Ultimate Caymans Dive Resort
Location: George Town, Grand Cayman
Style: Waterside divers’ hub
Budget: ££
The Cayman Islands boast a ‘dive site for every day of the year’, and many visitors to the islands will be looking to visit a few of these during their stay. Perched on the west coast of Grand Cayman, Sunset House is a hotel “for divers, by divers”making it an enviable place to start exploring the wonders that the island has to offer, both above and below water.
Diving at Sunset House
Starting with the reason most people visit Sunset House – the dive experience itself. Onsite alongside the hotel and restaurant, Sunset Divers operate a full service, PADI 5 Star dive centre, with daily dive trips, dive training and even their own house reef.
Open to both guests staying at the hotel and external visitors, Sunset Divers operate several dive boats and man a large team of experienced instructors. Whilst you may travel with your own gear, Sunset Divers also offer a full gear rental service, with buddy team lockers onsite to securely store all your equipment during you time diving with them.
Without the need to even get onto a boat, Sunset Divers offers one of the only house reefs on the island, just one giant stride offshore. Complimentary shore diving is available 24/7 for guests staying at Sunset House on a boat diving package – so whether you want to enjoy the sunrise from the water, explore the depths in the dark of night or enjoy another dive before sundowners, you can grab a fresh tank from the team and hit the water.
Many house reefs have a reputation for being boring, however the Sunset House reef offers some excellent underwater sightings, including a wreck of a small landing craft, a coral nursery and a striking mermaid statue. Aquatic life is also a plenty, from garden eels and coral shrimp up to larger turtles, stingrays and barracuda you can find dotted around. What’s more, if you head slightly further out where the reef drops off, you have a chance to spot eagle rays, reef sharks and perhaps even a manta ray!
Away from the shore diving, Sunset House offers dive packages comprised of daily two tank dive trips which depart at 8am every morning. Guests will join up to around 12 other divers and several friendly instructors on one of the custom built dive boats. Typically starting with a deeper wall dive and followed by a shallower reef, you can expect a mix of fully guided and semi-guided dives, with the ability to explore the reef at your own pace towards the end of the dive, allowing those with better air consumption a little longer underwater.
Sunset House’s location, just south of Seven Mile Beach, is perfect to explore the array of fantastic dive sites just off the shoreline, along the wall which drops off of the west side of Grand Cayman. It’s likely that several of your dives will be based around this area, although sometimes Sunset will head further north or south to find the best spots based on current conditions.
With so many sites across the island, you’ll hardly make a dent in the list during your trip, and with very few likely to disappoint, wherever you go you’ll enjoy some fantastic diving. Some of our personal highlights include Neptune’s Wall, a fairly deep dive where we were lucky enough to spot a pair of Eagle Rays circling, and Chelonia Wall, which is a sloped drop off that translates as “Turtle Wall” and who doesn’t love turtles?
Although we thoroughly enjoyed the deeper wall sites, it was actually the shallower reefs which truly took our breath away. With incredible visibility throughout, it was these spots which allowed the vibrant colours of the corals and marine life to really shine. Disneyworld, a dive site minutes from Sunset House, another of our favourites, is named after the coral heads which form the shape of Mickey Mouse – or a smiley emoji, depending which way you look at it! The peaks of the coral heads sit only a few metres below the surface, making this a very accessible dive site with an incredible array of reef fish and striking corals to explore.
Alongside the daily morning two-tank dive trips, Sunset Divers also run a schedule of full day and afternoon trips to some of the island’s well known dive spots. Renowned for some of the finest wall dives in the Cayman Islands, the north side of the island can be visited on Sunset’s three tank full day dive safari which runs every Wednesday, weather permitting.
Sunset Divers visit the wreck of the USS Kittiwake, one of Grand Cayman’s most well known dive sites and one you should definitely not miss out on, every Monday and Wednesday afternoon for a single tank dive. The 251 foot ex-US Navy submarine rescue boat, purpose sunk in 2011 to create a world class wreck dive, now sits at a 45 degree angle, after being blown over in a storm in 2017. Along one side of the wreck openings have been made, creating excellent routes for easy and intriguing penetrations. There are some other great spots to explore, including the name etched at the rear of the wreck, the recompression chamber and the ships wheel, making for some great photo spots!
Lastly, but no means least, Sunset Divers run afternoon trips twice a week to the world famous Stingray City. This dive site is often listed as one of the best in the world and is located in only 12 feet of water! Accessed from the north side of the island, guests are transferred in a minibus to one of Sunset’s other boats and transported out to the shallow sandbars, home to these incredible creatures.
These magnificent rays were originally attracted to these shallow, protected sandbars where fishermen would clean their catch, soon divers realised how tame the rays were becoming, making it a great spot for interaction with the sting rays. Divers drop down to around 4 metres, where you’ll immediately be surrounded by a number of rays looking for squid. The dive instructor will have a small, limited amount of squid, more to attract the rays than to feed them however you’ll still have plenty of opportunities to stroke, feed, cuddle and probably get photobombed by the rays! Although one of the shallowest dives we’ve ever done, it is undoubtedly one of the most memorable.
