We just cruised Oct 7-14, and while on Grand Cayman we went by cab to Sea Grape. I highly recommend it. There were only two other ships there that day, but I don't think Sea Grape/Public would be terribly crowded even with more ships.
It was easy to get to Sea Grape Beach Club. It is on Seven Mile Beach, and is about a five minute drive from where the tender docks. We got off the tender, walked up a ramp, and there were cab drivers everywhere, waiting for us. We picked a cab driver, and he took us and two other families to his cab, really a small bus. One of the other families wanted to go to the Royal Palms Beach Club, another club on Seven Mile Beach, and the other two of us wanted to go to Sea Grape. The cab driver told us it would be $4/person each way to Royal Palms, but $5/person for Sea Grape, since it is farther away. Once he had dropped the first family off at Royal Palms, he turned to us and said Youll like Sea Grape, not as crowded as Royal Palms! Sea Grape has chairs and umbrellas for rent, clean bathrooms, an outdoor shower, and a bar/restaurant with decent food. There are tents where you can rent snorkel equipment, and go parasailing, etc. They have some covered picnic areas where you can sit to eat, and a waitress serves you at your table. I think it was about $25 for two entrees (a cheeseburger and fries and chicken fingers, slaw, and fries) that we all split. I had brought water bottles in my bag. Sea Grape is part of Seven Mile Beach. All of Seven Mile Beach is public, and you can go to any part of it. The only differences are the availability of restrooms, restaurants, and rentals. Right next to Sea Grape is a place called Public Beach and we walked over there after lunch. It has a couple of covered picnic tables, and a restroom that I didnt check out. We liked the beach there because it had a flatter place to play in the waves. The hurricane last year really eroded a lot of Seven Mile Beach and made parts of it steeper than they used to be. Public Beach also has a playground near some trees, which DD and DH enjoyed while DS and I swam. If I had it to do over again, I would have packed enough towels to have some to sit on, and we would have skipped the chair rental, but done the rest the same way. The
DCL excursion Seven Mile Beach Break is identical to what we did, but costs more. The excursion would have cost $36/adult and $26 per child (Total of $124), and all we paid was $5 per person for a cab each way, and $21 total for two beach chairs and an umbrella (Total of $61). The excursion gets you one free drink ticket, and so figure if that would be worth $3 per person, were still ahead by $50 for the exact same experience. We got there at about the same time as the excursion people, and left at about the same time. But while the excursion people were standing in a line for their bus to show up, we walked out to the street and immediately got in a cab and went back to the tender! We had a great day.
Hope this helps! Enjoy every second of your cruise. Wish I were back on the ship!
