If you arrive in the Caymans and plan to see the island, be careful where you rent your scooter from. You can rent cars in the Caymans and I would suggest this rather than the scooter option. We rented from a scooter business behind the Hard Rock Cafe and would warn anyone (especially someone who has never been on a scooter before) to avoid this business. Their scooters are old, falling apart and quite frankly dangerous. The steering column on mine was pointing right when the wheel was straight, so you always rode with one hard extended more than the other. The actual body of the scooter would bounce up and down and I was terrified it would "snap" in half at any second.
My husband's scooter was beyond help. It was older than Moses and had a back wheel that wobbled from side to side as he made his way ahead of me. It was also painfully slow and vibrated so much that his wrists and arms hurt when we finally got to our destination - Hell. Quite appropriate I thought.

A better rental business can be found next to KFC in George Town, with several others just on the outskirts of the capital.
Better still - rent a car!

I just returned from an amazing five day, 13 dives, trip to Grand Cayman in the Caribbean, May 12-16, 2008. A great online resource with maps and coupons is http://www.caymanactivityguide.com/Pdf/Layout.pdf. I also recommend using www.tripadvisor.com for all your travel research and of course www.scubaboard.com for everything SCUBA related from tech to travel.

Here is my trip report.

Flew on American airlines who fortunately only lost my bags on the return trip to Boston, but not outward bound. Otherwise the flights, Boston through Miami were uneventful. I traveled alone and rented a small car through Thrifty Rental, which was old but served my purposes fine. I strongly recommend getting a car to have more freedom of getting around especially to different shore dive sites. Be warned they drive on the opposite of the road compared to the USA. I stayed at the Comfort Suites on Seven Mile Beach, which was reasonably priced, central, clean and served my purposes as a place to sleep and shower. A bonus was free wireless internet access allowing me to keep in touch with the family back home in Boston through Skype, costing a few pennies as opposed to using my cell or the hotel phone. I also downloaded my daily dive log from my computer to my laptop and the underwater photos I took that day. The hotel has a small pool and there is very short walk (no road to cross) to the magnificent 7-Mile Beach. This is not a fancy resort, no jet ski rentals, cabanas or umbrellas on the beach, but that was not what I needed as a solo traveler. Breakfast was simple continental style, including a do-it-yourself waffle machine (excellent) and more than sufficient. I treated myself to one restaurant dinner at Casanovas by the sea in Georgetown, Italian, which was excellent.

My reason for going to Grand Cayman was to dive, this was my first Caribbean trip and I was not disappointed. I took all my own gear in a standard large suitcase, but carried my reg, camera/strobe, prescription-lens mask and dive lights in my carry-on (next time I'll leave lights behind, they are included in all night dives). I also packed a dry and wet gear bag in the main suitcase. I brought a full length 3mm wet suite which was perfect, most people used the same type, and though the water was 80F I felt comfortable throughout all dives. Obviously I never brought tanks or weights with.

I did three 2-tank morning dives, a boat night dive and a trip to Stingray City with Neptune Divers (http://neptunesdivers.com) Paul and Chris, our divemasters and were excellent. There were never more than eight people on their boats, they were punctual on their hotel pick up and were always polite, helpful, and a pleasure to deal with. We visited a variety of different sites, including "Main Street", "Haunted House" Reefs our deep (~100ft) North Wall dives. We did our second shallow dives (50-60ft) at "Queens Throne" and "Bonnies Arch" on the North wall. On the West Side (7-Mile Beach) we did our deep dive on the "OV Wall" Reef and the second dive on the "Doc Paulson" wreck, which can be safely and easily penetrated by novice divers. The night dive on the west side was on the "Aquarium" Reef. I used Nitrox 33% for the deep, first morning dives and air for the remainder of the days dives. Stingray City is a must to do at least once. It is best to dive the 12ft location rather than snorkel on the sandbar. It was neat to feed the docile Southern Stingrays and be up close and personal. The coral was healthy and hugely varied; the fish were beautiful and plentiful. The water was a comfortable warm 80F and the air temp around 90F (beware the sun and use plenty of SPF 50, don't let sunburn ruin an expensive vacation!). The water was clear with 80+ft visibility. Seeing a number of Hawksbill turtles, one Eagle Ray and one Spotted Moray were highlights.

I also did three afternoon shore dives where I easily found a dive buddy within 5minutes of arrival at the sites (best to arrive around 2pm). I dived at Sunset House (saw the 9ft copper mermaid Amphitrite and the small wreck of the Nicholson (www.sunsethouse.com). I went on a night dive with Divetech at Cobalt House, a great reef and a pretty spot to see the sun set (www.divetech.com/). Two afternoons were spent with Sundivers who run their op from Turtle Reef at the Cracked Conch (www.sundivers.ky/). This is an awesome dive site - don't miss the Tarpon Grotto to the left of the buoys and the great mini wall on the right. The dive shore dive site were all easy entries down a ladder. I did another boat night dive with Red Sail Sports (www.redsailcayman.com) from the Hyatt Grand Cayman Beach Resort which was very well led by divemasters Nick and Paul. Even though there were twelve of us, I never felt cramped or congested. I never had any bad experiences with any of the dive ops I used.

