Sting Ray City throught Celebrity Summit

Xcitdcruiser · October 31, 2012

I am interested in visiting Sting Ray City but it sounds as if it's much easier to get to with a tour than on your own. The only tours I can find are hours long with this attraction being only a portion of the tour. I was wondering whether anyone knows whether Celebrity offers this as a tour & the costs involved?

Barwick Cruiser · November 12, 2012

Hello! I was also interested in this tour when we cruise in Feb 2013 on Summit. I inquired with Stingray City to do it on our own and was told $50US per person and the experience last 75 minutes including the boat trip to the reef. The ships tour charges $69Cdn. and takes 3 hours. We were going to save the difference and get a cab back and forth but then I found out that the distance to Stingray from the pier is a 45 minute drive:eek:..which kind of explains the length of the ship's tour. Not sure how much a cab back and forth would cost but I'm sure it eats up most of the cost difference. We're now thinking of booking with the ship since we'll be charged now in Cdn$ which makes the prices more attractive at the moment.

When do you travel there?

Cathy

MAGNUM PI · November 13, 2012

My family has previously experienced the Sting Ray City, through the cruise line.

There is more travel time involved, than the actual time interacting with the sting rays.

My experience was that it is some what of a "touristy" activity; if that makes sense?

You are transported to a fenced enclosure in the ocean, where the sting rays are

moving about on the bottom. The water was crystal clear, so we had no diffiiculty watching their movements.

The primary activity there, was the posing for photos, with the sting rays.

They are HUGE. The tour operator positions 3 people, shoulder-to-shoulder,

with all of their hands-supporting the 1 huge sting ray. It makes for an interesting

photo, I will admit that.

The remainder of your time is waiting while the other people, have their photos taken.

My twin young daughters, and my wife, did not enjoy this activity. They were initimidated by the sting rays, and didn't desire any additional contact with them.

I am sure others have enjoyed this activity, more than we did.

Xcitdcruiser · November 13, 2012

Hello! I was also interested in this tour when we cruise in Feb 2013 on Summit. I inquired with Stingray City to do it on our own and was told $50US per person and the experience last 75 minutes including the boat trip to the reef. The ships tour charges $69Cdn. and takes 3 hours. We were going to save the difference and get a cab back and forth but then I found out that the distance to Stingray from the pier is a 45 minute drive:eek:..which kind of explains the length of the ship's tour. Not sure how much a cab back and forth would cost but I'm sure it eats up most of the cost difference. We're now thinking of booking with the ship since we'll be charged now in Cdn$ which makes the prices more attractive at the moment.

When do you travel there?

Cathy

Hi Cathy, I came to the same conclusion. May be easier to do the ship tour as it guarantees time back & we do have some OBC to eat up.

My travels are only in 2014 but seeing as this trip will be one in a lifetime, i enjoy looking into things early :)

Does the X trip state what time is the excursion, whether its a AM or PM trip?

Xcitdcruiser · November 13, 2012

My family has previously experienced the Sting Ray City, through the cruise line.

There is more travel time involved, than the actual time interacting with the sting rays.

My experience was that it is some what of a "touristy" activity; if that makes sense?

You are transported to a fenced enclosure in the ocean, where the sting rays are

moving about on the bottom. The water was crystal clear, so we had no diffiiculty watching their movements.

The primary activity there, was the posing for photos, with the sting rays.

They are HUGE. The tour operator positions 3 people, shoulder-to-shoulder,

with all of their hands-supporting the 1 huge sting ray. It makes for an interesting

photo, I will admit that.

The remainder of your time is waiting while the other people, have their photos taken.

My twin young daughters, and my wife, did not enjoy this activity. They were initimidated by the sting rays, and didn't desire any additional contact with them.

I am sure others have enjoyed this activity, more than we did.

Thank you for your review, much appreciated. I've read up quite a bit re the 'enclosure' and other 'trip' sites give much information into this aspect. I am hearing mixed reviews, along with the above, that it was the best excursion of the entire trip! I guess it really depends on what tickles your fancy & what else is there to do on that port day.

Barwick Cruiser · November 14, 2012

Hi Cathy, I came to the same conclusion. May be easier to do the ship tour as it guarantees time back & we do have some OBC to eat up.
My travels are only in 2014 but seeing as this trip will be one in a lifetime, i enjoy looking into things early :)

Does the X trip state what time is the excursion, whether its a AM or PM trip?

