Alexander Hotel Cayman Brac First Impressions

[divezonescuba]

We are currently in Cayman Brac staying at the Alexander Hotel. This is the once closed hotel located on the crossroad between the north and south shores of the island. We were very excited to hear that covid was over for the Cayman Islands and that the Alexander was again open for business. We vaguely recall seeing for sale signs just prior to Covid.

The rooms are very nice. There are comfortable beds, a kitchenette, and showers with two built in seats. This makes it easy to remove wetsuits, boots, and socks.

The internet connection is strong, fast, and accessible from the rooms, pool area, lobby, and restaurant. I will be testing It for uploads later this week.

Our breakfast and dinner meal plan food quality is impressive. There are several choices each meal and the dinner options vary nightly. i can see people coming here to eat just for the food.

The staff are very accommodating to divers needs including constructing / improving the rinse tanks and the drying rack area at the back of the resort.

Based on our experience so far, we can highly recommend staying at the Alexander for Cayman Brac dive trips.

We are in the process of creating a video of our hotel experience on our YouTube channel Dive Zone Scuba.

 

[Doctorfish]

The Alexander is not ocean front as I recall. That might be an important consideration for some people wanting to book a dive trip.
For me, getting up in the morning and having a cup of coffee while watching the sunrise over the ocean, is an important part of a Caribbean trip. So is rolling out of my room and right onto the dive boat.

What is the distance/transportation arrangement from the hotel to the dive boat? What op did you dive with?

I assume the Alexander room rate is reflective of the location. I also assume that all of this will be covered in your future video.

 

[AggieDiver]

How is the smell? I seem to recall previous complaints regarding the pond next door to the hotel being an issue. Looking forward to the full report.

 

[divezonescuba]

We did not have an issue with any smells from the nearby body of water.

 

[divezonescuba]

The Alexander Hotel is not on the Ocean front. It is on the cross road between the North and South shore. All of the non-house multiple unit buildings are on the south side of the island. This is the rough side, so it is not the same as many other dive destinations. There are no resorts were you can shore dive right from the facility like in Bonaire. The calm north side where we shore dive only has individual houses, but there is mostly no sand beaches in the same sense as say Aruba. We used to stay at a house on the north side right on the water, but it was not possible to ecologically dive from the shore due to the amount of coral and sea fans.

The Alexander is towards the same southern side of the island as the Brac Scuba Shack diveshop that we used, about 5 minutes away by car.

 

[TheScubaDirectory]

How's the diving though

 

[divezonescuba]

The diving was great.

I was able to do Randy’s Gazebo for the first time in four trips. The mooring was gone, so we had to swim for 9 minutes to get there.

We dove the mv Tibbets 3 times. Despite all the hurricanes, you can still penetrate. However, the section is not 45 degrees anymore, more like 70 degrees.

Also interesting was the wall off of Handcuff Reef for the first time. The Aliens movie egg pod reef of barrel sponges on the way there still exists.

They seem to be enforcing dive flag use much more than before. Every one else than our group also had one. Before we were the only group I had ever seen use one.

 

[Doctorfish]

Randy's is on LC isn't it?

 

[morecowbells]

I loved the crazy sponge formations at Handcuff Reef! Does Brac Scuba Shack still allow only one tank at a time for shore diving? Thanks for the review. Any more, I seek out places with comfortable beds.