Grand Cayman vacation review - Part 2

Days 9-12: Sunshine Suites Resort, Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman

Friday we packed up all our things and moved across the island to meet up with the dive club we were diving with at Sunshine Suites. The first thing that you notice when you get closer to the west side of Grand Cayman is the ridiculous traffic. Truly unbearable for people who are trying to get away from it on vacation. We found the "resort" easily enough. It is actually down a block and across a very, very busy streen from Seven Mile Beach. I was completely unimpressed by Seven Mile Beach itself - it looked like Miami Beach, replete with water bikes, jet skis, and all other sorts of watersports junk. Not my cup of tea at all, frankly, but I know that it suits other much more. Different strokes for different folks.

Our room was a first floor unit with a queen bed, regular-sized fridge, microwave, and stovetop (two burners). There was no balcony or private patio, which became a huge issue. This place caters to divers, I believe, and without a patio or balcony you don't have anywhere to hang/leave your stuff to dry. Everything we had was more or less constantly wet, which was really annoying and after a couple of days, really stinky. On our last full day we found the rinse tanks and storage room where divers could leave their gear to dry, but even that was pretty inadequate. Not pleased with that at all.

This part of our vacation was nothing but dive, dive, dive. Similar to the beginning of our vacation, there was never enough time to wind down from the activities of the day. In hindsight, we are not really "crazy divers" and a two-tank morning dive for two or three days over a vacation would probably be plenty for us in the future. The best past of being with the dive club was absolutely the social aspect. I really had an awful lot of fun with the people we met, and after being together 24/7 for the past 9 days, I am sure that DH and I appreciated having someone else to talk to besides each other.

We dove with Divers Down, and sadly it really wasn't optimal. They advertise that they don't usually dive with more than 8 divers at a time, but we always had at least 11 divers aboard (likely because we were on this organized trip that things were done differently). It was pretty crowded and overwhelming at times for the divemasters I think. Our first dive was a complete mess (unexpectedly strong current, divemaster who didn't read the crowd well, etc) but subsequent dives were better. There were just a lot of them. The most disappointing thing for me, I think, is that we rarely saw anything different than what we saw snorkeling, in terms of sealife. Oh well.

Our flights down and back were fairly uneventful - with Miami Airport causing the most stress with their out of control construction and confusing signage and whatnot. We spent way more than we anticipated spending, and never felt like we got a good value for our money. Food was ridiculously expensive at restaurants on both Grand Cayman and Captiva, and not good enough to command those prices. We almost always come back from vacation feeling like we need another vacation, but this time, for me at least, that feeling is especially strong. Unfortunately, it looks like mini-weekend retreats are all that we'll be able to afford for a while! C'est la vie. We have a deck to finish, a new car to pay for, and credit card bills that will haunt us until September!

I don't want to end this on a down note, so I will say that when we were having time to relax, it was nice. I read "To Kill a Mockingbirg" for the first time in one afternoon sitting on a comfortable beach chair at The Reef Resort's beach. We did meet some very funny, interesting, and friendly folks diving that made the time diving very fun. We did learn some skills and get credentials that will allow us to take vacations in the future that interest us. Most important of all, DH and I left work behind for 12 days and spent time together doing stuff we love, and all our memories - good and bad - will make great anecdotes to tell over and over again!