Stingray City

[tuckermom]

Has anyone done Stingray City own your own? Did you book before you left or last minute at the dock? A friend just returned from a Carnival Cruise and she says they walked off the ship and there were plenty of people offering the excursion last minute. They ended up going on the tour, saved lots of money and had a great time. I have the excursion booked with Disney and now wondering if I should cancel. Any thoughts?

 

[kmiles]

We've done Stingray City twice and booked directly with Captain Marvins (http://www.captainmarvins.com/) on both occasions. [I'm assuming your speaking of the Stingray City in Grand Cayman? I believe several other ports also have a "Stingray City".]

At any rate, the company is great and I think they're prices are reasonable. As far as doing it on your own right at the dock, I'm sure this may be an option too. Generally, private individuals offer "custom" excursions to you at all of the ports.

We've taken part in some of these too. In Cozumel we booked passage on a glass bottom boat for some snorkeling.

 

[Mmketeer]

Hi,

I never book my excursions through the cruiseships cause' they are much more expansive to book onboard. I used StingrayCityCharters.com when I went.

I find it less crowded to do these things on my own vs with the ships tour groups and I am comfortable doing it this way. Be aware though that when you do book on your own, you may be out of luck if the ship ends up not docking there or is late (say during hurricane season). Make sure your aware of the policies of these companies should this type of thing happen and try to only book with folks that will offer you a full refund in these cases. Becuase' one of the benifits of booking with the ship is if they mess something up (like not getting to port) they'll fix whatever it is or give you a refund. Just do your homework (like you are) anytime you book an excusrion on your own and get lots of opinions and if something does feel right don't do it. You can also check out www.cruise-forums.com for more destination questions. It's a great place to ask people's opinions of what they thought of the tour brokers, etc that they used.

My experinece....
I got of the ship, went to the rotundah area where all he tour groups were holding up signs, found my broker checked in and went to wait in another area with people that booked them. It turned out to be about 10 people and they shuttled us to their marina via a airport style van. The dive style boat was in good shape and even had a small head on board. Their were two local young men on board that served us drinks and was extremly knowledgable about the local waters. Once at the Stingray site we pulled to the very end and they handed out snorkel masks, fins and even vests if you wanted them. The guys were experts on the stingray and called out to us everything any anything we wanted to know about them. They could even tell the age and sex. They would also feed them squid and hold them up for you to take pictures with or touch. Of course, they also offered the squid (at no charge) to anyone else that was brave enough to want to feed them. Most boats in the crowded area I noticed had tons on board and the boats themselves were sometimes even two deckers to hold everyone. I felt much more comfortable with my small party and the tiny crew. We even had to chase down ones of those two decker boats that accidentally left one of their people behind on the sand bar! The guys then took as too a less crowded area near where we were to a deep spot where we could snorkle around coral and we even see some smaller stingray's swimming by. Those two crazy guys jumped of the boat as we were heading back and pulled up another lobster. They were a hoot and I glad we went with them.
Course, this was about two years ago when I went before the last hurricanes hit Grand Cayman.

Mmketeer......sailing DCL again...2/2/06