Which Stingray Tour offers most time in the water?

[Aviendah]

We will be on a cruise the first week in January. Our 12yo twin boys are anxious to snorkel and since this will be our first island stop I want to give them as must time in the water as possible. There are various tours that offer 2-3 stops per trip. The last time I did the tour we just hopped on a boat and went without pre-scheduling. I'm trying to plan ahead this trip but many of the tour descriptions don't offer how much time is spent in the water. I thought I had settled on Stingray Sailing for our stingray tour but we only get a total of 1 hour in the water for stingrays and reef. It appears that Dexter's offers a more relaxed schedule for time in the water.

 

If you have a recommendation for a relaxed tour that gives plenty of time in the water for the boys to swim and snorkel I would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

[rockbock]

If you opt for a ship excursion, you'll end up with the least time to interact with the stingrays, since the ships cram 50-100 people on board with only two guides. They also charge double what the private excursions do and it includes no food or drink.

 

Perhaps I hit it on a great day, but we went with Frank's Watersports and there were only 7 of us (five of which were my family) on the boat with two guides. For $35 each (and it's cheaper during certain times of the year), we had a 3-hour excursion which included stingrays and snorkeling. It also included a light snack and unlimited rum punch (or regular fruit punch). We ended up with about 45 minutes in the water with the stingrays and 45 minutes snorkeling. It was all one-on-one interaction time, since there were so few of us on the boat.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1499068