I’ve been quiet for a while. Why? I’ve been meandering!

With its turquoise waters and abundant sea life, Grand Cayman Island had beckoned me for years. Russ and I have tried three times to travel to this isle in the Caribbean Sea south of Cuba. The first time, the British government closed the island due to COVID, so we had to cancel. The second time, we were able to make a lodging reservation, but we couldn’t get a flight there (probably due to COVID).

We decided to try one more time and keep our fingers crossed. It did indeed come to pass, but not without challenges. Despite my best efforts to book us flights that departed/arrived at civilized hours, after I made our reservations, the airline changed its schedules and foiled my plans. We ended up needing to awaken at 3 a.m. to leave and then return around midnight. Because of this, we booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Minneapolis (near the Mall of America) through Expedia for before and after our trip, and left our car at the hotel, which had cheaper parking than the airport. The place had great reviews and ratings, so I thought we were safe. I received confirmations for all our reservations, and we were set!

A few days before our departure, I had a question about the parking arrangements and called the hotel for information. My Cayman-dreaming heart filled with dread when the reservation person said they couldn’t find our outbound reservation. They only had our return one. They suggested I contact Expedia to sort out the mess.

I contacted Expedia and they were great. They called the Holiday Inn but were unable to work things out with the reservation person. They asked to speak with a manager but were told no manager was available for three days. We were leaving in two days, so that was no good. Expedia said they’d refund our money for the outbound reservation and that we’d have to contact the hotel directly to redo that reservation. So, I did. Luckily, they still had room, but now it was going to cost us $50 more. However, they’d upgrade us to a room with more floor space to make up for it.

This seemed like extortion to me, but I wasn’t going to argue. The success of our trip meant too much for that. But, as you can see, I’m not above calling out the hotel’s name in the blog post to warn others. I was glad we found out about the issue with enough time to rectify it so that we didn’t arrive in Minneapolis and find we had no place to stay! (We could have stayed with some friends or relatives, but I didn’t want to subject them to our early departure and late arrival.)

This snafu left me wondering what else would go wrong, but thankfully, nothing did. Everything else went smoothly and we arrived in Grand Cayman to 90-degree temps and 70% humidity. That was quite a shock to our Minnesota systems!

We stayed at Morritt’s Resort on the East End of the island. Despite being away from the thick of the action, we found plenty to do nearby as we gained confidence driving on the “wrong” side of the road in our rental car.

We enjoyed supper at the dock bar, watching tropical fish in the sea and shorebirds flit around the dock as the sun set. It was then I uttered, “Can’t do this in Duluth,” which was to become the slogan for the rest of our trip.

Next up: Crystal Caves and Lionfish.