Consider the cruise ship docking schedule when planning, their excursions will be to the same tourist spots and the shopping area will be a zoo when ships are in port. You can get the calendar on the Cayman Port Authority website.

We prefer Northside and East End, so we rent a car, they are pretty cheap.

Haven't seen Bio Bay mentioned, better viewing if you get in the water rather than glass bottom boat or kayak, and if getting in the water, go with a company that provides a wet suit to protect from jellyfish.

If going to the botanical gardens, consider the iguana tour.

Took the family there this June and we stayed in a VRBO home near Rum Point. Rented a car and only took about 1/2 a day to adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road with all the round abouts.

Rum Point is awesome if you dont want to be around crowds. You can go to the beach at Rum Point and they have great swimming areas, drinks, food, etc and it is free to use. There is a great reef about 200 yards out from Rum Point and you can get dive flags from the shop at Rum Point to head out. We would go there in the morning and no one was there and we left around 11:30am to head back to eat at house and take a nap, and then we would go back in afternoon. I dont think we ever saw more than 20 people at that area even during "peak times of day".

You can also easily go to Star Fish Point from here where you can walk around in waist deep water and find hundreds of Star Fish. Kids had a blast doing this. it is over by Kaibo which is where the road ends on the island in that direction. Bio-luminescent bay is also there which can be pretty cool as well.

We took private charter to Sting Ray City - awesome experience and was neat because we got there before all the cruise ship excursions. We had probably 30-40 huge rays around us that we got to feed, pet and hold. As we were leaving probably 15-20 boats were coming in and our captain said it gets insane as the day goes on. Then we did some snorkeling and a few reefs. The snorkeling there is actually really good with water clarity, abundance of fish, and beautiful coral.

We did one day trip to Georgetown and didnt car for it overall. It is very populated and super busy. Downtown has lots of shops (mostly junk souvenir style) and parking is limited. Cruise ships crowds most of the days of the week. Seven mile beach is near there and while crowded, it is very very pretty. Basically looks like a giant swimming pool with clear water and white sand beaches. Glad we went, but i dont do well with big crowds so we only did that one day.

Our house was very nice, right on the beach and we could go straight out and swim, kayak, snorkel, etc. Felt completely safe on the island, although i will say speed limits are suggestive at best and cops dont care about speed at all.

We loved it so much we are going back next year and is our favorite spot we have been that area of the world.