Hello friends! We just returned from our amazing trip to the Cayman Islands! Neither of us had ever been to the Caribbean before, so it was very fun to be able to experience it all for the first time together. My boyfriend Greg got asked to dj at the music festival KAABOO on Friday, so we decided to extend our trip and turn it into a little vacation. 😊

We ended up taking a red eye flight to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday night, staying there Thursday night, then flying from there to Grand Cayman for 5 days!

A few years ago I had a terrible red eye experience when I flew to Miami, landed at 5:30am and couldn’t check into my hotel room until 3pm that day. My best friend and I were stuck in our day old clothes, we were running on absolutely no sleep, and long story short - the whole thing was a nightmare. 🙈

This time around, we double checked with our Airbnb host that we could come straight to the house as soon as we landed. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale, got a quick breakfast, went to the Airbnb to sleep and by about 3pm we felt brand new again! If you are taking a red eye flight, be sure to ask your hotel or Airbnb host if you can check in earlier. If not, it will make for a very long day!

Anyways, here’s a list of some of the things we did, ate, drank and experienced during our time in Grand Cayman! 😊

Accommodations:

- Hotels on Grand Cayman are not cheap - especially those located on Seven Mile Beach. We found rooms for roughly $200 per night at Margaritaville, which was a pretty good deal in comparison to some of the other hotels. Our room was nice and the hotel was clean and had a fun tropical atmosphere! It’s also right on the beach which was the best part. It’s within walking distance to lots of great restaurants and Camana Bay is only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel!

Food/Drinks:

- Coconut Joe’s: We ended up eating here twice during our stay - it was so good! Both days we got the coconut french toast and a fresh coconut. 😍

- Pepper’s & Chicken Chicken: Both of these places claim to have the best jerk chicken in Grand Cayman. We tried both and were equally impressed with both of them!

- Waterfront Urban Diner: We had a delicious breakfast here overlooking the waterfront in Camana Bay. It was great food and an even better atmosphere!

- Alfresco’s: After spending a day snorkeling and playing with stingrays, we came here for a peaceful lunch on the beach. We ordered the catch of the day and their meat lovers pizza and both were phenomenal!

- Tortuga Rum Cakes: These are huge in Grand Cayman! You can find them all over the place and they come in lots of different flavors. The Key Lime rum cake is my favorite!

Things to do/see:

- KAABOO: This was our whole purpose of the trip! Greg got asked to dj at the music festival on Friday, but we ended up going both days. It was an amazing festival. 😍 There were some great performances by the musicians, comedians and chefs during both days of the festival. We saw Flo Rida, The Chainsmokers, Zedd, Natasha Leggero and we even watched a cooking demonstration by chef Michael Mina! The whole festival was awesome and I would highly recommend it!

- Camana Bay: This was a new, nice little shopping area near the waterfront that had some great restaurants and even a movie theater! We ended up walking to Camana Bay a few times during our stay to go to the restaurants and walk around. 😊

- Stingray City & snorkeling: This was one of my favorite parts of the trip! We booked a tour through Aquarius Tours for a 3.5 hour morning tour. The shuttle picked us up at our hotel and from there we took a boat to Stingray City, Starfish Point and a beautiful snorkeling site! It was $55 per person and honestly it was worth every penny. At Stingray City we got up close and personal with tons of stingrays and even got to kiss one! Starfish Point was okay - we only saw about 5 starfish but it was still a fun stop on the tour. 😊 Our last stop was snorkeling, which was amazing. The water was crystal clear and you could see all different varieties of fish and lots of stingrays!

Getting around:

- Use the public bus whenever you can! It’s only $2 in Cayman currency for a one way ride anywhere along the bus route. We got up and down Seven Mile Beach several times by taking the bus!

Fun facts:

- Cayman is pronounced like CayMAN 😊

- There are chickens and roosters EVERYWHERE on Grand Cayman! And yes, they wake up at the crack of dawn. We had one at our hotel that would wake us up every single morning between 3-6am. Make sure to bring some earplugs just in case. 🙈

- Getting a kiss from a stingray means you’ll have 7 years of good luck! Or at least that’s what the Caymanians like to think. 😊

Here are some photos from our trip!