GCM Airport upgrades

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Drew Sailbum

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Scuba Instructor
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Grand Cayman
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Projects are still underway to upgrade the Owen Roberts International Airport serving Grand Cayman. But as they go they have already opened certain areas that have been completed (or nearly so). The next time you travel to Cayman it should be a better experience.

New arrivals hall with Immigration, Baggage claim, and Customs has already been opened. They already have one large improved baggage carousel open and expect to have four more online within a couple weeks. That should make finding your bags during those peak time weekend arrivals easier.

Immigration has been expanded already but they will get a little more space as work continues. Hopefully that will limit any un-air conditioned lineup outside.

An upgraded ticketing and check in area has been open for a month or so already. The space is much nicer and not so cramped.

Work continues on the departure lounge. No specific eta as of yet, but this airport project has been pretty good about sticking to its timetable so later in 2018, hopefully in time for the start of peak season in November, is a possibility. As the last major area customers see we really want to make the departures are better with improved seating, more space, and improved retail and dining options.

Other work on office spaces, parking, and such may continue for a bit yet. But overall ORIA is becoming the better airport experience we have wanted for our guests and our residents alike.
 
We have had a few sets of visitors over the past couple of weeks arriving on different days, and in all cases they got through immigration and customs very quickly. Although this has not been a busy time of year, hopefully that's a good sign.
 
Thanks for the update. We love Grand Cayman and the sister islands but the experience at the airport on the way in and out could be brutal!

This should be a great change.
 
Thanks for the update. We have a large group coming in August so the new features will be very much welcomed.
 
The upgrades did not seem to work too well last Saturday.

Apparently the wait was two hours to get through after arrival.

Hopefully that will improve.

The last few times I have been to the Cayman Islands I have added an extra day to the trip so I arrive on a Friday instead of a Saturday. Since Friday is not a peak day we usually have a very short wait and we have an extra day of vacation!
 
These photos of last Saturday after the opening of the new arrivals section are not encouraging! But now that they have vacated the old arrivals hall, I think that they can start remodeling work in there to eventually expand the size of the final arrivals hall.

Despite new arrivals hall, hours-long wait at airport | Cayman Compass

I haven't tried it yet, but there is a Meet and Greet Service available from the airport and @mi000ke used it recently and had a good experience:

Meet and Greet Service – CEO’s Welcome
 
I just read your link about the meet & greet. The cost is just under $40 US. I think that would be well worth it if it kept you from being in a line for 2 hours.
 
I just read your link about the meet & greet. The cost is just under $40 US. I think that would be well worth it if it kept you from being in a line for 2 hours.

Island Air also offers a GCM Meet and Greet Service that costs $150 for up to 4 people:

Meet and Greet - Island Air
 
I just read your link about the meet & greet. The cost is just under $40 US. I think that would be well worth it if it kept you from being in a line for 2 hours.

We used it a couple of weeks ago. We were able to skip the long lines, and it took about 20 minutes from the time we got off the plane to when we were out on the street. It would have been even quicker, but we travel with our dog and he had to go through the dept of agriculture inspection process. It is well worth it if you will be landing at a busy time (and you are traveling with small children or a crazy dog). On the other hand, we have had three different sets of visitors since we've been down this winter (and that's another story...) and all got through the immigration and customs process in less than 30 minutes without meet and greet. So you may get lucky without it.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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