So this was the last 2019 trip! You might be wondering how on earth a teacher affords all this! Well, almost all of these flights were free with my Sidekicks companion pass on Southwest and she had accumulated enough points from that perk (a credit card offer) to basically make almost all the flights expenses during this year for damn near nothing! Hotels/Airbnbs and rental cars were a different story, but we managed to do most of all of that on the cheap, especially splitting between 2 people.
I usually go to Indiana for Christmas, but I had been there just 3 weeks prior so we found one last flight to the Caymans that fit the free flight bill! So other than a brief visit to Niagara falls 15 years ago and a day in the Bahamas from a cruise, this is the first time I have been out of the US!
So, there is a conversion rate problem here and things are kind of expensive. That being said, we found a hotel, Sunshine Suites Resort, right across the street from the beach hotels that was decent and about the cheapest we could find. The good news is it was a sister hotel to the resort across the street so we were allowed to use that hotels amenities. That was a great perk! Other than lounging on the gorgeous beach the entire time we did do a couple other things! We got on boat and went to a place called Stingray City. It was not without some trevails. The boat broke down a bit and it was a little weird…but we got to Stingray City and it was pretty cool! My friend was a chicken and wouldn’t get off of the boat! Afterward the boat took us to a snorkeling spot to do that for a bit. Later on in the trip we took another boat up to the northern part of the island and did a nighttime kayak trip through waters that had a bioluminescent plankton (the videos and pictures did not come out well).
It was a short trip but was a lot of fun and was a new out of the US experience for me!
Overall impressions: Pros: Gorgeous water. Super friendly people. Neat things to do. It is pretty close to home! Cons: Exchange rate stinks. And I think we were the poorest tourists there. You will spend money quickly here.
The Adventurer Final Word:
4 stars! Really awesome place but be prepared to open your wallet, which cost a star for me!
The Parks Adventurer 