Our Family Vacation to Grand Cayman / Part One: Seven Mile Beach

Well, I have so much that I could say about our recent vacation to Grand Cayman that I’m honestly not even quite sure where to begin. (I feel like this is usually either a really good or not so good thing!)

To sum things up right off the bat, it’s easy for both Jamie and me to say that our seven days away made up one of the best weeks of our lives. Neither one of us has a one single negative critique of the island and highly considers Grand Cayman to be an absolute dream vacation spot for travelers from ages 0 – 100.

I have four posts I’d like to write regarding our trip, so please check back within the next week(ish) if you’d like to read about:

1. a recap of our time staying in Seven Mile Beach (obviously this post!)
2. a recap of our time spent staying in Rum Point (a complete contrast from Seven Mile Beach)
3. 10 reasons why Grand Cayman is a dream vacation for families with young children
4. an assortment of reviews and recommendations of purchased travel gear, helpful apps, and general tips that made our trip an absolute breeze

On Tuesday night after Jamie got home from work, we packed up last-minute things, straightened up the house, and hit the road two hours north to Nashville, where we stayed in a hotel in anticipation of our 7 a.m. flight Wednesday morning.

The turbulence was rough on the quick flight from Nashville to Atlanta, which made Sadie do a quick upchuck in her seat when we landed (now we know that “my mouth hurts” means “I’m going to barf” for a two year old). It probably sounds bizarre that we actually laughed a little to each other, but we know traveling is never entirely smooth, and this felt pretty typical of kicking off a big trip with a toddler. You should always expect the unexpected in some ways! Thankfully she was clean besides her jacket, so we cleaned her up as well as we could, high-tailed it to our gate for our two-hour flight from Atlanta to Grand Cayman, and arrived right on time on the island early afternoon.

Within 90 minutes of landing, we had gone through customs, grabbed our bags, and scooped up our rental car and hit the road to explore the island and find our first hotel of the trip over in Seven Mile Beach.

Jamie had been looking forward to driving on the opposite side of the car and the road, but it tested him at first a little more than he expected! It was a fun challenge (one that I was glad he was tackling and not me!)

We checked into and immediately suited up for the beach! We were so giddy!

The hotel we were staying at has a partnership with across the street, so we had full use of their amenities! It was wonderful. The Westin is one of the most expensive resorts on the island, so we were tickled to have access to their common areas, beach, pool, etc.

We stayed a few hours playing on the beach and in the pool and also enjoyed dinner right by the beach in our swimsuits and cover-ups!

It was a great way to kick off the trip!

Once the sun started going down, we walked back to our resort, checked out the grounds a little bit more (soooo cute!), and let the girls get one more dip in the pool before calling it a day.

For our first full day on the island (Thursday), we wanted nothing more than max time on the world-famous Seven Mile Beach!

We were on the beach by 9:30 a.m. and enjoyed a full, perfect day. We even ordered lunch to eat right on the beach because nobody wanted to leave, even for a little while. We were just so happy!

The only time the girls weren’t right on the shore was when I forced them to take a 30-minute breather and relax on a lounge chair while we waited for Jamie to bring lunch. They actually didn’t mind a little bit of downtime to regroup, and then got right back to playing once their bellies were full. Hadley couldn’t stay out of the water and loved swimming; Sadie was our “sand and shovel” girl!

We brought our own snorkel, which Jamie and I enjoyed immensely! We used it every single day on every beach we went to. Hadley learned REALLY fast how to use it and did so well! Sometimes she would stay underwater for five seconds, but a few times she stayed under and swam around for up to 30 seconds! We were beyond impressed and definitely underestimated her ability to snorkel.

A quick bath and nap/rest time were a given for the girls around 3 p.m.-ish (Sadie crashed so hard), but at 5 p.m. we were all geared up to head out again for our dinner reservation at a nearby Italian restaurant, Casablanca.

We got back to the hotel around 7, and since the girls still had a good bit of energy, we decided to suit them back up and let them swim in the hotel pool for an hour. It was a win/win for everyone because Jamie and I were able to lounge in chairs and talk while watching them, and they got to wear themselves out all over again.

Also, Sadie wouldn’t take these glasses off the entire trip. I have no words! She is her own little person. 😉

Day #3 kicked off with sleeping in (til 7:15 haha) for the girls and me and a run with a group from The Westin for Jamie. It was a fun way for him to see more of the island! We ate a leisurely continental breakfast together at our resort, and then suited up once again for one more morning at Seven Mile Beach.

Being early birds/morning people really worked in our favor on this trip because everything was so quiet and we got our picks of chairs, areas to hang, etc. before the majority of other guests. Not that it was that overly crowded anyway. The entire island feels very relaxed with tourists and locals alike who are friendly, not in a rush, and living up “island time”.

We spent a couple of hours on the beach before another hour spent around the pool, and then headed back to our room to put on dry swimsuits, pack up, and check out of our hotel on Seven Mile Beach.

Seven Mile Beach is truly world famous for having perfect sand, crystal blue water (I have never, ever seen anything like it!), beautiful resorts, incredible restaurants, etc… but it’s also traditionally more touristy and very expensive (especially during high season in March). It’s somewhat easy to forget that you’re not in America while on this side of the island because everything on this beach is very commercialized, which of course isn’t entire bad, but it is what it is. They cater to tourists!

So while we didn’t want to miss out on experiencing a few days on Seven Mile Beach, we also knew that two days would probably be a good enough checkmark before we moved on to a different side of the island, Rum Point.

And oh my goodness gracious, are we glad we did.

We are beyond glad that we stayed a few days in Seven Mile Beach and soaked up their perfect beach (and two wonderful resorts), because it really is perfect. I think I would have felt like we were missing out on something by not kicking off our trip at Seven Mile Beach, but moving on to Rum Point is where I felt my mind and body go into true vacation mode. I can’t wait to tell you about one of my new favorite places on Earth!

Let’s chat!

Have you been to Seven Mile Beach?