Nassau Stingray City and more Q's

[ksouma]

My 11-year-old son and I are taking our 1st cruise on Nov 14. We are on the 4 night Disney Wonder Ship. I have a few questions about the excursions that we want to do. The 1st stop is in Nassau and my son really wants to swim with the Stingrays at Stingray City. I have read many posts here where people say it does not compare to Stingrays in the Western Caribbean. I am not concerned about that and I am only interested in if it is worthwhile for someone who has never done it before.

All of the posts I find are people bashing it because it does not compare to their previous Stingray adventure. We have never had a previous Stingray adventure so comments like that do not interest me. If someone can take the time to post as much info about their experience at Stingray City it will be greatly appreciated! I am not all that interested if I as an adult would enjoy it, this cruise is more for my son so any comments of how the children reacted to it would be even better!!!

My son is 11 and he is really interested in feeding, petting them and maybe swimming underwater with them. He is a good swimmer and can tread water for a long time... Thanks in advance for any information you can provide!!!!!

Next stop is Castaway Cay. He really wants to go Parasailing and on some type of snorkeling adventure. Any ideas or comments on these 2 events will again be greatly appreciated!

We are booked (so far unless we get an upgrade) for Deck 6 and stateroom # 6037....

I know that this is a lot of questions but this is our 1st cruise and I want it to be the memory of a lifetime for him!

 

[mketting]

Sorry,This is very long response.

I did my first cruise just this past month, and we did the Stingray City excursion and have not done any other Stingray cities.

The Island that Stingray City is located on is very pretty and picturesque. You take a ferry to the Island, 45 Min, then when you get off the ferry they are waiting to take you over to stingray city. It took about 6 min to walk across the island to the site. Once you get there you check in and they give you a bracelet. You walk down some steps to a large deck area where you pick up your mask/snorkel and vest. (we bought our own for the trip, useful again on castaway cay). You then are given some directions by the staff. The stingrays are in a large enclosed area. You walk down some steps into the water and off you go. The stingrays are gliding all along underneath you. After a few minutes the staff brought out food to feed them. A staff member swam down and gatherd one up and brought it over to the steps for those who weren't comfortable diving. It was amazing to feed and touch them. I didn't realize until we got home and saw the pictures just how big the one was.

My DD 6 was the youngest and she, along with the rest of us enjoyed the excursion thoroughly. I would definitely reccommend it for you and your son.

One suggestion I would make is to hang back and let some others go ahead and get in the water and swim for awhile and then head in yourself. When we were there everyone was in a big hurry to get in and it was crowded on the steps and swimming. After a few minutes things calmed down and about 15 min. after we started it was much more enjoyable.

After our stingray swim we walked around the island a bit. Right across from the booth where you check in is a very pretty beach. You can't swim there but we climbed down the hill and got some great pictures.

We then headed over to lunch and had a brief swim. We got on the 2:30 ferry back to Nassau which gave us time to visit the straw market and town a bit.


At CC we found a spot on the beach and then we went snorkeling in the snorkel section. We did not leave the island on a snorkel excursion. The island is so great it would be a shame to spend most of the day away from it. There is no cost if you have your own equipment, otherwise you can rent it. They have markers out in the water to follow. We snorkeled awhile then relaxed on the beach then did lunch. We then went ona banana boat ride which was awesome. Lastly we had booked the last parasailing time of the day. You get the boat for parasailing all the way back at the ship so it was perfect. We packed up and headed toward the parasailing boats. We loved it!! I did it alone and others did it tandem. When we got back to the dock it was time to head to the ship. We had a great day.

 

[mketting]

I forgot, we were in cabin 6049 and loved the location!! It was close to everything, we almost never used the elevators.
I think you'll be very happy.

 

[SCOTTOHIOCPA]

mketting did a great job describing the stingray area. Here's what little I can add:

I went about 4 years ago. There were about 12 large rays. There were some sunken boats on the bottom with some fish swimming around them. There is netting around the area to keep the rays in. The rays were very docile and even though some guy kept grabbing them and wrestling them to to surface, they never got upset about it.

I have seen stingrays in the wild since then, and I probably would have been afraid of them before this experience taught me how they don't bother you if you don't bother them.

The island, which is called Salt Cay (blue lagoon), has a nice lagoon in the middle of it and many hammocks in the shade. My family will be going there in 3 weeks. We probably won't swim with the stingrays though, since my kids are not brave when it comes to ocean stuff. If your kid is into this, I think he will never forget how much fun it was.

 

[ksouma]

Thanks for the detailed and quick responses I am sure my son and I will have a blast. He is so excited about the trip he keeps wanting to know if we can go earlier...

