Grand Cayman Island

After getting a blizzard dumped on us last April (2018) we decided to book a tropical trip for winter in 2019. We landed on Grand Cayman based on award availability (three round-trip tickets for 105,000 points?! YES PLEASE!).

However, we had some hiccups getting there. The day before we were scheduled to fly out of our local airport, that is only eight miles from our house, we got an alert from United letting us know our flight from Appleton, WI to Chicago, IL had been canceled due an impending snow storm. After a few rebooking attempts and those getting cancelled too we just decided to drive to Chicago. We tried our hardest to wrap things up at work, at the house and get the kid from daycare and the dog to the boarding facility within a few hours. We were on the road by 3pm and in Chicago by 6pm. We stayed the night in a hotel close to the airport and had no issues with our flight to Grand Cayman.

The flight was smooth and short, but customs was a hot mess. Luckily for us we had a kid and they pushed us to the front, sorry folks! Once we waited in all the lines for customs and the car rental we were driving on the left and heading to our hotel. We stayed at the Marriott with points, which was good because I would have been disappointed if I had paid full price for that room.

Cayman Sunsets

Our trip was relaxing and unscheduled, we didn’t have much planned with a 3.5-year-old in tow. We slept in everyday and did a lot of beach sitting and sandcastle building. We played in the ocean and the pool. We did visit Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park to see the blue iguanas and we took Sea View Rd to see the blowholes (and we learned that most are blocked with debris from past hurricanes). We took advantage of all the activities the hotel had to offer for her age and just relaxed. The two activities we did have planned were a boat trip to snorkel, Sting Ray Island and Starfish Point and the other was a night boat ride to Grand Cayman’s bioluminescent bay.

Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park

Sting Ray Island is a shallow sandbar that is famous for its attention seeking sting rays. They all seem pretty friendly, swimming around your feet and letting you give them a “hug”. I was so proud of our daughter for staying in the water with them! Then we headed to Starfish Point. I thought it was really cool, I have never seen starfish in warm water that I could pick up and feel.

Stingray City & Starfish Point

Later in the day we boarded another boat to head to the Bioluminescent Bay. This was pretty cool and so hard to capture on camera. But the small microorganisms glow blue when they are disturbed. So, when you jump in the water, they glow. You could swim with them if you wanted but I opted to stay aboard with our daughter. The tour guides did fill a bucket for the kids to play with and see the glow or sparkle, which was really nice of them. The only time I could capture a picture was when they started the boat engines up. It was really cool and I highly recommend it!

We were not looking forward to the weather that awaited us back in Wisconsin, hello wind chill -55 degrees Fahrenheit! But we were glad we took it and thought it was worth the points!