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Cayman Islands

Tailgate

By Tailgate
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midtown

midtown 3346

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I went about 15 years ago.  Its one of my favorite islands.   I stayed at the grand hyatt I think.  They didn't have any rooms in the beach side hotel so they put me and my wife at the time in 3 bedroom villa.  Was nice.

 

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NeverMarryAStripper

NeverMarryAStripper 21907

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1 hour ago, phdhorn said:

Looking on with interest.
The wife and I are going to do our 25th in the Caribbean, friends have said the Caymans, although I want also to go more to the Eastern Caribbean (Windwards maybe)/

The Caymans are nice, but better if you're looking for a quick trip or someplace easy to get to.  For a special trip like the 25th, I think I would do the Eastern Caribbean.  St. Lucia has some really nice places.  The French islands are always nice, maybe Martinique or Guadeloupe. 

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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1 hour ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

The Caymans are nice, but better if you're looking for a quick trip or someplace easy to get to.  For a special trip like the 25th, I think I would do the Eastern Caribbean.  St. Lucia has some really nice places.  The French islands are always nice, maybe Martinique or Guadeloupe. 

Yeah, this is why I mentioned it myself in my post, but keeping an open mind... making a long story short, we really can't book a number of places until about August, so we have some time to look stuff over.

I'm thinking of Barbados as well.  But we'll see.

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PW119

PW119 167

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We’re going in June. First time. Staying on 7 mile beach. Renting a Jeep. Found a couple of interesting places: Czech Inn, Grape Tree Cafe, Hemingway’s. Need a fishing guide. Let’s hear from the experienced.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Caver60

Caver60 395

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I thought Grand Cayman was OK. It's clean, there are some good restaurants there, and it's English friendly.

What it doesn't have is local history to a large extent. It's a very tame vacation with nice beaches, made better if you are a diver. I tend to like a little more adventure in my vacations, so I wouldn't go back. It's perfect, however, for my wife. For me, I left there thinking that I could go to quite a few beaches in Mexico that are just as pretty and cost substantially less. Just my 2 cents

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ColoradoHorn

ColoradoHorn 7

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Can't comment on the fishing, but Sting Ray tour is pretty cool.  Starfish point is neat to check out the starfish.  Kalibo Beach bar is a cool place to hang out.  Rum Point is a tourist trap.

We stayed on the East end and really enjoyed how quiet it was.  West side is where the boats come in and has a good night life.  Be sure to buy alcohol from duty free on your way alcohol is pricey.  Bottle of Woodford Reserve for me and a bottle of Vodka for the wife went a long ways.  

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PenelopeWitherspoon

PenelopeWitherspoon 19101

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Used to go every year for a Mile Ocean Swim on Father's Day Weekend.  I always stayed at the Marriott Resort right on 7 Mile Beach, but the last time I went there, the beach had seriously eroded.  The Ritz is probably the best hotel on 7 Mile Beach, and it isn't really close.  The restaurant in the Ritz is an Eric Ripert restaurant (Blue), but you are definitely going to pay for it.  Worth it, but think Le Bernardin pricing.  There is also a really good ceviche restaurant (Agua) that became my go to dinner before the night of the race place.  

Stingray City is really worth it.  The East End of the Island is really cool, and Vivine's Kitchen is worth a stop.  Royal Palms Beach Club is a cool place to hang out and reserve a cabana and chill.  

I've been meaning to go back, but for what I spend for 5-6 days in the Caymans, I can usually spend that amount of time in Europe somewhere, so I've been heading across the Atlantic. Also, there is only one nonstop flight to GCM from IAH (United, which for some reason sometimes does not offer that flight daily, or even at all), so other flights mean connecting, and what should be a 2 hour flight ends up taking 5-7 hours.  Ughhh.  

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Brew

Brew 3049

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I’m a Grand Cayman fan, but I’m not looking for high adventure on a beach trip with the kids. We stayed at Rum Point and will stay there again over 7MB. There aren’t many people on that side and there is plenty of snorkeling off the beach. Starfish Point, Stingray City and the reefs near them, the post office at Hell, the Cayman Turtle Center, and the blowholes on the east end are all worth a visit.

We pretty well only eat on the East End and at Rum Point. Turks is worth multiple trips. Over the Edge and Kaibo Beach Club were also good.

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Johnny Sack

Johnny Sack 8397

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On 5/27/2018 at 1:42 PM, phdhorn said:

Looking on with interest.
The wife and I are going to do our 25th in the Caribbean, friends have said the Caymans, although I want also to go more to the Eastern Caribbean (Windwards maybe)/

I would do St. Barts.  Great beaches that are never crowded.  No crime at all.  Great restaurants.  Great shops.  No cruise ships (outside of small tenders you won't even notice).  No casino trashiness.  It is like being in the South of France but in the Caribbean.

