I'm so confused

[fchoppa]

I am so confused about this port. We will be at Grand Caymen from 7:00am till 2:00pm. Does this mean we dock at 7 and the ship sails at 2? I am getting worried we won't have time to do anything. I have been reading that tendering at this port the water is rough and some people are not getting off the boat till 11? Does that sound possible? if it is true we need to be back on the ship at 1 right? 1 hour before sailing. If all this is true then we would have only 2 hours at port. This does not sound possible.

 

As I said I am really confused and would LOVE any and all insight into this. If it help we are sailing the Inspiration next year.

 

Thanks

[camperhawk]

That is a limited amount of time ! Call or e-mail Soto's to see what they can do for you!

[camperhawk]

http://sotoscruises.com/info/trips.shtml

 

 

Hope this helps , we had a great time doing the stingrays with this company, but Grand Cayman is becoming my least favorite port of call, because of tendering,weather and horribly inflated high prices!

[cruise_dad]

The tendering is horrible. We were there two weeks ago and I have to say this was the worst experience of our whole cruise. Our ship - Costa Magica - used the lifeboats to get us to shore. The water was so rough some people got seasick. There were seven ships trying to unload people. If you can get to the pier early you might have a good time at Stingray City before all of the other boats get there. Our trip took about three hours total. It might not be so bad to be there early.

[Bailey969]

I was there Friday - tendering was a breeze - calmest waters I've experienced yet. It's really a roll of the dice at how choppy the waters will be. Luckily we were the ONLY ship in port that day - incredible. That doesn't happen that often as they could have up to 7 boats in port n any given day. We lucked out!! Streets were comfortable to walk, transportation was quick... beautiful weather. And best - no jellyfish in the waters. :)

 

I had much choppier water on the boat from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen. Terrible ride.

[Host Star]

with limited time like that I would book one of the ship's excursions.. the ship will wait for you if their excursion is late returning and also the ship's excursions get the tenders first

[jmo1]

I was at GC last October on the Inspiration. There was plenty of time to enjoy the island. We got one of the early tenders at about 7:30 with no waiting. We had booked a Stingray City Snorkel tour with Captain Marvin (highly recommend) http://www.captainmarvins.com/

If you are at Grand Cayman during daylight savings time in the US, you will be at GC from 6:00 to 1:00 local time. This enabled us to do Captain Marvin's short excursion from 8:30 to 10:30 that goes to the Stingray City sandbar and one other snorkel stop. The check-in time is NLT 8:00 local time (9:00 ship time). We had time after the tour to do some shopping in Georgetown near the tender docks.

 

Don't book a ship excursion. They are over priced and over crowded. Getting a tender is no problem. Captain Marvin limits their boats to about 25 people. They are awesome.:D

 

I love Grand Cayman. It is one of my favorite ports of call. :cool: Tendering is not the hassle that many posters here have made it out to be. I have been there three times, and never had a problem.

[fchoppa]

Thank you everyone for your advice! I'm not sure which tour I am going to do but I am more at ease about the port. :)

[indie]

I just got off the inspiration. if you are doing stingray city with a private company, make sure you contact them to make sure they have a time that will correspond with your ship. You need to be back at 1:00 ship time to catch the last tenders.

 

7am-2pm means that you probably will need to catch and early tender out. Island time was an hour behind ship time. We booked with moby dick tours and had a blast. We were to meet them at 7:30 am GC time (8:30 ship time) so we went to the purses desk the night before and they told us to go down at 7:45 to catch the tender.

 

We got on after about a 15 minute wait, and arrived on the island at about 8:30 ship time.

 

The tender in our case wasnt difficult at all. We left at 9:30 ship time (8:30 GC time) and were back a bit after 1. When we got back to the tender landing, tenders were still running and we were in line for about 20-30 minutes.

 

We didnt have time to do much else other than the stingray city/ snorkle tour...but it was definitely worth it!

[twinkletoes4445]

with limited time like that I would book one of the ship's excursions.. the ship will wait for you if their excursion is late returning and also the ship's excursions get the tenders first

 

I'm with you...I'd also do the ship excursion.

 

We really like to do our own thing, especially in Grand Cayman where it's so safe, but with such a limited time, I'd do a ship excursion.

[Smileeface]

I just got off the inspiration. if you are doing stingray city with a private company, make sure you contact them to make sure they have a time that will correspond with your ship. You need to be back at 1:00 ship time to catch the last tenders.