Overall a fantastic dive trip, I hope to return soon

My wife and I just returned on April 28, 2008 from a trip to Grand Cayman. It had been about 10 years since our family vacationed there. Back then, Seven mile beach was tranquil and teaming with vibrant reefs of the shore and plenty of wildlife. We never failed to see a sea turtle swimming among the reef fish right off shore on any of our prior visits.

What we found during our April trip was a shock. All of the reefs we snorkeled on, even Cemetery Reef which is a marine park, were dead or dying. Jet Skis whizzed over our heads as we snorkeled (there doesn't seem to be any enforcement or "rules of the road" that are followed on the island), consequently there wasn't much wildlife to see.

Grand Cayman now seems to be catering to the cruise ship trade. We experienced four cruise ships (our hotel told us they have as many as 6 at any one time) disgorging tens of thousands of passengers on this small island. Our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott, catered to the cruise ship crowd by renting chaise lounges on the beach. Our beach was noisy and chaotic, hardly the kind of experience we sought for our vacation.

The island seems to have lost its ecological focus in favor of commercialism. If you are looking for beauty and serenity in a vacation, you might want to pass up a trip to this island.

This is going to be a little long, but I think those people having a destination wedding (or any other event) here will appreciate it.

We just returned from our wedding in Grand Cayman, and the entire experience was amazing.

First, we stayed at Sunshine Suites. It’s just off Seven Mile Beach, across West Bay (the main) road. Easy 3 minute walk to the beach, and they’ll lend you a beach towel and beach chair if needed. The person who arranged everything was Nadia. Great service, nice clean rooms. A simple place, with kitchenettes in the rooms. Combined with the reasonable rates, it was a great choice for our group.

The food at the small grill was excellent. We and our friends consider ourselves “foodies”, and the casual cuisine was raved about all weekend. Highest on the list was the Jerk Chicken Eggrolls. Great burgers and sliders too.

We also arranged a block of rooms down the road at the Courtyard. Again, nice place. The guests who stayed there were really happy with everything. Our first night there, we arranged for a “meet & greet” at the Courtyard lobby cocktail lounge. Valentino set everything up. We arranged for a huge bowl of rum punch, and opened a tab for our guests. Great kick off to the weekend.

On Thursday, Day 2 of the trip, we arranged for people to either get some fishing in, or go snorkeling. Fishing was arranged through Captain Marvin’s, whose office is right next to Sunshine Suites. Snorkeling was arranged by Nicole at Diver’s Down, and included the very popular, and recommended Stingray City.

Both trips were amazing, and our guests had a great time. The bite on the fishing trip was a little light, but the group was able to land a Bull Dorado, and a nice sized Barracuda. We finished off the day with a guys/girls night out. A great Irish Pub (Fidel Murphy’s), some pool (The Attic, next to O) finished off the night for the guys, while the girls had a great time at The Royal Palms and Sapphire.

Friday started with a nice round of Golf at The Links. A little windy, but a nice long course, with amazing views. We worked through Sean to set up 3 foursomes first thing in the morning.

My wife also recommends the hair and makeup people we used. She was really, really happy with them, as were the bridesmaids: azra beauty at azra.beauty@yahoo.com and spa to go (Jen, and Katie) spa2go@candw.ky. We found them on theknot.com.

We had the wedding at Grand Old House. Desiree coordinated the event, and everything was perfect. And I’m not just saying that. Objectively, everything went off without a hitch, there was no drama, no mistakes…. Perfect weather, the food was outstanding.

No exaggeration here. I’ve had at least 5 people tell me it was the best food they’ve ever had at an event (which was huge for me, as that was what I was hoping would happen). We had the ceremony on the dock, overlooking the rocks and waves, with a steel drummer playing. Moved under the canopy for dinner. After a cocktail hour with passed apps and more steel drummer time, we sat down for a beautiful 5 course dinner. The duet of scallop and dover sole was a hit, as was the lobster stuffed chicken breast. We passed on the whole wedding cake thing, but went with a desert of gingersnap basket, with fresh fruit and icecream. I’m drooling as I am typing…

We chose David Wolfe for our photographer. He did a great, great job. Highly recommended. Great guy. He made my wife comfortable, and while we both HATE taking pics, what he came back with was unreal.

A couple of things people would probably ask…
- We carried the wedding dresses onto the plane (yes…dresses…she had two). We asked to board as part of preboarding, and the folks on Continental were very accommodating.
- No one rented cars. We cabbed it around the island. Not cheap, but convenient enough, and manageable.
- Other recommended restaurants – Café Med, Calypso, Neptune, and Pappagallos.
- Those people that wanted to get some shopping in, got some great service at Kirk Freeport and the Passman gallery across the street. Landmark got some good reviews from the guests too…

In all, a wonderful time, with wonderful people.