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Tailgate

Tailgate 3022

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Thanks for all these thoughts. I will likely be doing at least two days of diving. And, at least one day of fishing. The rest will be beach or poolside. 

Is it worth having a car there? Usually we cab or Uber it at night for dinners when we are at other spots.

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travelingtexan

travelingtexan 198

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On 5/28/2018 at 5:42 PM, Caver60 said:

I thought Grand Cayman was OK. It's clean, there are some good restaurants there, and it's English friendly.

What it doesn't have is local history to a large extent. It's a very tame vacation with nice beaches, made better if you are a diver. I tend to like a little more adventure in my vacations, so I wouldn't go back. It's perfect, however, for my wife. For me, I left there thinking that I could go to quite a few beaches in Mexico that are just as pretty and cost substantially less. Just my 2 cents

x1 billion. There isnt really anything there but some nice beaches and a ton of american tourists. Very little adventure and culture.

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travelingtexan

travelingtexan 198

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19 minutes ago, Innocent Bystander II said:

Has anyone been during "rainy season"?  Trying to plan a short family trip for Pop's bday  towards the end of Oct. and Caymans may be a good choice for us.  Just need to be able to keep a 5 year old niece entertained and didn't want to be rained out.  

Rainy season is more in the summer. By Late October you are coming towards peak season. Still a little off so you can get cheaper prices but its not miserable like June or July. You might even get lucky, but most people November as the start of the best time to go.

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Agent 13

Agent 13 314

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21 hours ago, Tailgate said:

Thanks for all these thoughts. I will likely be doing at least two days of diving. And, at least one day of fishing. The rest will be beach or poolside. 

Is it worth having a car there? Usually we cab or Uber it at night for dinners when we are at other spots.

I didn't see a reason for a car when i went there. At least not for the whole trip. The bus system is cheap and very easy to figure out. 

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Brew

Brew 3049

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We did everything through Red Sail. That was primarily because they had a Rum Point operation, but they also have boats leaving out of the 7MB side. If you got a car, I would definitely explore East End and Rum Point and eat at Tukka’s. If you don’t, I’m no help as we avoid 7MB and the tourists like the plague.

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closetojumping

closetojumping 62738

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On 7/26/2018 at 9:09 AM, Tailgate said:

Headed out tomorrow. Any good restaurant/bar recommendations?

Also any good scuba and fishing outfits to recommend?

We are on Grand Cayman.

Thanks!

\m/

I go with my wife and kids every summer for a long weekend. We're going again in August. 

We usually stay at the Ritz, which is the fucking balls, but this year we're staying at whatever the Kimpton hotel is down there. I don't know, my wife usually handles all of the planning once she knows what my calendar looks like. Anyway, I reference that for this reason: The Ritz in GC has what has to be the best Pina Colada in the world. If it isn't, it doesn't take long to call roll. The thing must have 2000 calories in it. It is worth the visit to that beach just to have one at their surf bar one day, even if you're not staying there. And I'm not a Pina Colada person, but when in "Rome" and such. 

Restaurants: 

Calypso - it's worth the cab ride. Excellent seafood. Get the wahoo, however they're prepping it, and enjoy it. They do a great sticky toffee pudding, also. 

Pappagallo - Italian and seafood, they do good local stuff.

Lobster Pot - It feels like a tourist trap, but we've always found the food to actually be pretty good. We go there because we have little kids and they make a show of feeding the tarpon at night under the lights, and the kids think that is awesome. I'd avoid this if it is just you and the wife, or if your kids are teenagers, but otherwise it's a fun evening. 

The Brasserie - Caribbean fusion. We've enjoyed this one when we've been. 

Restaurants to avoid:

The Sunshine Grill - I do not understand why people like this one. You'll find it well-reviewed and it makes no sense to me. It's basically a burger joint. It's fine for what it is, but not worth seeking out.

Guy Harvey Grill - This or anything this far down the island to where the cruise ships come in is not worth the trip. We went there once before catching a plane and it's mediocre seafood. The dude's artwork is everywhere and that's kind of interesting to see, I guess. 

Blue by Eric Ripert - I think this may be the most overrated and overpriced restaurant I have ever been to, and that is saying something because we eat out plenty, and travel frequently. We went once, and then my wife kept having to go upstairs to help the babysitter with one of the babies, and we didn't enjoy it all. So we decided that that was maybe on us, and we went again a few years later. We were into the meal and gave it the full effort and it still didn't do it for us. Someone up above mentions Le Benardin pricing and they're right. Without going into details, both of these meals are in the top 20 most expensive 2 person meals we've ever done. I've been to Le Benardin like 3-4 times and the price is comparable, and I'd go back to LB right now if I were in Manhattan and had the time, but I would never go back to Blue. 

