Caymans: Dock or Tender? 3-13-04

[BeeSkip]

Hello everyone....We are counting the days to our March 13th cruise...Today was the "60" days out which allows you to reserve shore excursions. After booking one of the excursions in Cayman, I was told that this cruise would NOT be TENDERING!!!
I questioned her again and she confirmed that the March 13th cruise would not be tendering. Has anyone ever cruised to the Caymans when the ship docked? Where does it dock? Is it close to the main town or are you far from the main area in a ship yard(like Freeport)? Any information would be appreciated.

60s and counting,

Bee

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

My understanding is the Georgetown is a tender-only port for cruise ships. I don't know if they've been building a cruise-ship pier, but I have not heard about it (not that I necessarily would have, but I did hear about the new pier at St. Maarten). I'd be interested to hear if there's a new pier at Grand Cayman. I can't imagine the ship is docking anywhere else on the island, as there's a reef which runs around most of it and I would think that would preclude a large ship entering.

 

[xABearx]

We did this cruise in '02 and were tendered in, I have not heard anything about docking.......Andy

 

[WDWLVR]

There is no dock in Georgetown due to the reefs around the island. There may be plans to build one but don't think they would have had it built yet as we were there in May and it didn't look like anything was started. I would have thought we would have heard something here on the boards from recent cruisers.

Anyway to answer the second part of the question - when you tender in they drop you right in downtown and the excursions are there.

I think there are some excursions that might pick you up right at the ship - i know the Tulum excursion in Cozumel is like that. Maybe that is why they said you wouldn't have to tender.