Although we have been on Cayman well over 3 years, we had yet to visit the only five star resort on the island, The Ritz Carlton. We have students who work there and have driven past it literally hundreds of times as it sits right on Seven Mile Beach road, but had never gone in or been to an event there. Last night we finally got to see what all the fuss is about as we attended a gala dinner put on by the Cayman Islands Society of Professional Accountants which honored graduates of the two local colleges who got degrees in accounting.
As we pulled up the long driveway into the Ritz our first question was parking but that was quickly answered by the valet who met us on the road and indicated that valet parking was a part of our tickets to the event. Feeling very special, we pulled right up to the main entrance, handed our keys to the valet and headed in. Employees of the resort pointed us in the right direction as we headed to where the dinner was being held. The Ritz is a huge complex of several buildings on both sides of Seven Mile Beach road. Our event was in the main resort on the land side of SMB road. The dinner was in a huge ballroom and as the reception was going on we spent some time "exploring" the resort. It was dark so we couldn't see the outside amenities but did get a chance to wander around inside and see the gallery. The inside was very nice but not so much that it blew us away. The dinner was good and it was great to see several of our students recognized who had graduated last year with degrees in accounting. Ironically, the keynote speaker was Don Seymour a local businessman who is a graduate of the University of Texas (yes I watched the game yesterday afternoon and we shall speak no more of it!). We were both tired after the excitement of yesterday morning (about which you can read on the baby blog) and the adrenaline rush was wearing off so by 10 p.m. we were ready to skip the dancing part of the evening and just head home. It was nice to see what at least part of the Ritz was all about. A huge part of the Ritz's reputation is their service and we could definitely see that was deserved. I am just not sure we could ever stomach paying 500 or more a night for a room no matter how good the service might be. It was a fun evening though and certainly helped take our minds off the worry of earlier (and of course what turned out to be the real tragedy of the day, the Texas-OU game).