Charter Fishing:

Slackem - in Georgetown, I think they're the best we've used and their boats are solid. 

Captain Marvin's - caught virtually nothing in a half day and they were pretty indifferent about the whole excursion.

Captain Charlie - see Captain Marvin

Oh Boy Charters - see Captain Marvin

Honestly, with the charter stuff, it seems like it's a function of whether the fish are there that day or not. I'll take my boys on another charter excursion this time around, for a half day, with low expectations. I've pondered doing the reef fishing but can't bring myself to miss out on the easy offshore excursion.

Other stuff:

The stingray city/starfish point/rum's point snorkeling excursion that leaves from the Ritz is super cool and worth whatever people pay for it. 

The dolphin experience is fine once with kids but otherwise avoid. 

Georgetown is meh. 

We pretty much go to spend a nice, long weekend on the beach and seeing the kids pet stingrays. It's great for that. I can't imagine spending more than 4-5 nights down there and not getting pretty bored. 

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Loco

Loco 3752

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1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

We pretty much go to spend a nice, long weekend on the beach and seeing the kids pet stingrays. It's great for that. I can't imagine spending more than 4-5 nights down there and not getting pretty bored. 

Try spending a month there... in the 70's  /csb

 

 

 

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Brew

Brew 3049

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The Turtle Center is worth a visit if you are into that sort of thing. My wife would go even if we didn’t have the kids with us. You can snorkel in a big lagoon with a bunch of different size turtles. They also have hatchling tanks that you can get in and pick up and see smaller turtles. The extent of our time on 7MB was visit Hell, visit the Turtle Center, stop at a couple of spots on 7MB, eat at Camana Bay, and then back to the other side of the island.

How is the Kimpton? I’m a Kimpton fan and we thought about staying there for a long weekend at some point on one of our trips.

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Tailgate

Tailgate 3022

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Family is enjoying the Kimpton Seafire very much. Killer views from nice rooms and service is top notch.

The beach outside the hotel is also really nice. They have a sweet large pool but we haven’t touched it because the ocean has been so nice the last few days.

The hotel also has a Red Sail outfit on the property so you can jet ski, paddle board and even scuba right off the beach. Slipped in a nice one-tank dive yesterday on a whim which was fun.

Hit Calypso and Papagallo and both were very good. Trying to drink the island out of Caybrew and so far so good.

Will give more thoughts when I return this weekend...but to this point...exceeding expectations. Pumped about a wreck dive this afternoon.

 

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Tailgate

Tailgate 3022

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Back...obviously wish I was still there.

The Kimpton is a no brainer for me. Will book it again the next time we go. As mentioned great rooms, location and beach and staff is over the top.

For excursions I enjoyed the good local companies versus red sail. While they did a good job on my first dive the vibe of the local crews is much more laid back as red sail is probably the islands largest rec company and you just don’t feel the same.

Cayman Turtle Divers is a great group and the Kittiwake wreck dive is a must if you dive there.

I also did a private boat with Les (recommended from Bob, the pool bartender) for a half-day to stingray island which is another have to do if your there.

All the restaurants mentioned above were great. Can’t comment on hotel restaurants as we wanted to explore local places each night. Their room service breakfast and buffet are very good of what I did try.

Realize if your a history buff and want to hit museums etc...this may not be the trip...but if you want to chill out for a week this is the spot.

Dove with this guy my last day on the island.

Will be back!

22e7336ed5a7049676a2d46ba2941fae.jpg

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HouTex

HouTex 1867

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I was there with the family in late 2016 and we loved it.  Great snorkeling right off the beach.  We saw sea turtles and lobsters and tons of fish.  The only negative was driving on the wrong side of the road.  Right hand turns take getting used to.

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closetojumping

closetojumping 62738

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I just got back after a Wed-Sun stay with my wife and kids.

We stayed at the Kimpton Seafire and it was terrific. We normally stay at the Ritz, but we were able to get two rooms next each other at the Seafire for what one room would cost at the Ritz. The Ritz is a bit more kid-friendly, but they both are fine. As far as just the hotel itself, it's a high quality place to stay - super clean, good tech in the rooms, right on the water and excellent service. The beach behind it is theirs and part of 7 mile, so you can't ask for more, and the pool is nice. 

I don't scuba, so the Red Sail folks were fine for us with our requests. Stingray Island/Starfish Point/Rum Point Snorkeling trip was well done and they did with just us and another family. 

