Bringing food into Cayman Islands

[joyzilli]

Are you still able to bring meat/poultry into Grand Cayman. We are leaving next week from NY (connecting in Miami) and thought about bringing in a small cooler.

 

[Loggie]

Yes, we were there a couple of weeks ago and we brought in a small cooler. Make sure that you keep the meats in the original packaging.

Things have gotten very expensive since we were there in 2001! We will not return again.

 

[ralphd]

Check here:

' http://www.caymanislandscustoms.com/agriculture-info.html '

and

' http://www.gotocayman.com/index.php?title=FAQImporting '

' http://www.gotocayman.com/index.php?title=FAQCustoms '

 

[joyzilli]

Thanks for the great info. It seems like a small cooler will be ok to bring.

Is it worth bringing wine, or just buy it when we get there?

 

[easyrider]

Bring every thing you can. It was over $50.00 usd a case for beer. Wine was spendy and the selection limited. We brought more wine than was allowed and some duty free Crown Royal with no problems. We froze rib eye and tender loin steaks that were rubbed at Safeway with supermarket packaging and usda stickers and had no problems. Also take deli meat and cheese in original packages. We filled a collapsible medium sized ice chest full of meat and deli items with re-freezable cold packs for this trip.

 

[pdq]

For wine beer & booze. Next door at the Reef is the Thirsty Surfer. If you order over thier website you get a discount which makes them one of the lowest in price on the island.
http://www.thirstysurfer.com/index.php/cprds

 

[Htoo0]

Just a cautionary note- unless things have changed what you bring in is always at the discretion of the inspector.

 

[joyzilli]

Would I bring wine from home and put it in my luggage. We are leaving from Laguardia and connecting through Miami. Or do I buy it in Miami....not sure with all the latest restrictions. Thanks,

joyce

 

[Caladezi]

Would I bring wine from home and put it in my luggage. We are leaving from Laguardia and connecting through Miami. Or do I buy it in Miami....not sure with all the latest restrictions. Thanks,

joyce

If you are talking about buying "duty free", you can buy at either place but don't think that this affects your limit going into Cayman. The duty free applies to U.S. duty, not Cayman. Liquor is probably the item that is most looked at by Cayman customs and while a few might luck out and get extra in, if you get caught it could either cost you a lot of money of have the liquor taken away completely. As for food, as another poster pointed out, it is totally up to the inspector. Most of the time it gets in OK, but for others it has meant having duty assessed or the food confiscated. One thing that I can almost guarantee is that if you get caught with extra booze your food will be looked at very closely.

 

[Rod in Louisiana]

Would I bring wine from home and put it in my luggage. We are leaving from Laguardia and connecting through Miami. Or do I buy it in Miami....not sure with all the latest restrictions. Thanks,

joyce

For what it's worth, here are the opinions (and remember.....they're only opinions) of someone who's been traveling to Grand Cayman for the past 7 years or so, regarding carrying alcoholic beverages to the Cayman Islands.

Remember, the duty-free allowance for each person, age 18 or over, is EITHER one liter of spirits OR four liters of wine OR one case of beer (approximately). Spirits (liquor) are easy to transport because you can purchase them in the duty-free shop at your point of departure from the USA and carry them on the plane and they're not bulky. You can also purchase wines in the duty-free shops, but they are bulkier, and the duty-free shop may not have the wines you prefer. If that's the case, you can bring them from home and pack them in your checked baggage. If you're concerned about breakage in your luggage, you may want to consider this product.

http://www.ftscontent.com/

The per person duty-free allowance for wines is four liters. Since better wines are packaged in 750 ml bottles, the allowance is five bottles, rather than four.

We did haul a case of beer to the Cayman Islands once. We'll never do it again. It just wasn't worth the hassle. Most popular US beers do indeed cost around $50 USD for a case when purchased on Grand Cayman. So, if you drink two cases of beer while you're there, you'll spend an extra $50 to $60 to avoid the inconvenience of hauling bulky, heavy beer with you. My thoughts on wines are much the same. Unless you have favorite fine wines that you're willing to pack and check with your baggage, then why bother? Spend the extra $50 to $100 and avoid having to carry the wines on and off the plane and through customs. You'll have enough baggage to contend with without your having to worry about carrying another package.

I understand that some folks choose to bring their own meats, to reduce the cost of food while in the Cayman Islands. We choose not do to so. We rarely eat tenderloins and ribeyes while at home, so we're not about to buy them and haul them thousands of miles. We don't care to stop and prepare a big meal in the middle of the day, so we do take quite a few cans of tuna for midday sandwiches and snacks, and we'll take canned hams or summer sausage to use for breakfast meats. We'll also take some of the seasonings that are unique to Louisiana. Everything else is purchased after we arrive.

The supermarkets on Grand Cayman have very good selections of meats. Sure, if you're going to consume large quantities of ribeyes or tenderloins, it will cost you an arm and a leg. But, if you're going to prepare spaghetti or some type of rice and/or stir-fry dish that only needs a small amount of meat, or BBQ pork steaks, your daily cost for meat can be very low. And, since we tend to have dinner at local restaurants just about every other night, we only need to consider cooking dinner three or four days a week. One night a week, we'll have a crab stew, made with those huge crabs that you see on Queen's Highway. Properly prepared, they're delicious.

Vacations, for us, are all about value and quality time. We don't believe in throwing money away, but neither do we believe in putting up with the inconveniece of hauling bulky foodstuffs and liquors with us in order to save $200 to $300.

As I noted at the beginning of my post, these are my opinions. Others have different opinions. That's what makes this world interesting.

 

[Seaside]

Rod, I agree with you. The way I look at it, what we would spend at home for the week, on dining out, wine, spirts, food shopping, etc., we only pay a bit more there. There are many food stores on the island now, and we do choose to buy there instead of lugging down food like we did years ago. We also brought tuna fish, etc., to make things a bit cheaper, however, we found that we were not really saving that much because even that can be a hassle, unless we arrive on a Sunday.

 

[Caladezi]

About the only thing that we bring down anymore, besides liquor, are spices to use in cooking. You could buy them there also but why buy a whole bottle when all you need is a teaspoon or so. At one time we also lugged meat and can goods but it just isn't wort the effort for the amount that you save. You can check out the weekly specials on this web site http://www.fosters-iga.com/ . This is a major chain in Cayman and the is a mid size store on Morritts property.

 

[caribbeansun]

What Rod said - we used to bring more but that was when we'd be staying for three weeks. I would load up one bag with my dive gear and fill it with dry goods such as spices, crystal light, cereal, splenda, coffee and the like. I would never consider lugging wine, beer or spirits - too much weight and too much hassle and I wouldn't have brought the other expect for the fact we had about half a bag that would have been otherwise empty.