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One of the ports visited on our recent Royal Caribbean cruise was Grand Cayman. This was an eagerly awaited port as 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 because it has a shallow harbour. This can be a potential problem in itself: 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 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 recovered pretty well from the effects of the hurricanes and the shopping was business as usual. There were four ships at port during the day we were there.
Grand Cayman is above average in terms of cleaniness and the attitude of the locals for a Caribbean island. It is also one of the pricier islands, though bargains can still be found, especially in liquor where there are examples of certain liquors being 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, was 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 inland, 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 spent 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 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 snorkelling 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.
| ©2005 Clint Leung. All rights reserved. |
Ooops. Oh those engineers. When they reconstructed the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas in 1980, they inadvertently created a unique ECO-TOURISM DESTINATION, and an experience not available many places in the world. The bridge was evidently the perfect roosting place for bats and now houses the largest urban bat colony in North America. Yes, not only does Texas have the Alamo, it's very batty! The largest bat colony in the world is also near San Antonio (about 60 miles from Austin).
Who knew?
A huge colony roosts under this bridge in downtown Austin, and when they egress of a summer night
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The author only once experienced the Hajj at "first hand" so to speak, although as a non-Muslim he was not allowed to enter Mecca.
The occasion was the early 1990s when doing some work for a Saudia Airlines related to the catering requirements for, on that occasion, some 1.75 million hajji, as the pilgrims are called.
My journey to Saudi Arabia was circuitous for business purposes – UK to Turkey - Istanbul, then to Ankara, then back to Istanbul before finally taking a flight to Jeddah on Saudia.""I was the only non-Hajji on board (I think) and my recollection is that it
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One of the most popular ports of call for Caribbean cruise ships
is St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. On the three
Caribbean cruises that I took so far, two of them included a
stopover in St. Thomas. On both occasions, there was a consensus
among other passengers we met that St. Thomas was one of the
nicer islands visited. Although the driving in St. Thomas is on
the left hand side, it is still U.S. territory so this Caribbean
island features many other conveniences of being American soil.
These included easy telephone connections for calls back to the
mainland, the use of U.S. currency and English
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There I was, sitting in my office, gazing through the window at the falling snow, daydreaming of warmer days. Ever so slowly, an idea began to take form.
Why not leave the cold, dreary winter behind, and head for warmer climes. But where would I go? The southern hemisphere seemed a good option, but I immediately realized that I had to narrow it down a bit, or I might have a problem getting an airplane ticket. A quick internet airline check and I reached a brilliant decision.
I called my wife and told her to pack us a couple of bags and
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Here's a trip that James Bond wouldn't have the time for. But if you do, your Bond girl will never forget it. "She'll be catching her breath for six months."
Start in Orlando for a few days at DisneyWorld and get a hotel near "Downtown Disney" or at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Then take AmTrak from there overnight to Philadelphia.
From the Philadelphia train station rent a car (with a
navigational system) and drive to Atlantic City to sea the
boardwalk, the Atlantic and gamble a little. There's not too
much else to do besides gamble and eat, so after
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