Grand Cayman is the epitome of what comes to most people’s minds when they think of a Caribbean island: gorgeous sandy beaches, sparkling blue water, and Jimmy Buffett tunes by the bar. Having been here once before, though, we were looking to go beyond the beach and explore something different. So when I heard about a relatively new attraction called the Crystal Caves, I jumped at the chance to go.

We walked through three separate caves (there are more than 100 of them in the northern part of the island, but only three have been developed for tourists) and marvelled at the amazing stalactite and stalagmite formations. The guide even showed us how he could tap on different formations to create different chimg sounds—it was like he was playing a series of bells. Very cool. The hitch was that we had to walk directly underneath 300 bats to get out of the caves…which wasn’t fun, but we made it.

I’m not going to pretend this trip is all sunshine and bliss. After all, we’re traveling with a mischievous 10-year-old who loves to push people’s buttons and a surly teenager who thinks everything we do is totally lame (actual quote while inside the caves: “I’m not trying to be negative, but how can you find this interesting?”) But even still, we managed to have a pretty good time.

On to Jamaica…