He will do fine with the Stingrays and I am sure he will remember it for the rest of his life. The parasailing sounds great and I think we will follow your lead and not leave the island while doing our snorkeling....

I guess we are all set with our excursions for our trip. Stingrays in Nassau and Parasailing at Castaway Cay....

A few last questions....

--Can you bring underwater cameras to the Stingray swim?
--Do they photo / video the Stingray swim that is available for purchase later?
--Do they photo / video the parasail that is available for purchase later?

Again thanks for the great information and I am glad to hear that you both enjoyed your vacations! I hope ours is a magical as yours and who knows maybe some day when my son takes his children on a Disney cruise he will speak about the time him and I went....

 

[mketting]

Yes you can bring an underwater camera. We did.

No they do not take any pictures of video for you at either excursion.

When parasailing take your own camera(s) When on the boat all the passengers I was with were happy to take pictures for each other as each of us went. Also take the underwater or a throw away camera that you can take up in the air with you.

Have a great time!!!!!!!!

 

[ksouma]

Thanks again for the response. I have a Sony P10 I will use for on board photos and an Elph Sport (waterproof to 16 feet deep) to use for the underwater shots....

One last Q... I book us for early dinner seating but am having 2nd thoughts. I do not want to be rushed making it back to the ship but I also want him to see all the on board shows that he wants... Which is the better seating time? I am sure he will be a party animal so him staying up late is not a problem....

Thanks in advance!

 

[mketting]

Well, here was my experience. I too was a bit worried about the early seating but in the end was very happy with it.

1st- You go to dinner hungry. If we had had the later seating we certainly would have been snacking before dinner at one of the on deck spots. The food is sooo good it would be a shame to not fully enjoy it. ( Our server, Jan, brought me one of every dessert one night when I coudnlt make up my mind)

2nd- You do have a bit of a tighter schedule in the late afternoon to be ready for dinner but we never really felt rushed. It was nice to sit and relax through dinner and then gear back up to enjoy the rest of the evening, seeing the shows and enjoying the other activities.

3rd- Pictures. We usually headed for dinner right at 6:00, not earlier. We were always able to hop in line to get our picture taken, the lines were never too long and there were always several different options for backgrounds up at once. If we didn't have time before dinner they were still there after for the next group heading to dinner.

4th- Late night buffet. If you had just eaten dinner at the 8:30 seating how could you be ready to enjoy all the yummies at the buffet.

Any other questions I will be happy to try and answer. This board has helped me during the "withdrawl" period I have been going through since our trip ended.

 

[ksouma]

Thanks again! How long do you get to swim (actual time in water) with the Stingrays? Is it an hour or 2 or is it limited to 30 minutes????

 

[mketting]

I'm not sure of the time limit.

We seemed to be there quite a long time and left when we felt we had been there long enough, there were still people there when we headed out. If I had to guess I would say we were there around 45+ min.

 

[ksouma]

Thank you once again for all the help you are providing! You have been great and it's is very nice of you to take the time and walk me through all this...!

I am curious if you think this idea I have would work. My son wants to do both the stingray and dolphin excursion. My idea is that maybe we could do the stingray in the am and the dolphins in the afternoon. Do you think that would be workable? If not them we will just do the the Stingray swim because he wants that one the most....

Thanks in advance!

 

[mketting]

The dolphin enclosure is right beside where the ferry docks. I do not know the times for that excursion. If you are planning to stay until the late ferry goes back at 4:30 you should easily have time to do both.

Give a call to the Disney excursion #. I found the operators very helpful and informative, they could tell you the times for the dolphin excursion and describe what you will get to do. I can tell you for the price you will definitely get a lot more out of the stingray excursion. We too were interested in the dolphins. When I asked the operator she said the dolphin excursion is pretty short. You stand on a platform in the water and then get to feed the dolphin a fish, touch and hug it, that's it.

Don't forget to book your excursion on the 60 day mark. Also, when you board the ship check your excursion tickets right away. When we got to our room and went over everything we found that 2 of my tickets were missing, parasailing and the banana boat. I immediately went to the excursion desk to get it fixed. The CM said it was good that I came right away, my name wasn't down anywhere, I got the last parasailing available. If I had waited I would have missed out.

Here's some other thoughts:


Have your son head to the kids club on the afternoon of the last day at sea. I think it says REHEARSAL TIME on the Navigator. It was around 4:00. All the kids there at that time get a nice Free T-Shirt and get to all go on stage, Mickey comes out and they all sang the M I C KE Y song and showed pictures of the kids that had been taken throughout the cruise.

