Sunday closing made official at Turtle Farm
(CNS): Although the Cayman Turtle Farm has not stated the reasons, it will now close its doors to the public on Sundays unless there is a cruise ship in port. It is understood that the closure is as a result of the continuing losses sustained by the facility. Boatswain’s Beach said the park will be open as normal Monday through Saturday 8:00am – 4:30pm and on Fridays the Schooner’s Bar and Grill will remain open for Happy Fridays. Asking people to come visit, a statement from the farm listed its many facilities. Boatswain Beach receives millions of dollars in subsidies each year from government but continues to lose money.
On taking up his position as the farm’s new Managing Director, Tim Adam immediately increased the cost of turtle meat to reflect the true cost of producing it. On 5 February Adam announced the new prices.
“One of my first priorities after taking this job was to begin a process of closely examining every aspect of our operations to determine if they were being run efficiently and were commercially viable,” he said.
“Looking closely at the farm operations it was immediately clear that the price being charged for turtle meat would not allow the proper operation of the farm. The supply of turtle meat in Cayman is in jeopardy and could dry up in the very near future without significant re-investment in the turtles, their feeding and care or even the farm facilities.”
The price of the turtle stew was increased from CI$5.40 per pound to CI$16 turtle steak from CI$9 to CI$27and menavelin from CI$4.00 to CI$12. Turtle bone was also increased from CI$2 to CI$6.00.
The plans to formally change opening hours and close on Sundays have also been under discussion for some time and Sunday closing took effect from Easter weekend.
For further information on the farm and its facilities please contact +1 (345)-949-3894 or email info@boatswainsbeach.ky
Category: Local News
Another pipe dream gone bad.
The building may be open until 4 pm but the lagoon shuts at 2 pm. I took my two children there on Saturday afternoon at 2.30, when it’s not too hot, and they were disappointed to be told the lagoon was shut. I said not to worry we will go tomorrow (Sunday) only to be told it was closed then too!
Never mind, obviously locals aren’t supposed to go, only cruise ship visitors!
To 12:50. I think you answered all of your questions when you stated that they have 88% Caymanians working there. Let’s see, over paid, never answering the phone, sleeping on the job, front area a mess and look at that hourly wages and the amount of paid time off!!! But I guess you could blame all of thison the remaining 12% expat employees.
My last visitors plan to tour the Beach but not at those prices! Just like the airlines Drop the price and they will come!! When will they ever see it is better to lower prices and have a full plane than to fly it half empty. After all it takes the same amount of money and employees to fly that plane and the same applies to Boatwains Beach. Simple math people. The Caymanian people need to stop paying the tab.
Perfect.
Now if the management could just entice the staff to go to church on sunday instead of doing other activities.
What timing, (tis true!!) I was actually at Boatswain Beach YESTERDAY with my family. We had four adults and four children under the age of eight. I cannot complain about the cost of admission for locals, but the price for tourists ($45 for asdults and $25 for children) =$280 for an afternoon outing is simply not worth it!
The lagoon for snorkeling was so full of algae that I could hardly see past my mask. I put on a brave face for the kids, but was truly sickened at the disgusting water and ran as fast as I could to the chlorine pool to rinse the "ick" off.
NOT letting the poor tourists arriving from tour groups see the Predator Tank, Bird Aviary, or Nature Path is just silly. (Mr. Adam, please listen!) They are there already, why not at least let them see the best bits and not just the turtle tanks?
Open it to the public for FREE and ask for donations. Cut the staff in half (no one will notice the difference) and please make this more an an educational destination.
Maybe the bored lifeguards can skim out the lagoon when the handful of swimmers are not gagging on the green algae?!?
Over the Easter holidays, our family called Boatswain Beach’s main phone number on Good Friday afternoon and the call was forwarded to another number with no answer service and we got disconnected 3 times. So we checked the website for the Easter holiday opening hours and found absolutely nothing. We took the chance and drove there only to find the doors closed with NO notice of holiday hours posted for the public. So we returned on Easter Monday around 3:00 p.m. and the kids were happy to see the turtles. BUT, we were told that the majority of the attractions (such as the fresh water pool) were closed since 1 p.m. Again, no public information posted on either the entry doors or the website regarding the limited hours for attractions. Cost cutting is one thing – lack of customer information is unacceptable and quite frankly discouraging to visit again.
Our family visits this place at least 3 times a year. Our kids enjoy the turtles, swimming in the pools and having a meal at the restaurant. Oh yes – there were many restaurant staff on duty at 4:30 but only a handful of visitors. So why not scale back of staff workers on the times or days the attractions are closed to save money? Unless the restaurant staff were preparing for an event for that particular night, we were very surprised at how many were on duty (more so than what you see at more popular restaurants).
For what its worth…there is a lot of work to be done to save this place in more areas than one. A good start might be to better communicate with your loyal customers.
