It is an unfortunate situation when a government gives precedence to one of its main industries while overlooking the needs and misfortunes of its own residents. As they continue to beat the drum, "come back to Grand Cayman, everything is fine", and residents are just now getting power and water. This well-heeled island should have ample resources in its coffers to take care of its own first, before catering to their tourism industry partners.

Caribbeansoul,

You accuse others of having an agenda, but what is yours ?

What gives you the right to say "government gives precedence to one of its main industries while overlooking the needs and misfortunes of its own residents".... plus "This well-heeled island should have ample resources in its coffers to take care of its own first, before catering to their tourism industry partners"

Re your first statement, what on earth makes you think that helping our people whilst getting business back up and running are two goals that are mutually exclusive ?

Re your second, I am one of those tourism industry partners, I am a Caymananian and am working flat out to re-open my resort, which employs a large number of staff who need paying employment (and I am paying them throughout until the resort re-opens). The Cayman government has allocated no resources to me, neither have I asked them to. The policy has been simple, to let business get on with business by clearing red tape, while applying available resources to those who need it most.

Given all we have been through, I am totally fed up with people who do not know Cayman and have not visited since Ivan pontificating about what we should do and what we have done.

Have you ever considered that we might actually be telling the truth ? Things ARE improving very rapidly, and a leading catastrophe consultant I met who has worked in the aftermath of every major Caribbean Hurricane in the last twenty years...says that Cayman was hit the worst, but is recovering by far the fastest.

Why don't you come down here and see for yourself..... sorry, end of soapbox rant, after all, this is supposed to be a tourism bulletin board

Hi
We loved Curacao...family of four with "kids" 21 and 24. The Marriott was great. We toured Breezes and it looked old and rundown. The Marriott was brand new, great pool area, beach is a little windy but nice. Plan to rent a car, there's a ton of amazing beaches to explore and consistently excellent restaurants. Decent size town with some shopping. Not known for snorkeling though...

Tom: Sorry....I know you guys are all working very hard to restore your businesses to pre-Ivan state. Good luck to you and all the others. As we only have the resources and time to take one trip to the Caribbean each year....we'll have to pass on your offer to come down to GC. We'd rather spend our hard earned time and money on an island that hasn't suffered recent devastation. But that is just us...and we aren't loyal Grand Cayman visitors, hence the 'tude.

This website (post Ivan) might give people an idea of what Grand Cayman is like right now. It has numerous post Ivan pictures that I thought others would appreciate. http://www.ivan.ky/

I have to agree with some of the statements about not visiting GC. My wife and I had a trip planned for our second visit to GC. We were going in April 05. We had access to Marriott reward points for a cheap stay. Marriotts website has been delaying the opening of their hotel from Nov. now to March 15th. Sorry, March 15th is a little to close for comfort. I would agree that the Island will not be the same for quite some time. No, I havent visited but everything I read and pictures I see only confirm my thoughts. I am sure the beaches are great but I plan on visiting other places besides the beach.
We have picked a new destination and I cant tell you how much relief I feel knowing we are not rolling the dice with one of our only 2 vacation weeks a year. I would love to see everything up and moving by April but seriously doubt it. Maybe we will visit in 06.
Best of luck.

To be honest, I experienced hurricane Luis in 1995 in Anguilla. The only way they came out of it quickly was by accepting the reality that many of their hotels were damaged. Best to be upfront with visitors and let them make the decision if they still want to come. Many hotels had to slashed rates quickly and give incentive packages to get tourist back within a year. I wish Cayman Islands a speedy recovery. I have friends there and it seems that they will be up and running by the spring.