. Air because we had a $400 voucher. We stayed 5 nights and saved about 1/3 ($2,000) over our AI at Turks and Caicos. We paid $270 per night for our hotel which included a mandatory 20% gratuity and government tax. We booked back in March through Expedia and found the high season prices to be about twice as much. None of the combo packages (air/hotel) ever panned out to be cheaper.

We spent about $625 on food. At least half of that was spent on the two meals we splurged on (Hemmingway’s & Agua) and airport meals. We saved a considerable amount of time and money by bringing our own groceries and shopping at the local grocery story. We also needed fewer changes of clothes and enjoyed not having to get ready over and over again just to go eat.

We opted not to rent a car since they drive on the left and we were told the buses would get us where we needed to go. We spent $104 on cabs and bus rides. There are no airport shuttles and our cab rides were $30 each way. The bus system was great. They run up and down West Bay Rd. and you needn’t wait at a particular stop, they pick up all along the way. We paid $2CI (fairs were twice as much when paid in American $) each no matter the length of the ride and Inch was always free.

Inch was also free on our excursions. We used ½ price coupons we’d picked up at our hotel for Dolphin Discovery which both cost and saved us $100 (TR didn’t go with us). The tickets we got also paid for entrance to the turtle farm which was just across the street. The down side to the dolphin experience was that they wouldn’t let us use our own cameras and they wanted $20 per picture. We limited ourselves to just the 2 pictures. The stingray trip with CPT Marvin’s for all four of us totaled $147. We paid $50 for a CD of 13 pictures.

As with our Turks & Caicos trip last year, we were not charged for our luggage on the return trip. We used web check in for our departure, but not for the return and didn’t experience much of a difference in terms of time. Though we saved $4 by doing so on departure, we saved $50 by NOT doing so when we left!

Other miscellaneous things to note: we racked up about $15 in conversion fees on our credit card from various purchases; tips were built into most final bills and they have no sales tax.