Cayman Brac: Beach Resort or Alexander Hotel?

[TeeSpeed]

Hey folks— I"m taking my 15 year old son to do his certification dive this summer, most likely to Cayman Brac. The two options we are looking at are Cayman Brac Beach Resort and Alexander Hotel. Both look nice. My concerns are if Alexander Hotel is close enough to the nearby dive shop for him or if it would be advantageous to stay on site at the Resort.

Is the Dive Shop on resort property? When I contacted them they only told me that they couldn't guarantee there would be a dive master on call to do the certification dive, which would defeat the whole purpose of the trip and sounds kinda unreliable. Plus its a 7 day minimum and we don't really have time for that.

On the other hand Alexander looks good but doesn't have the dive shop on site.

Does anyone have any experience at these or any other resorts/hotels on Cayman Brac? I also saw the Carib Sands Beach Resort on the map.

TIA!

 

[Doctorfish]

If going for less than a week, probably much easier to go to Grand Cayman than Brac.

Frequent flights, lots of accommodation options, and dive ops everywhere to do the certification.

 

[tkaelin]

Never been but putting info together for a trip in ‘26. I don’t believe brac scuba shack is at cbbr. I think staying at cbbr you are generally limited to sat to sat stays.

 

[divezonescuba]

If you stay at the Alexander Hotel, the Brac Shack is about 1-2 minutes away by vehicle. The CBBR has their own dive shop on site.

We have used both. In general, the Brac Shack is more flexible than the CBBR. The Brac Shack has a number of employees who work part time. So, I think that it might be more accommodating to have one of their instructors help you have your son finish his certification on their day off. You cannot have a divemaster do that, it has to be an instructor.

If you stay at the Alexander, you will most likely have to rent a vehicle. However, 4Ds is really inexpensive. You would be able to go off on your own after the course is done.

I don't think that you can do any shore diving from the CBBR. Almost everyone who stays there only does boat dives.

Post covid there seems to be more competition between the two entities. Which is funny because a lot of the employees used to go back and forth between the two.

The Carib Sands and the other places are across the street from the Alexander and are on the same side as the Brac Shack.

The Alexander / Brac Shack would also be way less expensive than the CBBR.

I have posted a video on the Alexander on this forum.

 

[TeeSpeed]

If you stay at the Alexander Hotel, the Brac Shack is about 1-2 minutes away by vehicle. The CBBR has their own dive shop on site.

We have used both. In general, the Brac Shack is more flexible than the CBBR. The Brac Shack has a number of employees who work part time. So, I think that it might be more accommodating to have one of their instructors help you have your son finish his certification on their day off. You cannot have a divemaster do that, it has to be an instructor.

If you stay at the Alexander, you will most likely have to rent a vehicle. However, 4Ds is really inexpensive. You would be able to go off on your own after the course is done.

I don't think that you can do any shore diving from the CBBR. Almost everyone who stays there only does boat dives.

Post covid there seems to be more competition between the two entities. Which is funny because a lot of the employees used to go back and forth between the two.

The Carib Sands and the other places are across the street from the Alexander and are on the same side as the Brac Shack.

The Alexander / Brac Shack would also be way less expensive than the CBBR.

I have posted a video on the Alexander on this forum.

Thank you! Great insight