bookbabe

Most car rentals are at the airport. Andy’s has a Seven Mile Beach location, and I think there used to be one other local company that had a spot downtown, but I don’t know if that one survived the lockdown. The airport is easy enough to get to by taxi, or you could check if your favourite international chain has a port pickup option. As for what to do, a car rental is most useful if you want to explore the further parts of the island from the port. I don’t recommend it for things like Seven Mile Beach, Hell or the turtle farm, that’s much easier by taxi or bus. What types of things were you interested in seeing? Party makeup? A little more detail will help guide my responses, please.

We also did this cruise in December. Our excursions (prices in Cdn $) are screenshotted below. Best was the chocolate making, closely followed by the river tubing. Those were both great. Worst was the St Martin included tour, mostly because of the guide, that’s 2.5 hrs of my life I’m never getting back. The St Thomas included is pretty much an excuse to drag you by souvenir shopping spots, depends if you like that or not. Antigua was good, but mostly because we had a great guide.

Depends on when you travel and what time your departure port is on. Cayman does EST year round, they don’t do daylight savings. Taxi app claims $30 US each way for 1-4 passengers.

If you start one, post here that it’s up and running so I can join it. 😉

@gnome12 is correct, I still have a way to go before any Egypt trips. Just hoping the process will still be online by the spring, a consulate visit is not easily doable from my new residence, and I really don’t want to have to mail my passport off for an extended period since we have other trips booked we’d need it for. Living on a tropical island instead of a big city like Toronto has a few unexpected issues, as we’ve found. 😉

Here’s a screenshot of the email Viking sent me on Friday. FWIW, I haven’t received any updated info from Adventures by Disney, and we are travelling to Egypt as part of a trip with them in June 2024, and our Viking cruise isn’t until March 2025. I’m anticipating the rules will change a few more times before we travel. It is what it is.

You can also skip the credit card part of checkin entirely and give a credit card in person at the ship. We have to do that for our cruise next week, since all of the payment info defaults to Canada and we’ve moved since booking but there is no way to change the default country. Just calling in to make payments and to give a credit card at the ship was the only solution offered by our PCC in consultation with his supervisor.

Viking has indicated that E-Visas are fine, it’s just the Visa On Arrival that we can no longer do. https://visa2egypt.gov.eg/eVisa/Home?VISTK=DQ9J-L9UW-OSR4-EZTV-46FX-LD4C-Z43U-I8IS-K497-8PU3-EOWX-UCXO-89WU-S2GV-ZSF4-D0Y6

Not a lot of options https://caymanresident.com/things-to-do/sports-fitness/golf

^^this^^ I can tell that none of the people dragging along coffee makers of whatever size had careers in teaching or nursing. When you’ve gotten used to drinking cold or (if lucky) reheated-for-the-third-time-in-the-staff-room-microwave coffee, even the buffet coffee on a cruise ship will be just fine…

Today is day 13 from the start of our official pre-extension, and we leave home in 10 days. We have received none of the items. It is what it is. Part of that is likely because we’ve moved countries since booking, and while we changed our address with Viking the mailed portions are likely taking longer to catch up. And we can’t do the whole of Comfort Checkin because our credit cards now have a different country for the address than the original booking, and there is no way to change that. (As a side note for anyone interested, both ACH and onboard credit card options on MVJ will forever default to the original country of booking, you will only ever be able to make final payments by wire transfer or over the phone with an agent.) However, Viking isn’t worried, and neither are we. They have our flight info and will meet us at the airport before the pre-extension. They’ll deal with luggage tags at the port when we eventually get there, and they said just go to Guest Services when you board to give them a credit card to use onboard. As long as you know when and where to board your plane, and where to go when you arrive, and your passport, essential meds and credit cards are in your pocket or carryon, everything else can be easily dealt with along the way.

However…if you look, the “room service from specialty restaurants” has disappeared from the suite descriptions on the website, at least for the ones I’ve checked, and in fact for Grandeur there’s no room service listing at all in the amenities. Hoping it’s an IT glitch, but I can’t get more than an “I haven’t heard of any changes” from my PCC.

Congrats to those with Viking WC bookings. Sadly, since Viking has been slow out of the gate to announce the December 2025/January 2026 WC offering, DH booked us on the Regent WC for January 2026. Not what we’d planned, but a great itinerary so we needed to jump fast to get our preferred suite. Sigh. Why, oh, why, Viking, are you so slow?

Maybe try posting in the roll call for the cruise right before yours? Although who knows how long it’s been there. Nice of you to turn it in.

After reading all of this, I’m kind of glad we booked a suite that included unlimited specialty dining reservations and I’m not planning to make any in advance. Hopefully onboard it will go as smoothly as I’ve read. My only dining worry is room service. When we booked, room service from the specialty restaurants was a listed benefit, and one of the reasons we booked that suite for both our test cruise this fall and the 2026 WC. That benefit has now disappeared from the cabin description, and my PCC assures me that it’s just an IT glitch, that nothing has changed. Here’s hoping he’s correct. From the sounds of it, the IT situation is chaotic enough that it wouldn’t be surprising. Good luck to all of you making reservations! Hope it goes as planned and not as expected. 😉

Not sure about stores, but many of the restaurants that serve breakfast will be open. I’d try Waffle Monkey - https://wafflemonkey.net - they open at 7am, so will be likely open by the time you can get there. Bread and Chocolate - http://www.cafe.ky - is good, but they don’t open until 8am. There’s a few other breakfast spots that might be open - https://www.caymangoodtaste.com/best-of-cayman/the-best-breakfast-spots-in-grand-cayman - look for ones in George Town and then look at the map to see how close to the port it is to see if it’s feasible.

What do you mean by good? Cheap? Tasty? Local food? Fine dining? Trendy? Vegan? And how far from the port are you willing to venture? Walking distance only? Taxi? Bus? A good website to help you narrow down the options is Cayman Good Taste. https://www.caymangoodtaste.com/restaurants

Contact Viking asap. We're also on that cruise and pre-stay, and there's a number of tender ports (plus the train as a PP mentioned) that might make wheelchair use problematic.

A friend's nephew is still missing after the fire. May have been on a yellow motorcycle. Additional info has been posted to the Maui People Finder FB group. Anyone with news please contact me and I'll pass the info along back through the chain. Thanks

Ack. Almost all of the ES2 cabins have been reclassified as ES1, including my fav deck 5 ones. I'm assuming that will mean they will be charging more for them. Boo.

The map on NCL's website shows you what's on the island... https://www.ncl.com/freestyle-cruise/great-stirrup-cay And this GSC thread has all sorts of useful info... https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2706578-everything-great-stirrup-cay-silver-cove-villas-lagoon-spa-etc/

If I booked my mom her cruise in April 2023 and got the premier package then, which does she have, the old or the new? I don't have an invoice showing the pricing breakdown, just a total, so I can't remember if it was $75 or $80. Just trying to figure out if I need to call and pay to "upgrade" or not. Don't want her to have any extra charges onboard. Thanks.

Gaming store? Would you remember some more details? Location or name? And what type of stuff did they have? I might actually get DH to agree to spend the afternoon shopping if I can add a good gaming store to the itinerary... 😉

On our last cruise, Mexican night at the WC featured quesadillas made using puffy naan bread and a teeny tiny scattering of cheddar cheese.

As someone with allergies, I’d also note that the ingredients cards above the WC items weren’t always correct, so use your common sense, personal experience and food knowledge to exercise safe judgment about what to eat and/or when to verify things with a chef.