Grand Cayman Island

Well after some strenous camping trips and lots of driving around the country, we decided it was time to check out some luxury.  The plan to go camping at the Grand Canyon went away.  And the concept of a Carribean vacation was born.  We quickly realized that the girls (both part fish) would be happier in water than a desert!  We picked Cayman for it's diving and snorkeling -- plus we are using points to buy the hotel and the air fare was cheap.  In preparation for the trip, Scott and I took a SCUBA review, Kerstin started her SCUBA certification (she will do her open water dives here) and Regina took a Snorkeling class.

Some things I learned about the Caymans while I was there!

There seems to be two types of tourists in the Caymans.  The first are the cruise ship passengers.  The number of cruise ships in port on a given day, seems to determine every thing about the day.  When no ships or just one is in, things are quite and laid back.  When there are as many as 6 ships it really gets wacko!  The big shopping district revolves around cruise ship schedules.  The shops open at 8am and close at 5pm (when the cruisers are back on their boats).  Beyond that Georgetown closes down except a few restaurants and some clubs.  The shopping is limited.  If you want high end jewelry or alchohol there are tons of choices.  The rest of the shopping offered seedy touristy trinkets (the kids didn't even want any of it).  For me, this was great!  We checked out town in a couple of hours and then spent the rest of the time enjoying the Island.

The second type of tourist here are the folks staying in hotels and condos.  These folks are here just to relax and enjoy the Island and it's beaches.  The rest of the tourist attractions pale or fade away if the beach is the alternative.  Each day, I offered my gang options of doing turtle farms, butterfly gardens, or botanical gardens and all they wanted to do was play on the beach and in the ocean.  And that is what we did -- everyday!  We swam in the pool, found neat snorkeling coves, and went diving!  There were also lots of other watersport options like, bananna boats, parasailing, waterskiing, glass bottom boats, etc.  If you like beaches -- the options are endless.

Before you go, you would be wise to check out the calender there.  The island is fairly religious (christian mostly) and on Sundays things to do get sparse (the beach is always open).  We also happened to hit their Discovery Day holiday and their Election Day (everything was closed down, no alcohol and even most restauants were closed).  So 3 out of 8 days turned out to be very slow -- that being said -- the beach was always open and we just organized our day around it all so no big deal -- I did seem some guests get a bit frustrated with this -- so you may want to check it out and avoid their holidays if you have flexibility.