Trip report by Karen - April 2004

I love reading trip reports so I thought I'd send one in on our most recent trip.

We stayed on the Northside, in the Northside Condo's [Harv's Kai]. The condo was nice, kept up beautifully, had everything we could ever need, clean and perfect for our needs. The pool was very nice, the beach was a nice sand beach. Sue and Harv were great to work with, and have a great Northside guide they send out to people who stay at their place. It's also a great place to fly a kite!

The weather wasn't quite what we had hoped it would be, but was interesting nonetheless. VERY windy on the Northside the first week. Got to see some windsurfing being done. The waves were high and gorgeous. The sound pretty darn wonderful too...but alas, no snorkeling for us there. We had hoped to do a lot of snorkeling on the Northside. We love the 'life-pace' on that side of the island, but snorkeling wasn't going to happen for us then and there. What did we do??? We just packed up most days and drove towards Eden Rock, Smith's Cove or some other destination. [Thank God for unlimited miles on the car-we rented from Island Style. We got a great deal from Courtney there, and they have the BEST customer service and approachability! Nothing but smiles from the employees there.]

The wind lasted for most of our first week there.

The second week the wind had died down, but the water seemed a bit low. This was confirmed by several wonderful local people we got to talk to...so again, we did Rum Point [always a beautiful place to be] or did a lot of sunning and funning near Ivory Kai, the beach at Northside Condo's or the pool.

The island needs rain. I know most travellers don't want to hear that, but the water trucks are doing a booming business on the Northside as cisterns run dry. We had forecast for rain each day, and it did rain some most days... for about 2 minutes. I think the rainy season is upon them, so perhaps they will get some relief there. PLEASE DO NOT THROW CIGARETTE BUTTS OUT THE WINDOWS AS YOU ARE DRIVING. There were several small ground fires while we were there.

We are not big foodies, so I generally don't worry about restaurants that have 'food to die for', but again, we enjoyed the Bella Capri Restaurant very much. We also ate the Sunday buffet at the Driftwood, at Papagallo's, Cimboco, The Reef Resort and Over the Edge. We tried to eat at Chicken Chicken one day after reading excellent reviews of the food, but the woman running the place was the most rude, unkind, tactless person I have met on the island. I know rude people abound everywhere, but, blue cats... she took the cake! My husband speaks very low and softly, so generally he will tell me what he would like to order and I will relay that information to the person taking the order. We did this and were berated [and that is a mild word] for ordering more than one order at a time. She shouted and shook her finger at us - "ONE ORDER AT A TIME!!!! That's how we do it here!!!" I took the abuse, as my grown children really wanted to try this place out, but when I asked about one of the salads, and the woman huffed and turned her back on me [never answering] and placed a phone call... well, we left, and she made very rude comments about us as we left. If I could find the information on the owners of the place I would gladly let them know they need to look into this type of situation. There were no other people in line to order and the young woman who was trying to wait on us was very embarrased and uncomfortable. I felt badly for her.

We saw the Barefoot Man at the Reef Resort and had a very good time. We loved Chuck [he accompanies the Barefoot Man] he is a very NPR'ish straight-man for Barefoot, and my entire family [5 adults] really enjoyed this night out. The food was pretty good [again, not a foodie], the atmosphere great and the entertainment was fun. My boys wanted Chuck to sign their cd's! So Tom... if you are reading this, again Marghareta was so helpful [give her a raise], and you run a very nice place.

Captain Marvin does a phenomenal full day snorkel trip. We used Captain Dexter last year and loved him... but we wanted a bit more this year as our two sons and daughter in law were with us. Oh my gosh, what a fun day we had! I will be taking the time to write them a personal letter of thanks and appreciation and getting it in the mail to them. Eric and Paul [ran the boat] were there with us all the way making sure we had a good time, saw plenty and learned a lot. Jody did a wonderful video that we bought and really enjoy. We dove for conch, then went to Coral Gardens, The Kaibo Yacht Club for lunch on the beach [and lunch was pretty tasty], then to the Barrier Reef where we got a wonderful, personal tour of the reef from Eric who led a big procession of us through the Reef and pointed out many wonderful things. Then to the sandbar. Eric not only showed the stingray underside to us, but was very informative on things to do with the rays. I can't say enough how much all 5 of us will talk about this trip forever. When we are back next year... Captain Marvins it will be for us!

Cruise ships were in dock a plenty. Thank God for the port schedule. I printed that sucker out and took it with us.

That's about it. We had almost two weeks in paradise, and it wasn't nearly enough.

We did bring our conch shell [from the dive with Captain Marvin] home with no troubles at all.

And last but not least... things of note we saw while snorkeling -

Eden Rock - the biggest, most lumbering, scarred baraccuda, he was awesome. A huge - and I mean huge - parrot fish, turtles, some sort of snake - not eel, but a snake, and all sorts or beauty.

Smith's Cove - A grouping of squid. That was pretty cool! Lots of box, file or puffer fish.

Cemetery Beach - a lone eagle ray and a huge lobster.

We saw so much in the Cayman waters. Those of you who don't dive or snorkel ought to look into the waters you are swimming in. It is like the Grand Canyon underwater. Beautiful and awe inspiring.

Another great trip.

Thank you Sue and Harv.

Karen

Subsequent post about her treatment at Chicken! Chicken!


I am a person that can take a whole lot, and we really wanted to try this place out. It smelled soooo good. But after her second bout of 'hatefulness' well, enough is enough, and we'd had plenty.

I even think, "Perhaps she is having a very bad day." But bad behavior is just that, bad behavior and if I acted in such a manner in my job, I'd be called on the carpet over it. I'd certainly not make disparaging remarks about a patron after I had been rude to them and they quietly just left the building as they left the building - on purpose - in their hearing.

Cimboco, their sister restaurant, was a very different story. The waitress was a delight, the food tasty and the service wonderful.

I have never complained of a restaurant on any of the boards, always preferring to just list the ones we really liked and had good service at in hopes that others would find the same thing true for themselves.

If you had good service there you either hit that woman on a good day, she likes you better than us, or you had someone else serve you. She was a menace!