Grand Cayman

[anngie]

Is the stop at Grand Cayman always a tender situation? I thought that I had read that Grand Cayman had a dock under construction last year.

[alprice]

I have only seen tenders, then again, I have not been there in over a year so maybe by now they have a dock. The water is so shallow there though.

[Esme]

GC is a tender port for all cruise lines. No dock under construction when we were there recently.

I don't think they can build a dock there because of the coral reef and also because it would be environmentally protected.

You are not thinking of St. Maarten are you? They now have docking facilities, whereas for years we had to tender.

[Krazy Kruizers]

:)

In Grand Cayman, all ships are have to tender because of the coral reef that is in an environmentally protected area. Doubt if they will ever build a pier there - not even on the other side of the island. You will tender about 3 miles to shore.

St Maarten does have a new pier - I think it was completed about 1 - 1 1/2 years ago. It is very nice compared to the old one that was destroyed in a hurricane. It can actually hold 4 nice size cruise ships.

:)

[cruzinchar]

We own a timeshare in Grand Cayman and have spent two weeks there every year for twenty years. Unfortunately, they are talking quite seriously about building a cruise ship dock there, which will allow them to bring even more cruise ships per day into Cayman. Most people are not too happy about this prospect. It used to be that there were never more than three or at the most four ships in a day, but now you sometimes see seven. Now they're talking about bringing in something like ten ships a day if they get a dock. Wow! You wouldn't even be able to walk downtown and the tours would be so crowded it wouldn't even be fun. That's too many! Two years ago they were talking about putting the dock on the South side, but last February I think they were talking about a way to put it in the harbor. Of course, they would have to do a ton of dredging to make this possible. Anyway, things move slowly in the Caymans. Nothing happens quickly. No dock yet.

[anngie]

Thanks, cruzinchar, I did not think that I dreamed it. I read it in Cruise News somewhere. I would be unhappy about it too if I had a timeshare there. If you read the newspapers from Key West you will see that the residents are not happy campers at all about the number of cruise ships that visit there now.
It is hard to walk sometimes on Duval St and the amount of money that cruisers spend in KW is not that much.