The weather is beautiful, the water azure blue and life is good. It is a windy day so there are very small waves at the shore line (like 4 inches tops) but the girls are used to much windier beaches and much rougher surf so they think it is perfect. We hang out and play on the beach for about an hour and then head over to the Stingray excursion set to start at 10.
Now Disney hit the ball out of the park with this excursion. You get a brief orientation/educational lecture. While waiting for the lecture one of the people on the excursion commented on the pirate ring that one of the CM had. He told us he was on the POC crew and got that as an employee of the week award, very cool! Each participant is then given a mask/snorkel and Mae West vest. The group is sub divided up into 4 groups of about 8-10 people. The CM drags a Ramp made of PVC pipe that is shaped like a U. The stingrays know the drill because as soon as the ramps go into the water, they start making to the shoreline like we head to BBB when we get on the ship!
A Ray coming up the Ramp:
The rays are trained to come up one ramp and head to a Mickey Shaped plate where they expect to get fed. You squeeze a piece of Shrimp, or Calamari, or Gel sticks that have vitamins between your middle and pointer finger. When it is your turn, you bend down, place your hand on the Mickey Plate.
Eating From the Mickey Plate:
The ray swims up and sucks the food out of your hand. The rays are swimming all around you. Very Cool! The stinging barb on the ray is not at the end of the tail like I thought. Rather it is about 2/3 the way down. The CMs trim the barbs on the days the ships arent at
Castaway Cay.
A Ray up close:
Despite this, Mini Me didnt want to be in the water or to feed the rays so she asked me to hold her.
Mini Me up top:
Again the water was quite brisk and the level was at a place on my body where certain strategic parts were neither completely in nor completely out. Again I was asked by the others what I was doing and I told them it was my shrinkage acceleration program. That got a few laughs and the other guys in our group decided to do the same thing! Well when I dipped down that was the last straw for Mini Me, she wanted to get up on my shoulders. We feed rays for about 20 or 30 minutes. Then you get to swim around the enclosure to get a closer look at the rays. The kids didnt want to do this so they headed for shore. The CMs who helped us with the feeding were building a gargantuan sand castle so the kids (ours and others) stayed on the shore building the castle while we swam around for another 20 or 30 minutes. I thought it was so cool that Disney had something there to occupy the kids who might not want to swim and save the parents from either deciding who got to sit out or chucking them down to the kids clubs. We got done and ready to go and the kids had no idea we were done yet! Good job! I highly recommend this excursion and I recommend you do one of the first few time slots as the rays are more active then. They microchip the rays so they know who is getting what as far as food. Again Great Excursion!
After feeding them you get about 1/2 to snorkel in the pen in which they live. Most of them realize the food is gone and will not come right up to you. But snorkling around them is very cool. It is shallow enough that you can reach down and touch them. I was playing "tag" with a bunch of them. The barbs are not removed, but rather trimmed. They compared it to trimming fingernails.
. However, you could leave your little one in Scuttle's Cove while you participate. We did this in 2005 w/DGD4 and it was very cool! 
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It has CC on it.
