Excursion Question: Seven Mile Beach with Lounge Chair (G82)

[Hegemon]

Hi everyone! We're doing a 7-night Western Caribbean cruise this summer and it looks like Disney is no longer offering Rum Point excursions, so I'm looking for a "Plan B." We're thinking about just spending the day at seven-mile beach. Has anyone done the "Seven Mile Beach with Lounge Chair (G82)" excursion? If so, did you think it was worth the money? We could just take a taxi to/from the beach and grab some chairs ourselves, but I don't know if one part of the beach is "better" than others. Is there any advantage to spending the money and going through Disney? Thanks!

 

[Disturbia]

I would say skip this excursion. It was the one thing we regretted booking. There were 4 cruise ships docked at the same time.

The chairs were so close you couldn’t walk in between. They tried to force our family of 5 to use 2 chairs one of which was broken. We argued to get 2 additional chairs. Infront of our chairs people had lined up beach towels and it felt unsafe eventhough we were the earliest excursion and had the front row chairs.

The bathrooms had no flushing ability so someone had to manually throw a bucket of water after they forced 4-5 people to go. Then expected a tip? In Mexico you couldn’t throw toilet paper in the toilet but they did flush earlier in the day.

Food was quite a walk away (we gave up) and very few people serving drinks or anything on the beach (hot and exhausted in 2 hours). You need flip flops because the cemented ground to the beach was scorching hot.

There were 2 return times 1:30 and 3:30 pm but they were running late (like 30+ mins). Many people headed back around 1 pm (we had arrived around 11 am btw) to the shuttle pickup when the guide announced they were running behind. We didn’t want to wait 30 mins-1 hr there.

Private cab experience: A woman in the private taxi area said she was going to the port and rushed us to her cab saying she had a lot of room. We were shocked when she kept filling up the van which was already at capacity and then asked us to sit 2 kids on our laps and she would only charge for 2 people (we refused). We had big beach bags and beach toys and were already shoulder to shoulder 5 people sitting on 4 seats; 1 adult sat on another adult’s lap and they had pre paid for the ride as part of an excursion (unfair). So a lot of greed. She lied to the guests upfront who objected and made a story that people were left behind or something and she treats everyone the same.

We were so glad to be back on the ship and eat at Cabanas (5-10 mins to close). We were not alone in being so disappointed. In contrast the Cozumel beach break was an excellent experience.

Also make sure you change your clocks to one hour forward on day 6 morning or arrive one hour early to anything you booked (the first time change our devices automatically adjusted so we assumed they would on Day 6 sea day when we had our Royal Gathering booked). We weren’t alone in making this mistake and had to spend 2-3 hours standing in lines later that day to meet them individually (there were 6 princesses this year vs 4 last year!).

 

[jrez]

I was there in December. We just paid $6 a person each way to a public part of 7 Mile Beach then it was $25 for two chairs and an umbrella.

It was totally fine and way cheaper than doing it thru DCL.

Bathroom was good enough too.

 

[Disturbia]

If you do take own transportation be sure to know where to go and how long the walk is

Most of the videos or photos online show a beautiful white sand beach with open spaces. Lots of Jet ski noises so not relaxing at all. I think the following picture was half the crowd we had:

https://www.caymancompass.com/2023/02/27/confusion-reigns-over-rights-to-caymans-beaches/

https://www.caymancompass.com/2016/.../copy-of-tourist-on-7-mile-beach-2-read-only/

There were 3-4 rows of chairs and then people with towels right up to the edge of the beach. Make sure you pay attention to which chairs are for DCL guests (blue umbrellas). One person had their belongings taken off the green umbrella chairs but they caught up to the attendant in time screaming ‘no no no..’

The people with towels up to the beach actually threw their shorts up on one of our fellow cruise passengers umbrella to dry. Our son had his sand castle walked over several times and he got upset. That’s how much people were on top of each other. DCL doesn’t dock until 10:30 and it takes about 20-30 mins to get to shore and so you’re not getting to the beach before 11 am. We didn’t last more than 2 hours and saw plenty of people badly sunburnt (very little shade).

We booked the stingray experience at CC. The stingray at grand cayman has good reviews but our youngest is 4 so we didn’t have too many options.

Apparently you can check which ships will dock (just read about that); if there are more than 2, I would avoid

https://www.cruisemapper.com/ports/grand-cayman-island-port-25

 

[Hegemon]

Yikes, thanks! We may have to look around for some more alternatives. I appreciate the reports.