There are people who go to church on Saturday as well
why is it that the bar and restaurant is overstaffed at nights with 2+ security guards, 2+ managers, cook, 3-4 bartenders, plus more. And there is a handful of customers spending??.
Thanks for cutting out 50% of the days I can take my family.
Not to mention it is so hot up there I try and go in the evening, but it closes at 4:30 – so can’t use it then either…
Have they considered polling the public for what they want and when? The LOCAL public… I know many young families who would go for a later afternoon visit and then early dinner with young kids…
And seriously, do we need a lagoon when we have some of the most beautiful beaches right there? FREE!!
Oh for the good old "Turtle Farm"…
close it down all together and save millions!!!!!!
What about families that only day to go there is Sunday? and stay over visitors? Have they been considered? …. I guess not!!!!
No one in the world names a Turtle Farm afer a beach!
What has the name Bostwain Beach have to do with the name and promotion of the cayman Turtle Farm? Our pride and joy has been thrown under the bus!
When the name was changed to Bostwain Beach, that was a secret plan to destroy its image so that it could be sold and grease somebody hand! Why would tourists have turtles on their mind if they are thinking about Bostwain Beach !
Any two year old can see through this.The intention was for it to fail inorder to sell off its assets.
As a matter of fact, no one politician has any business or power to rename a Cayman’s Turtle Farm after any dogone beach !
This is another demonstration of what ignorant and illiterate people ruling this country can do to its economy. rn it into the ground while they dupe you into believing that they can make Cayman rich again . It takes education to do that.
The farm was doing quite well, and it has nothing to do with others competing. Do we have any other turtle farm? So if it was well run and the price was right, there’s no need for it to fail? Sombody is not saying the truth about what really happened.
.
Apparently there are not enough of us – even though we might go 20 Sundays in a year vs a tourist coming once every 2-3 years…
Guess "bread and butter" means nothing here…
Court the locals and use the tourists as profits – trust me, build a solid revenue base, and the outside money is GRAVY…
But if you want the GRAVY to be your main course, keep going, cut out the main course (us, the local recurring revenue) and see how well you can do…
If Boatswains Beach is in financial problems why is it that they are doing the following.
1. Hiring people to catch Turtles and Tag them for CI$14.00 per hour.
2. Why is it that employees who directs the Tourist where to go gets CI$14.00 per hour.
3. Why is it that the best thing that makes money is the gift shop and they never have anything in it any more.
4. Why is does it take two days before someone answers the phone.
5. Why is it when you want to speak the the HR Manager he’s never there off property.
6. Why is it that they are paying a Security Guard in the section where no one visits because its to expensive and all he does is sleep on his chair.
7. Why is it that they charge so much for having Weddings or different functions there.
8. Why is it that employees get three months sick leave and get paid for it when the employee can go fishing during that time.
9. Why is it that an employee can take seven months sick leave with pay.
10. Why is it they advertised for positions and never notify anyone that applied for the postion or at least have the manners to advise them of the out come.
11. Why is it of one of the only places in Cayman hire Caymanians, but now they have to close it down. Boatswains Beach has 88% Caymanians working there.
12. Boatswains Beach employees are paid per hour hight then other Tourism related businesses.
13. Why is it that they are paying Gardeners when the front of the place when you are walking from the parking lot across the street to the buildings the landscaping looks terrible.
Can someone please explain. Thank you
WOW cost savings measure actually being implemented.
The Civil Service should follow suit !!!
Good start! Now close monday thru saturday and that’ll be a big help for the economy. The staff can go to the premier’s house to get paid..and encourage him to buy what he should never have built…told a so!
The high paid marine biologists at BB cant figure out why the turtle population is decreasing due to lack of breeding. Well how about the fact that they are plagued by bright lights and noise at night from the "happy hours"!!
I dont know if the ridiculous salaries and sick leave etc. are the truth, but if they are no wonder BB is broke. They should not receive any subsidy from the gov’t AT ALL!! Do that and see how long they can last.
I also agree that it should be shut down immediately and put up for sale. I wish I had statistics on how many cruise ship passengers actually book the tour because they think that they are going to a "beach side" attraction. I’d be willing to bet every dollar I have that the name Boatswain’s Beach was Macs’ idea.
Cayman is a joke and I am glad that I dont hear what must be said about us in the international media. It might really make me ashamed enough to move somewhere else. That would be terrible because I truly love my country.
Oh and one last thing. I truly do believe that the legislators are afraid to make any definitive decisions because they are afraid of alienating their constituents and losing future votes. Someone said earlier that they need to grow some gonads and start doing what we would expect of leaders. Yes they might need to grow the gonads but they couldn’t lead if everyone behind them were pushing them forward.
What is truly the worst part of all of this is that I don’t see our elected leader, the illustrious Premier, having the gaul to do what is desperately needed right now and that is to resign. Oh but then God forbid that the deputy Premier would take over!!!!