My family (my wife, myself, two teenage sons) is staying at a condo on 7 mile beach in a couple of weeks. We expect to do a fair amount of snorkeling. Should just rent snorkel equipment once we get to the island, I assume there a shops that have weekly rentals, or should we buy and bring our own gear down. Are there hotels that will offer us a "hotel scuba course" even if we're not staying at their hotel? Thanks

If you plan on snorkeling more that a couple days, you are better off buying your own gear and bringing it with. If you mean a "resort course", most scuba operators offer those, not the hotels themselves.

If you don't already own your own snorkel gear, I'd suggest buying it on island, there are several dive gear retailers on Seven Mile Beach that offer a wide selection at reasonable prices.

Also lots of dive operators in that area that offer resort courses... I will shy away from recommending one in particular as there are many who will do a good job, some internet research will yield recent reviews from people who have used the various dive operators... but the standard (as with most things in Cayman) is consistently good.

I would purchase you gear at home and bring it with you. GCM does have wonderful dive shops but with the exchange rate I think they are more expensive than what you can get from a dive shop at home.

WAY off topic here, but if you guys are spicy food lovers, hit up Seymore's jerk chicken stand on the way from the airport. For some reason, I just have a hankering for that today. Man it was good. It is just a little roadside stand, but we ate there a lot.

Thanks for your replies.