Holidays in the Caribbean

You can always find something to di in this city. We did a last minute Everglades trip through Viator and it was a lot of fun.

We could not get into Falmouth and went to Ocho Rios. Jamaica is a poor county with lovely people, and we found a great driver and went into the jungle and dove into the pools of water, swung from ropes and dove off high dives in the rain. We had a great time.

I want to go back! Very colorful with a lot of history. Someone should really open a Pirate Museum here with all the history of Spanish Galleons and such. We went to the high hill and overlooked the city from the church. Don't go into the Fort, not much to see, instead speand your time around the city.

Bucket list - this was so much fun to see in person. We did the tour and saw the old and new locks, they have a 3D movie telling you how it was built. Very interesting.

The town is old and not much was open on Xmas day. Felt like we spent too long on the bus, and we could have skipped this.

We did a river tour and saw sloths, unique birds, and monkeys. Continued on a walking tour and saw mini dangerous frogs - they are everywhere. We stopped for 15 minutes at a beach restaurant, we went into the water and sat on the beach, then went to the bus as our 15 minutes were up but it turned into 90 minutes because some people wanted to eat. That was really frustrating and the guide should have been on top of it more to get us back on the bus and on to the next stop.

I decided at the last minute to do the dive trip in Grand Cayman. I went to John Pine's lecture and spoke with him; he raved about it. I talked with other divers before the trip, and they all recommended it. My husband does not dive, so I waited until the last minute. I signed up for the 1 PM dive and needed to be in the waiting area off the board by 12:05 (the ticket said AM, but I knew it was PM). Getting off the boat there needed to be direction. I asked a few people, and they mentioned: "over there." We found another diver, and we both had yet to learn we were in the right place, so we sat down and waited. Another diver approached us and asked if this was the right place. 12:45 PM: A person came over and told me to move to this area nearby. We did and waited over 30 minutes. When the person returned, they apologized and said they forgot about us. 1:15 PM We followed the individual, but she assumed we knew where to go. We walked to the dive shop, which had almost brand-new wetsuits. We waited another 15 minutes and were on the boat by 1:30 PM. The crew was friendly, but they gave us zero safety/boat briefings or review of hand signals and did not tell us about the locations; while 90% is the same worldwide, it's nice to know if the crew has anything they prefer. The equipment was excellent. We went out close to shore (which I had expected), and the crew helped get us into the water. Once we were in the water it was so loud from boats. During this dive, I swam on my back 5-6 times to see if we were actually under the cruise line or if there were other boats above us. I saw nothing. The sea life was minimal (nice looking fish, lone stingray...), but there was little to see. I had about 3,000PSI in my tank and used about half. The crew only signaled once for us to check. Back on the boat, we all asked about the noise. Once, a person from NYC said living near the subway was quieter. The crew said it was generators from the ships. No wonder there wasn't much marine life, way too loud. We went further out and away from the ships on the next dive. This dive tank was 3,000psi. Marnie's life was minimal, and the coral and surroundings were not impressive. We did come across a turtle who hung around, and it was great being so close. There were a couple of eels but nothing exciting besides the same fish. This time, the divemaster did not ask about the air at all, and back on now, I had just under 2,000psi. The dive was short. I understand there is no guarantee on what you will see in the way of marine life, but the crew should be taking us to locations they know are interesting to see, and if we are lucky, the marine life will be there. Each die should be approx 45 minutes. I am so disappointed in this excursion; the length of time spent in the water and the noise were ridiculous, and the crew should have known not to take us there. I sincerely feel a partial refund is due. This ranks as the worst experience I have had diving and I felt we were rushed and the crew made no attempt to make it a memorable experience. If anyone asks me about this, I will tell them not to waste their money; they will be sincerely let down.