I chartered a boat for a half day of offshore fishing for me and my two oldest boys. We went with Captain Charlie's. I did some research and realized I hadn't actually used them before. I mention up thread that I had, but I was wrong. Anyway, these guys were great. They took us out away from the other offshore back and forths and got us into plenty of fish. We caught 10+ black fin tuna. We caught a big ass wahoo, which was a bunch of fun. I'd never caught one before and haven't been offshore too much in my life. This one was 30 pounds and the first one they'd seen in a month. Wahoo during season can run upwards of 180 pounds, which I can't imagine catching. This one fought a ton and the lead guy on the boat was insisting it was a shark because of its fight and it never breaching the surface. Thankfully, he was wrong. We also caught two big barracuda. One was over 5 feet. I would go with these guys every time. 

Food-wise, we took our fish that we'd caught, at least some of it, to Morgan's, and they cooked it for us. Morgan's does solid work with their seafood and they're a 5 minute taxi ride from the hotel. I don't hunt, but I've fished all my life when I get the chance, and there really is some sort of weird primal satisfaction to be had when you get to eat what you've brought in yourself. It's not a big thing, but it's an interesting psychological thing to me. It helps that extremely fresh, high quality fish is about as good as you can get when eating anything. Wahoo is an underserved fish in the US for whatever reason.

We went to the Cracked Conch and it was nice. If you sit outside, prepare to get bitten by mosquitoes. They supply Off! (away from the table) for those in need, which helped. Their conch chowder was about the best I've had of that kind of soup. They did very well with an assortment of fresh local fish.

We always go to Calypso, which I've raved about and continue to do so. It's not the nicest or finest restaurant in the world, but they do everything right and fit the island perfectly. 

We also did Pappagallo and it continues to be excellent with its Italian/Caribbean blending of dishes. 

Finally, we did the "Sunday Feast" at Bacaro, which is next to Morgan's and right near the Seafire. Given that the flight to Houston doesn't leave until 4:30, we had plenty of time, so what the hell. This place is new, but I thought it was excellent. It's also a blend of Caribbean and Italian. 

We've decided we're going somewhere different for the long beach weekend next summer, so GC will feel somewhat new again in 2020, but we had an excellent time down there, again. 

 

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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Bumping.  Posted in here about a year ago about going to the Caribbean, and here we are!

We're in St. Lucia,, this is our fucking view from the bedroom!! This is the most beautiful spot I have ever been in in my life. We're not doing anything the drinking, laying around, and... heh, "25th anniversary" (which is July 3) stuff.

Tomorrow we head to the marina for a week barefoot sail. Drunkenness expected muchly and often.

I'll post more pictures later and maybe if I'm drunk enough give an updated forecast from the Caribbean.  Well, I will be drunk enough but whether I get around to it.

Good Gawd this is beautiful.

IMG_20190629_081508250_HDR.jpg

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Brew

Brew 3049

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3 hours ago, zman13 said:

I highly recommend eating some turtle after visiting the Turtle Centre. Putting conservation into action (and your mouth).

Our kids were not amused by the fact they “farmed” turtles when we told them after we took them. It is definitely worth a visit though.

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Hollywood

Hollywood 342

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Just booked a trip for August. Seaweed seems to be less and less of an issue, so fingers crossed on that. El nino lowering chances of a hurricane, so fingers crossed on that too. Anyone been recently? Staying the Ritz, but looking for restaurant and excursion recs (fishing, sting ray city, etc. TIA and Hook em. 

image.png.4c2a2387f7b84dbf78a8d60d77cfe921.png 

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NeverMarryAStripper

NeverMarryAStripper 21907

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The Ritz in the Cayman Islands is very nice.  I've stayed there, but it's been a while.  The only thing is that the main part of the hotel is behind the part that's in the picture above and across a road.  The above picture shows the residences and the beachfront rooms.  If you're not saying in a beachfront room it's a pretty good walk through the hotel to the beach. this is a map of the hotel facilities


Conference Venues in Cayman Islands | The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman

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McCroskey

McCroskey 1504

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The Ritz in the Cayman Islands is very nice.  I've stayed there, but it's been a while.  The only thing is that the main part of the hotel is behind the part that's in the picture above and across a road.  The above picture shows the residences and the beachfront rooms.  If you're not saying in a beachfront room it's a pretty good walk through the hotel to the beach. this is a map of the hotel facilities

grandcayman_mtg_floorplan_fp_gcay_meetingsite:Classic-Hor?wid=686&fit=constrain

Have been here a few times including this past January. Going again next January.

The oceanfront tower is definitely the way to go. They did a pretty serious renovation during the pandemic which kept things updated, it needed it.

Calypso Grill is a really great waterfront restaurant on the island, maybe a 10 min cab ride from the Ritz.
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