Staying at Sunset House
Alongside the diving, Sunset House also operates as a normal hotel, with a number of rooms along the shore for both divers and non-divers. Rooms are split into two main types – Courtyard Rooms and the Ocean View Rooms. As the names imply, the former are located around the garden area set back slightly from the sea, whilst the latter have striking views out across the Caribbean Sea.
Both rooms types come with everything you need for a comfortable stay, including a private bathroom, efficient air conditioning, mini fridge and wifi. They also have a private terrace or balcony, where you can enjoy a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise before heading out for a day of diving or exploring. Most guests who stay at Sunset House are likely to be diving during their stay. A number of Stay & Dive packages are on offer which include unlimited shore diving, daily morning two-tank dive trips, airport transfers and breakfast.
Sunset House also has both a freshwater and sea pool, where you can relax and cool off from the Caribbean sun, or can be used for dive training and courses. Alongside this, Sunset House also offer complimentary shuttles to a few nearby spots a couple of times a day, including Georgetown, the island’s capital, and Smith’s Cove, a quaint beach popular with locals.
Dining at Sunset House
Situated right next to the dive shop, is Sunset’s onsite restaurant, My Harvest, and bar, My Bar. My Harvest offers a selection of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes, alongside an excellent Indian menu with an array of curries and biryanis to choose from. The restaurant has an air-conditioned indoor dining room, where breakfast is served, as well as an outdoor terrace, perfect for enjoying the warm evenings overlooking the sea.
My Bar is a very popular spot for guests and locals alike, with many people coming here for a drink as one of the best places to watch the sun set. Grab a seat at the bar or on the terrace next to the dock, with one of the excellent, if slightly lethal, house cocktails or a local Cayman brew. Spot the locals playing a few rounds of dominoes in the corner, and recount your favourite dives of the day or simply watch island life tick by.
Grand Cayman has an excellent restaurant scene, and it’s worth exploring Georgetown and the surrounding areas for some of the best spots. At the very north end of the island is Rum Point, where you can find Kaibo, offering casual dining and drinks alongside the beach in the daytime, and in the evening some of the island’s best fine dining is tucked away ‘Upstairs’. Slightly closer to Sunset House lies the Camana Bay development, chock full of shops and restaurants. Nestled alongside the yacht moorings, you can find Agua, serving up exquisite Italian cuisine of fresh fish and pastas alongside an excellent wine and cocktail list.
Key Information about Sunset House
What are the Sunset House rates?
Sunset House offers guests the flexibility to build a package that suits their needs. Based on accommodation, diving and other optional add-ons this can be customised for each guest. Most rooms have a maximum occupancy of 4 people and operate on a minimum stay policy of 5 nights in high season (c. December – April) and 3 nights at other times of the year.
A standard accommodation package for two people excluding diving starts at US $300 per room per night in low season for a Courtyard Room, up to US $380 per room per night in high season for an Ocean View Room. Daily two tank dives can be added on for US $115 per person per day, with the option of additional single tank dives to the Kittiwake (US$85) and Stingray City (US$75). Dive packages all include airport transfers, daily breakfast and unlimited shore diving.
What’s the best way to get to Sunset House?
Sunset House is located on the South West side of Grand Cayman, only a ten minute drive from Owen Roberts International airport. The team at Sunset House can help arrange airport transfers for you or you can hire a car from the airport, Andy’s is the easiest and best priced option.
Cayman Airlines operate multiple routes around the Caribbean and to regional American airports, including Miami, Tampa and New York. Other airlines operate across the USA and Canada, whilst for European routes, your best option is with British Airways, who operate a semi-direct route from London, with a brief touchdown in Nassau, Bahamas, on the way.
Is Sunset House a good place to learn to dive?
If you are looking to take up diving or advance your training, Sunset House offer a full range of PADI courses for around US$300-400 for an open water or an advanced open water qualification. Rated as a 5 star PADI centre and with near perfect diving conditions of warm waters and minimal current, there aren’t many better places in the world to build up your skills.
Our final thoughts on... Sunset House
Sunset House’s mantra as a hotel “for divers by divers” is indeed the best way to summarise this oceanside divers’ hub with custom made facilities to enhance the dive experience. All the staff live and breathe the island and its underwater life, from the frontline dive staff to the back office team, and together they create an exceptional dive and stay service, as well as a truly laid back, Caribbean-style experience that justifies why so many guests that visit come back year after year – a highly recommended spot to visit if you want to explore the underwater wonders of Grand Cayman.
Find Out More…
Sunset House – https://www.sunsethouse.com
Explore more from the Cayman Islands and the Caribbean.
Many thanks to Sunset House for hosting us during our time in Grand Cayman. As always, all thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely our own, we wouldn’t recommend something if we didn’t love it!