 

7am-2pm means that you probably will need to catch and early tender out. Island time was an hour behind ship time. We booked with moby dick tours and had a blast. We were to meet them at 7:30 am GC time (8:30 ship time) so we went to the purses desk the night before and they told us to go down at 7:45 to catch the tender.

 

We got on after about a 15 minute wait, and arrived on the island at about 8:30 ship time.

 

The tender in our case wasnt difficult at all. We left at 9:30 ship time (8:30 GC time) and were back a bit after 1. When we got back to the tender landing, tenders were still running and we were in line for about 20-30 minutes.

 

We didnt have time to do much else other than the stingray city/ snorkle tour...but it was definitely worth it!

 

 

Hi Indie. If we are docking at 8:00am with 3 other ships there and leaving at 4:00pm (all this being "advertised" time)...Do you think we could be on the pier by 8:45am to make it to Moby Dick's 9:30am tour?

[atlanta cruiser]

We had booked a Stingray City Snorkel tour with Captain Marvin (highly recommend) http://www.captainmarvins.com/

If you are at Grand Cayman during daylight savings time in the US, you will be at GC from 6:00 to 1:00 local time. This enabled us to do Captain Marvin's short excursion from 8:30 to 10:30 that goes to the Stingray City sandbar and one other snorkel stop. The check-in time is NLT 8:00 local time (9:00 ship time). We had time after the tour to do some shopping in Georgetown near the tender docks.

 

Thanks so much for this bit of info!

I had used captain marvins when I went a few years ago, and planned on doing so again next week. I emailed today to make sure if we booked the 10am -1pm trip that we would make it back in time (inspiration is there from 7am-2pm SHIP TIME), and Joan from Captain Marvin emailed me back saying there was a time difference between Ship Time and GC local time and I would only be able to do the 8:30am one.

Its nice to see confirmation of that from someone here on the boards!

[bstman]

I hope your tendering goes like some other posters have stated. We were on Inspiration in Feb and it was horrible. This was the worst part of our cruise. They would not let us off the ship without a carnival excursion ticket in our hand. They were only letting off the people who had early carnival excursions booked off first. There were people EVERYWHERE-they kept announcing for people not to go down to the debarkation area unless you had an excursion ticket. It took us over an hour to get off the ship. Then to get back on the ship was worse. We arrived back to tender pier about 30 minutes before last tender and stood in a long line in the sun for over an hour. The ship was late leaving. Of course there was about 7 large ships there that day. The water was not too rough. I hope yours goes much smoother. It made me dread going back there!

[lizardhowson]

Hi Indie. If we are docking at 8:00am with 3 other ships there and leaving at 4:00pm (all this being "advertised" time)...Do you think we could be on the pier by 8:45am to make it to Moby Dick's 9:30am tour?

 

There is no dock.

 

Your ship will sit off shore and tenders will transfer groups of people from the ship to shore.

 

Getting onshore by 8:45 will be unusual. Just remember, these excursion vendors make their living off the cruise ships. They understand it is a tender port and sometimes folks are delayed getting off the ship.

 

In almost every case, they will wait for you ! They want your $$$

 

Just relax and enjoy your cruise. Most people stress over getting off the ship way to much.

 

It is more likely you will have to wait for other cruisers who are late getting ashore. That has always be our experience in Grand Cayman.

[shellhunter]

I was just there last week on Carnival Legend. No problem with tenders - we got on an early one, and we were ashore by 7:45. We had arranged to rent a car, so Avis picked us up at 8, took us to their office, and we were driving away by 8:30. We went to Rum Point and a few other places, and had a leisurely lunch at the Lighthouse. We had to be back at our ship at 3:00 for a 4:00 sailing, which we did with no problem. Here are some photos of Rum Point - a breathtakingly beautiful place to go snorkeling or enjoy the beach:

 

[Eliot Ness]

I was just there last week on Carnival Legend. No problem with tenders - we got on an early one, and we were ashore by 7:45. We had arranged to rent a car, so Avis picked us up at 8, took us to their office, and we were driving away by 8:30. We went to Rum Point and a few other places, and had a leisurely lunch at the Lighthouse. We had to be back at our ship at 3:00 for a 4:00 sailing, which we did with no problem. Here are some photos of Rum Point - a breathtakingly beautiful place to go snorkeling or enjoy the beach:.........

