Need advice

[Alain]

Hi!
My wife and I will be visiting Grand Cayman at the beginning of July. We plan on staying for 2 weeks (it's our 10th wedding anniversary trip!) For one of our weeks, we will be staying at the "Grand Caymanian Golf Resort" located on North Sound. The on-site dive operation is "Cayman Divers Ltd" which was recently opened by Don Foster. My wife and I have very little diving experience and have never been to the Cayman Islands. Can anyone recommend "Cayman Divers Ltd" or should we be looking for another dive operation? Any other advice that will help make our trip an awesome experience would be greatly appreciated.

NB - Our diving trips will be very expensive since we also have to rent some equipment and the Canadian exchange rate is a killer. We read some of the comments on the forum concerning tipping. How much should we be tipping and exactly who do we tip?

 

[joewr]

Alain,

I should warn you that I am probably considered politically incorrect when it comes to the Caymans because my experience there did not meet with my expectations or others' experiences; hence, I usually preface any comments on the Caymans with the old Latin phrase the gladiators murmured prior to entering the arena: "Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant!" (Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!")

Cannot comment on the dive shop you mentioned--send and e-mail to Caymancase, a Cayman resident. She can probably give you guidance. You can e-mail here from this web site by hitting the Members icon and then chosing the advanced search to get her profile and e-mail icon.

Frequently the crew of a boat will have a little "jar" out and indicate that it is the tip jar. I have seen a lot of crews use one of those coke can coolers in the form of a shark for their tip jars. If that is avaiable, avail yourself of it. If not, you can give your tip to your dive master or captain; no matter to whom the tip is given, the crew will share it--or risk major league problems, I suspect.

The size of the tip is where there may be some disagreement, I suspect. I have noted that a waitress/cook combo in a restaurant get 10-20%, depending on the generousity of the patron and the quality of the service. Shouldn't a DM/boat captain be treated equally? Soooooo, if a two-tank morning dive costs ca. $70 per person, by my lights the tip should be ca. $7-14. $7 for minimal service and $14 for above and beyond the call. But there are other factors such as your budget, the exchange rate for Canucks, etc. Just remember how much more fun you have when the DM is knowledgeable and enthusiastic--and leads you the sea life that is awesome. Also remember that the skill of the captain gets you to the dive site faster, leads you to getting picked up more speedily on drift dives, etc.

Hope this helps................enjoy!

Joewr

 

[Alain]

Hey Joewr!

Thanks a bunch. Your advice will help a lot.

By the way, the first time we read some of the posts in the forum, we read your comments about your experience on Grand Cayman. We were impressed with your candid comments. It encouraged us to post our questions in this forum knowing that we would be talking with people who weren't trying to sell us something...

Thanks again!