putch29m

we are thinking of staying at the marriott. since we spend so little time in our room when we go to the caribbean, i'm not that demanding other than it being clean and the hot water should be available with a good shower. we always rent a car on whatever island we travel to. how's the driving on this island? is it british side of the road? any recommendations for car rental companies that someone has had a "good" experience with? my travel agent has put together a relatively good deal for february so unless someone "hated" the marriott we'll probably stay there.
thanks!

Kristen1206

Driving is on the left and I highly recommend Andy's car rental. have used them twice. Haven't stayed at teh Mariiott but know people who have and we have toured the property. I think it's a nice hotel though it does (or did last I was there) have a narrow beach.

virginia

i'll second andy's car rental. it's a 3 min walk across the street to their building from the terminal. one of us went over to do the car paperwork while other stayed with luggage.
driving in/around georgetown can be somewhat of a nightmare (crowded narrow streets) however everything moves at a crawl so it's not difficult to stay on track.
once you get out of town driving is fine to great. all the roads are well maintained and fairly well marked. with a map you'll have no problem.
i suggest you take at least one drive out around the east end and to rum point. you can find the blow holes, view the wreck of the seven sails, go through the beautiful botanical gardens or walk the mastic trail. rum point is fun - you can hang out, shop a little, and have lunch at their beach restaurant. beware the cocktails - some of them of some powerful.
here's a link to trip advisor page of your hotel's reviews: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...n_Islands.html
also type grand cayman marriott into the search box above.

luvtotravl

Keep in mind that there are two Marriott's in Grand Cayman. One on the beach (small beach), and one across the street from a large public beach.

TurtleTagger

I find Andy's to have some of the oldest cars of the various rental companies along with the longest (e.g. slowest check-out/return lines). Stopped using them when the took 2hrs to switch cars when the AC stopped working.

I have recently found lower prices and newer cars with Thrifty, Dollar and Budget. All with much faster transactions times.

Driving is fine once you get used to driving on the left. Be prepared to switch your windshield wipers on when you meant to activate the turn signal. Roads are excellent and the already good road signs have recently been improved. Truly hard to gt lost there.

originalkk

"Keep in mind that there are two Marriott's in Grand Cayman. One on the beach (small beach), and one across the street from a large public beach."

The Marriott Courtyard further up the beach closed down some time ago, and the building was still empty when we were on-island a few months ago. There's now only the Marriott at the south end of SMB.

I agree Andy's do have an old fleet of cars - they were all replaced after Ivan in 2004 (since they got several feet of seawater in them, there wan't much alternative), but many have not been replaced since. In looking at prices though, you also need to consider the price of insurance if you need to take it, since Andy's does tend to have lower rates than many of the other companies.

We have always booked with Andy's, but we are now finding that their vehicles are too old to justify the rates they charge for them, so we will probably be looking elsewhere in future.

With many companies you can request a left or right drive car - but no guarantees you will get what you ask for.

I would certainly rent a car from the airport (all the main companies have offices across the road).