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One of the ports visited on our
recent Royal Caribbean cruise was
Grand Cayman. This was an eagerly
awaited port since I've been there
before but wanted to take my
girlfriend scuba diving there. We
were worried that we might miss this
port since the Caymans were hit
pretty hard by the hurricanes and
indeed, they had closed the islands
off to tourist travel for part of
the summer/fall. Fortunately for us,
Grand Cayman had reopened just about
two weeks prior to our cruise at the
end of November. Getting to Grand
Cayman is by tender since it had a
shallow harbor. This can be a
potential problem in itself because
we were told that if the wind and
waves are too rough, the captain
would cancel the port and spend the
rest of the day at sea. Apparently
in the past, one of the tender boat
workers had fallen and got crushed
to death between the boat and the
dock during one of the rougher wave
days. This resulted in the cruise
ships being much more careful in
deciding whether to allow tendering
or not given the conditions. Again,
fortunately for us, the weather was
picture perfect during the day we
were in Grand Cayman last week. The
downtown area pretty well recovered
from the effects of the hurricanes
and the shopping was business as
usual. There were four ships at port
during the day we were at port.
Grand Cayman is above average in
terms of cleanliness and the
attitude of the locals for a
Caribbean island. It is also one of
the pricier islands though. Bargains
can still be found though,
especially in the liquor where there
are examples of certain liquors
being even less expensive in Grand
Cayman than even Cozumel.
For example, Malibu rum was $10 US
in Grand Cayman, $13 in Cozumel and
about $19 back in the Miami home
port. Everything else like
restaurants and activities were
generally more expensive than other
islands. According to other
passengers who ventured to other
parts of the island, the damage from
the hurricanes was more visible with
fallen trees and some buildings
still not repaired yet. A few of the
organized tours by the cruise ship
were also not available. We decided
in advance to do some scuba diving
off the shore and Eden Rocks Scuba
Center was a 5 minute walk from the
port. There are two decent shore
dives right in front of their dive
shop and we spend the morning diving
the site called Devil's Grotto.
Instead of paying $85 US for a
typical Cayman boat dive trip, I
ended up paying just $8 US for a
rental for a tank. I didn't go to
other parts of the island during
this trip but have been to the
turtle farm, Hell village and
Stingray City before. They are all
worthwhile sites to visit. I wanted
to take my girlfriend scuba diving
at Stingray City in the afternoon
but for some reason, only the
snorkeling sections of Stingray City
were available that day. So after
returning to the cruise ship for
lunch, we went back ashore to do
some shopping. We would like to come
back to Grand Cayman again for a
longer stay in the future. In
summary, most of Grand Cayman
appears to be back in business again
after the hurricanes. It is one of
the nicer but pricier ports to visit
in the Caribbean.
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