Trish, I'm almost ready to rent a car for the day on GC and head to Rum Point. Since we'll also be on the Legend I have a few questions if you don't mind.

 

1. Is the ship time the same as GC time? I think the ship will be an hour ahead of GC time, so are the times you reference GC or ship time?

 

2. Did you have any problems getting an early tender? Did you just go through the normal process to get a tender ticket?

 

3. Did you happen to go to the area close to Rum Point and see the starfish? That is one thing I'd really like to see.

 

Thanks,

 

John

[shellhunter]

John,

The times I mentioned were ship time - I think GC is an hour or so behind; I just stayed on ship time.

On the Legend, you don't need a tender ticket, you just proceed downstairs to Deck A (there are signs in the hallway telling you how to get off the ship) - sometimes there is a line for a few minutes, but they have tenders constantly pulling up to the ship early in the morning, so you get on one within 5-10 minutes.

 

I don't have a link - do a search using Grand Cayman car rental and you will get a list. It took them a day or 2 to respond to our email request.

 

We returned the car at about 2:30 which was cutting it close, because the rental office is at the airport, and then they take you in a van (about 10 minutes) to the tender dock. They say the last tender leaves the dock at 3:00 for a 4:00 sailing (eastern time), but I think the tenders were still coming in at 3:30 - probably from ship excursions. But it's best to be at the tender dock by 3 at the latest.

[shellhunter]

John,

About the starfish - I'm not sure what you mean. I did see a few starfish while I was snorkeling there, but not anything extraordinary. I hadn't heard about this but it is possible. We would have gone further out to the reef if we had gotten there earlier, but we had made about 3 stops on other beaches before this, and a little thunderstorm was kicking up.

[Eliot Ness]

John,

About the starfish - I'm not sure what you mean. ......

Trish, I found an older post that mentioned Finger Cay, about a mile past Rum Point, where they saw a lot of starfish...... it sounded pretty interesting:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=3734233&postcount=14

 

That post has a link to a map where the starfish are (or were) located:

 

http://caymanislandsdiscounts.com/Rum_PointSnorkeling.jpg

 

Thanks for all the info, it has helped a lot! I found a link to Avis in GC so we should be all set.

 

One more question, did Avis provide you with a adequate map or should we order on on-line?

 

Thanks,

 

John

[Melismass]

I rented a Jeep and drove to Rum Point in Sept 2006. There a few things you should know. First of all the airport is a bit of a drive from the port. You will have to get a taxi. The rental company (Avis) says to call from the Blue Iguana and they will send a shuttle, but when we got off the ship it was so early in the morning the Blue Iguana is not even open, actually nothing is open and there is really no one around. So, we found a cab on our own and got to Avis fine. They will give you a map, but you will be driving on the other side of the road and there are "roundabouts that can be confusing. I always felt worried about the time and going the wrong way. We kept stopping to make sure we were going the right direction. AND, the island has rush hour traffic at that time of the morning, although it going the opposite direction. So we got to Rum Point without too much trouble, but when we got there we were the only people there. They were just opening and we felt like we were too early. I will tell you that the snorkeling is not good, there is absolutely nothing to see. This is a beautiful beach for sure! If all you care about is lounging you will love it. The grill does not even open till early afternoon. As for the starfish beach, I was aware of it and had planned to go there, but I just worried most of the short time we had there about getting back to the ship on time. You have to take the car back to the airport then wait for a shuttle to take you back to the port. There are alot of unknowns and it was too stressful to really enjoy the day. I am very travel savvy and did OK, I think most people would have a difficult time with this whole excursion. As for me, I am going to stay closer to the port next time. I understand Seven Mile Beach is just as beautifu, the snorkeling is way, way, better and there is less chance of not getting back to the ship on time. (Just my opinion!)

[mamamo65]

We just returned from the Inspiration. I was concerned about all I had heard about tendering. We had booked Stingray City with Capt Marvin's. I made sure we were on the first tender that was boarding aft for the people not doing Carnival excursions. No problems getting on or off. We actually had to wait for Capt Marvin's to open since ship time is an hour ahead at this time of the year. Coming back we spent a short time shopping on our way back to the tender dock, got in the really long line that was moving pretty fast and were back on the ship without any worries. Of course, it was a beautiful day and there were only 2 cruise ships in the harbour.