It's just something about the Islands...
The Cayman Islands were absolutely beautiful, and I would tell anyone they should visit and try everything. Something I love to do when I visit anywhere is to look into arranging an authentic island/city tour which I highly recommend. You get so much out of paying for an authentic tour versus trying to do everything on your own; normally within tours, more specifically island tours, you get the opportunity to experience everything with someone who is from the island. With having a tour guide that's from the island, you get the opportunity to learn the history of the island, to experience things and also see things from their perspective that you wouldn't necessarily get when going through a tour with someone who learned the area and was hired to give a tour or trying to do it on your own.
Now, with that being said, if you go through a cruise or take a destination trip, it's fairly easy to find an authentic island tour. When cruising, instead of booking with the cruise line, once you get to the tourist port there are normally people who work on the island who offer tours, which are typically cheaper than booking with the cruise line prior to porting. However, if you love having structure and making sure you have your itinerary covered and planned for ahead of time, I highly recommend booking with the cruise line prior to porting. For destination tours, you are able to book online before or during your trip to tour with someone from the island or they normally have a main office where you can go to book a tour on the island.
During this specific cruise trip, we toured with someone from the island, it was very reasonable price; authentic island tours normally range from $25-$100, depending on location. Our tour guide was absolutely AMAZING, she made us laugh, she asked what things we were interested in and took us to do small adventures while keeping us on a time limit so that we weren't late when it was time to return to the ship, and she also took us to try some authentic food from the island, it was definitely an all-in-one.
One part of the tour I definitely enjoyed was going to see my favorite aquatic animal... dolphins! We were able to visit the Dolphin Discovery Grand Cayman, which was so fun. At Dolphin Discovery they have a gift shop where you can purchase things from snacks to souvenirs and the people were so friendly and helpful. Once you walk towards the back they have tables for you to sit and relax all while watching the dolphins swim around, sometimes you can even catch them during feeding time or see the trainers give a small show. The most amazing part of it all, if you love dolphins as much as I do, they do offer pictures with the dolphins that you can purchase and receive right then and there, so that was a great touch, I really urge everyone to visit.
Our tour guide also took us to "Black Beards Rum Cakes", which was an amazingly painted Island Style Gift and Souvenir Shop, much like all the other places, the people were amazing and they also offered free samples of rum cake; one of their famous delicacies. They have a gazebo in the back where they allow people to go sit and eat and the biggest perk was, they were located on the beach which allowed us to see the beautiful blue water. Black Beards is also located next to "Cracked Conch" which is a restaurant and tiki bar if you were interested in something different to eat but Black Beards did have a food area you could purchase from which included things such as meet patties, rum cake, drinks, etc.
Another famous part of the tour that our guide said we needed to experience was visiting Hell, Cayman. Yes, I thought the same thing.... where are we going?! I personally thought it was a joke until the tour guide continued to talk and sure enough we began to approach Hell, Grand Cayman. Back in the 1930s, someone visited and shot at a bird, missed and said "OH Hell" and ever since then, it has been named "Hell", Grand Cayman. Of course, there is an entirely long story with a better explanation and of course some jokes and places that come along with it, but I won't ruin it all, if you get a chance, you should visit.
Overall, The Cayman Islands were so much fun, the people were absolutely amazing, and the food definitely was as amazing as the people who made it.
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