otis
Registered
Planning a trip to Grand Caymans in Feb, 2006....staying at Morritts Tortuga..any info on condition of resort due to hurricane damage?
Info on Morrittts Tortuga in Grand Caymans
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Sure, I work at the dive op there. What, specifically, do you want to know?
OP
otis
Registered
I had heard reports that the indoor dining room was not in use yet. That just made me wonder if other parts of resort were damaged, i.e. the pool, hot water, ac...??
Wasn't much that wasn't damaged. Seriously damaged. Moses-bringing-in-the-plagues-of-Egypt kind of damage. However most of it has been all fixed up by now, save for complete reconstruction of a couple buildings.
Not sure how familiar you are with the resort. Is it your first visit via an RCI Exchange?
Pools
The three large pools are back to the pre-storm state. Additionally, I almost hesitate to call them pools, but there were tiny pools (or think of them as large jacuzzis with no heat or jets
) just outside the two Morritt's Grand buildings. These two "pools" were rarely utilized and were destroyed in the hurricane. They have not been replaced.A/C
Up and running, no problem. The resort has individual Carrier a/c units for each unit, and seems like pretty much all of them were swapped out for new.
Hot water
Takin' it to extremes, eh? Yup. There is hot water. I can't say I've entered anyone's room for a hot shower, but I'm sure we would be hearing people screaming if it wasn't working! Can say that there is hot water in the public restrooms.
Restaurant
The old restaurant is not yet open. They have been serving lunches pool-side. Our staff dining area is the same as always, and can't say I've hung around looking for dinner yet, so I can say that all of my
food needs are being met. All of the units do have in-room kitchen facilities (pretty decent) and most guests buy groceries and do some cooking on their own. There are a few barbecue grills at various sites around the resort for grilling out. Dive Shop
Well, the old shop was in a building that isn't there anymore. Dive operations are conducted out of former office space in a different building on the resort grounds.
Dock
It certainly was a scenic dock. As of right now, there is no dock. We were promised that reconstruction would have begun on Jan 6 (to be completed by May 1), but no visible signs of movement yet. For now diving is accomodate by beach-loading onto a skiff for transfer to the dive boats in deeper water.
Diving
It's great! Come on down.
TACAMO Tony
New
Sailbum - Thanks for the informative post. Just booked our September honeymoon at Morritt's Tortuga (keep fingers crossed for decent wx). It'll be our first time in GC and we're looking forward to it. Hopefully the resort, your dive op, and the island in general will keep recovering from Ivan and will avoid any nasty repeats.
Come Sept it'll be 2 years since our last dive (unless we find time between now and then). We were thinking about doing the Stingray City dive as a sort of shallow water refresher before heading to the deeper wall dives. Thoughts? It seems a bit touristy for me and I'm more of a sponge/coral sort of guy, but people keep saying it's pretty entertaining.
See you on the dive boat in September.
Come Sept it'll be 2 years since our last dive (unless we find time between now and then). We were thinking about doing the Stingray City dive as a sort of shallow water refresher before heading to the deeper wall dives. Thoughts? It seems a bit touristy for me and I'm more of a sponge/coral sort of guy, but people keep saying it's pretty entertaining.
See you on the dive boat in September.
Damselfish
Contributor
Stingray City is entertaining and I'd recommend doing it sometime, but I don't think it's the best choice if you're looking for a place for a "refresher." Sure it's shallow and easy but it can get a little crazy and it's really not a good dive in general to sort yourself out on. And you overweight yourself on this dive so you can stay on the bottom so it's not even an opportunity to work on that. If you're not going to take an actual refresher (which you should consider) a shallow reef would be much better.
TACAMO Tony
New
Damselfish - I'm so glad you were willing to post your thoughts. Really great inputs!
Indeed, you really do need to do a shallow reef dive before plunging over the edge of the wall. It's a better way to get back into diving and get your buoyancy all back in synch.
You can do a shore dive on the other end of the island for an easy warm-up dive. If you'd rather, you can go out for an afternoon one tank shallow dive to ease yourself back into diving.
And, as always, I strongly encourage all guests staying on Grand Cayman's East End (Morritt's, The Royal Reef, Compass Point, or various rental vacation homes) that a rental car is a necessity.
You can do a shore dive on the other end of the island for an easy warm-up dive. If you'd rather, you can go out for an afternoon one tank shallow dive to ease yourself back into diving.
And, as always, I strongly encourage all guests staying on Grand Cayman's East End (Morritt's, The Royal Reef, Compass Point, or various rental vacation homes) that a rental car is a necessity.
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