If you are not big pop drinkers don't waste money on the Mug. Pop is free at all the sit -down restaurants on board and there is juice and Ice tea available any other time.

You have probably already read this, but if possible arrive early to board. We got to the dock at 10:30. I dropped everyone/ and luggage off at the port and then went to return the rental car to budget. While I was gone everyone else checked in. I got back in less than 30 min. I just had to walk up to the same counter fam. checked in at show my license and got my KTTW card. 2 members of our group got in line hile the others watched tv or looked around. The ship start boarding at 11:50. The rest of us joined the line. We went to Parrot Cay for lunch, GREAT, and the checked our room. THey were ready. My daughter got her suit on and headed to the pool. This is the one time the pool and slide are almost empty!! (Pack suits in carry-on in case luggage isn't in room yet.)

If your son eats off the kids menu at dinner it will come quickly and then there is a long wait for the adult dinners. My DD would eat and then go to the club while we finished dinner. If you are a sociable type of person it is fun to sit with other cruisers. They seem to match people with kids of similar ages.

If possible go a day early and visit WDW. This was a great way to start vacation.

Eat at least one breakfast at the sit-down restaraunts. The day at sea is a good morning to do this. On the Nassau and CC days go to Beach Blanket and sit outside on the deck and watch the ship come into port.

If your son likes to swim let him enjoy the pools early, they are very crowded on the day at sea. My DD swam, ate lunch and then went to the kids club for a little while so the Adults could go to the much less crowded adult only pool. For lunch we went to Beach Blanket filled our plates and then found a quiet deck spot to enjoy it. There was so much to do as a family that we didn't use the kids club much but it was nice to have when needed.

The lanyards to carry KTTW cards that you can buy at guest services desk are very handy.

I could go on, but I'll stop.

 

[mketting]

Ksouma check you private messages.

 

[ksouma]

Thanks again, you have been very helpful and I really appreciate you taking the time to answer some of my stupid questions

Yes I do plan on booking our excursions the day they open up.. Sept 15th I think..... If possible we will do the Dolphins in the AM, Stingray's in the afternoon and then maybe have some beach time left. My son is part fish (during the summer I can't get him out of our pool) and he loves to swim.

I think he would love the Dolphins and that would be a once in a lifetime thing. I know he will love the Stingray swim and will probably want to do that one again for our next cruise. If we enjoy the cruise we are planning on taking a 7-day'er in late 2005 or early 2006....

Thanks again your help is greatly appreciated!!!!!!!

I sent you a PM back

 

[SCOTTOHIOCPA]

When I did the stingray swim it was January. You could swim with them as long as you wanted to, but the water was pretty cold and the most I could take was about 30 minutes. You might want to check with a Nassau site to find out the average water temp for November.

 

[ksouma]

Here is some info I got before booking our Nov cruise. At 1st I was going to book a Sept cruise but the rainfall for Sept was over 7 inches..... I wanted to try and get away from rain and cold waters so I booked for Nov because it looks ok.. What do you think?????

Nassau November Climate Averages
* Rainfall: 2.5"
* Temperature: high of 82 low of 69
* Water Temp: 79

Thanks in advance!

 

[vjeri]

(The lanyards to carry KTTW cards that you can buy at guest services desk are very handy.)


I found your posts very interesting, mketting. We're planning our first Disney Cruise in Aug.

I was thinking of bringing lanyards with me for the kids (12 & 10) to keep track of their cards. Do the cards have holes already in them to attach the lanyard, or do you need a plastic card holder attached to the lanyard?

I also had one other question regarding the kids. My kids don't seem very interested in the kids club. If they do not do the kids club, then we will not have access to the pagers right? Should we bring some FRS radios to keep in touch with the kids? I've seen families do this at Theme Parks and such.

Thanks.

 

[mketting]

Lanyards- You will need a plastic holder for the KTTW cards.

Pagers- The pagers are only for when the kids are in the club. The CM's use them to page parents when there is a problem or if the kids want picked up etc... I do not know how well FRS radios work on the ship. I too saw people at the parks with them but did not see any on the ship.

Any more ?'s vjeri let me know.

 

[ksouma]

My son and I have our own snorkeling gear, can we use our own gear at Stingray City or will we need to use theirs???? I would prefer to use ours because we have the snorkels that do not let water in when you dive.... Thanks in advance!!!!

 

[mketting]

You can definitely use your own. We brought all of our own equipment The same is true for CC. The only thing you have to use that they provide are the swim vests. When I wanted to dive underwater i either slipped mine off and held onto the cord while I dived down or let the air out.