TBRIC

Just returned from a week at Ritz Grand Cayman. As far as which building to stay in, as others have mentioned, the rooms are the same with the exception of the view. If having your balcony overlook the ocean and ocean pool is important to you, then go for it. The standard Ritz elite upgrade is one room type. So, if you have reserved the base "Garden View" room either with dollars or points, they will upgrade you to "Resort View", which is still in the resort tower but with a pool view balcony. You may possibly be upgraded to the oceanfront building depending on elite level and availability. I am Titanium, and was bumped up only the one level as the resort was near capacity. There are two pools, one at each building. The one at the resort tower is always less crowded. Both have similar excellent food/beverage service. We did not have any issues with getting two lounge chairs set up at any time at either pool. Did not try sitting at the beach, but in walking through, there seemed to be plenty available. The walk from the resort tower to the ocean pool and beach is at maximum 4 minutes and was really inconsequential. The resort team whether in food and beverage, housekeeping, pool attendants, front desk were all exceptional. Facilities are well maintained. Food and drink is pricey, but in line with what I have experienced at other resorts of this caliber. Ate at all of the on property restaurants with the exception of Blue and found them all to be perfectly acceptable. There are some excellent independent restaurants either a short walk or taxi ride away as well. Also, only a 15 minute taxi ride from the airport, which is a plus. There seem to be quite a few wild chickens that inhabit the seven mile beach area, and about half a dozen or so have taken up residence at the Ritz. Just mentioning this as they are kind of neat. They walk around the pool areas looking for whatever food they can find. Quite tame, and not aggressive at all. The young children are fascinated with them. The roosters do crow early in the AM though! All in all, would return in a heartbeat. An excellent property.

Catskilltraveller

Agree on all counts. We had dinner at Blue twice. A superb experience. Very knowledgeable sommelier

svo242

Absolutely loved our recent stay at this property and can't wait to return! We only stayed two nights, but got a nice little upgrade from our booked resort-view room to an ocean-view residential unit (not a suite and not a full ocean/pool view, but a lovely room with some extra space and a partial ocean view). Loved the upgrade, but would have been happy on the resort side, too. That pool is also beautiful (especially at night) and the walk to the ocean side is not bad at all, as the user mentioned above. Great arrival experience with rum punch and rum cake. Service was outstanding at the pool and throughout the entire property. Loved the breakfast buffet at Seven, enjoyed the food at Bar Jack (nothing outstanding but great drinks), and loved our dinner at Andiamo (great homemade pasta, pizzas, and gelato.) Pool and beach experience was awesome...we enjoyed the floats in both places, never a problem finding a chair, and loved the super tropical and well-maintained grounds. The only thing that would be nice is a separate adult pool as it is a very family-friendly property, but this wouldn't prevent me from returning. Exquisite stay!

Catskilltraveller

Spot on. Great property

Moflav

Thinking about a five night stay on points in 2021. Point bookings seem to disappear after July. Wonder why??

svo242

Hmm, that is very strange. Looks like ALL bookings disappear around July until a few nights in November that have rates loaded. Maybe they're just slow getting it all loaded due to current staffing limitations and future uncertainty?

Visualp

I booked a standard room, 5 night stay using 400k points for late March of this year (2021). This reservation was made in July of 2020. The reservation was canceled a few days ago with no explanation. When I search for the exact same dates, same room type that I had booked previously, there is availability using points but the cost is significantly higher (1.3m points).

In general, the cost of points stays at the hotel seems to have gone up significantly and I'm wondering if they cancelled my reservation simply because they didn't want to honor the lower rate.

hhoope01

There may be any number of reasons why a stay might have been cancelled/removed. Everything here would just be speculation. I'd suggest reaching out to one of the Bonvoy Lurkers to see if they can look into the reservation to see who cancelled it and why.

ABG

Do you think that the current ban on foreign travelers coupled with the mandatory 14 day quarantine might have screwed up your plan to fly in and stay for 5 nights?

Tom M.

The hotel will be shutting down for a major renovation this year. The schedule was for part of it to occur last year, but Covid hit.

The hotel is currenlty open for "staycations" for those of us living here and hosted Cayman Cookout last weekend. They are also hosting some recent arrivals during their quarantine and of course those living in the Residences are there. Not sure yet on the closing date, but it will probably be right around the time Cayam starts letting regular tourists back in.

I don't know for certain, but I think they are targeting a September / October re-opening.

svo242

Wow, thanks for the info! Are they renovating rooms? Any big changes you know of?

Tom M.

My understanding is renovating rooms and some common areas such as the lobby, pool bar / restaurant. I believe at least one restaurant will remain open throughout. Spa may remain open. Golf will remain open.

SkyTeam777

Anyone stayed here since the renovation? Did they choose to shutter the club lounge completely? Looks like they renamed a lot of the room categories, too.

dingo

Would love an update on the renovations as well. Also, what room types are definitely on the beach side vs those across the road.

spgplat21

I believe all the room types now say whether they are in the resort tower vs. ocean tower in the main description. Just the oceanfront regular rooms and the various residences are in the ocean tower and resort and garden view rooms plus Harbour Suites are all in the resort tower.

I had some friends return a couple weeks ago and they said the renovated rooms turned out really nice. They thought it seemed like everything was finished and commented that the lobby and bar also looked great. Their overall comment was that the resort feels more in line with the prices now.

They didn't notice any huge renovations in the restaurants, but said they didn't really remember exactly what they looked like from their prior trips.