We're offered two times, the first at 8:30am and the second at 10:15am. Not sure if I want to sit on a bus for so long, especially since we have a long tour planned for St. Lucia the day before, might just check out Valley Church Beach which looks like a gorgeous beach to just relax at:D

Cathy

Xcitdcruiser · November 14, 2012

We're offered two times, the first at 8:30am and the second at 10:15am. Not sure if I want to sit on a bus for so long, especially since we have a long tour planned for St. Lucia the day before, might just check out Valley Church Beach which looks like a gorgeous beach to just relax at:D
Cathy

Hi Cathy, Thanks a million for posting the times.

To clarify, the tour is $69pp for 3 hours, 1.5hrs includes total travel (45min each way - bus or boat?) & the other 1.5hr is the time with the stingrays?

Will have to look into Valley CHurch Beach....

Barwick Cruiser · November 15, 2012

Hi Cathy, Thanks a million for posting the times.
To clarify, the tour is $69pp for 3 hours, 1.5hrs includes total travel (45min each way - bus or boat?) & the other 1.5hr is the time with the stingrays?

Will have to look into Valley CHurch Beach....

The tour is $69 Cdn, not sure what Celebrity charges in US$....since I'd be booking from Canada they only give me the excursions in Canadian dollars. Celebrity listed it as being 3 hours long and when I talked to the rep at Stingray City she said their tours are one hour and 15 minutes and that includes the time in the boat that it takes to get back and forth from the dock to the stingray site, so probably less than an hour with the actual stingrays? Not sure yet what we're going to do....good luck!

Cathy

centralcalicruzer · November 16, 2012

I wanted to chime in since we did this tour through Princess earlier this year. I did a lot of research beforehand, and since on Princess the price was $59 per person (U.S.), I figured we could not get round trip transport for $9 per person. Yes, it was about a 45 minute drive across the island, but the driver pointed out sites of interest along the way, plus we were all just relaxing and chatting with our fellow passengers and it went by quickly. When you get there, the guides give you a little bit of instruction about the rays, and then you get into boats to go out to the actual sand bar. The stingrays are NOT kept inside the fenced in area, it is an open-type fence that is meant to keep us from straying too far, they are free to swim in and out. Of course they come up as soon as they see the boats because they know they will have squid to eat. The guides do make sure that everyone who wants a photo gets one taken (we had a group photo with the three of us as well as individual photos with the rays) and they will even take photos for you with your camera. We had about an hour total out there and plenty of time to interact, we were able to feed them and pet them even after everyone had taken photos who wanted one. They are very friendly and will brush up against you. There is also a small reef you can snorkel over. As you can probably tell, we really enjoyed this excursion. If you search down through the Antigua board, you will find a post where I posted some photos.

Barwick Cruiser · November 16, 2012

Thank you centralcalicruzer for that great review and info. That clears up some of my misgivings on this tour. Not sure why Celebrity is charging $10 more than Princess for the same tour, but even at the extra charge it would still make more sense to take the ship's tour for this one since it's a fairly long drive to the tour site.

Cathy

centralcalicruzer · November 16, 2012

We booked our excursion really early because I knew that was what I was wanting to do. It did go up in price $10 closer to the cruise, but I still think it was worth it for a once in a lifetime type of experience. Here's a link to a photo in my Photobucket account, you should be able to scroll forward and backward from there to look at other photos from our excursion and trip, but Photobucket just changed its format and I'm not familiar with it yet, so I don't know for sure. You'll have to make sure and post back here what you thought of the excursion when you get back!

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-04-21A.jpg

centralcalicruzer · November 16, 2012

Sorry, I just checked that link and I guess it only takes you to that one photo. If you are interested in seeing more photos from Stingray City, let me know and I can post the links to them.

Barwick Cruiser · November 17, 2012

Sorry, I just checked that link and I guess it only takes you to that one photo. If you are interested in seeing more photos from Stingray City, let me know and I can post the links to them.

I saw your photo in the boat with the fencing but if you have others I'd love to see them...great to get a feel for a place:)

Thanks so much

Cathy

Ciaranaman · November 17, 2012

I saw your photo in the boat with the fencing but if you have others I'd love to see them...great to get a feel for a place:)

Thanks so much

Cathy

Ditto that for me, too, please! Such mixed reviews that I'm having a hard time deciding whether to do the excursion or not.

Xcitdcruiser · November 18, 2012

Sorry, I just checked that link and I guess it only takes you to that one photo. If you are interested in seeing more photos from Stingray City, let me know and I can post the links to them.

Thank you for posting your review. Could you post the links? Seeing as the excursion was 3 hrs, what did you do afterwards?

centralcalicruzer · November 20, 2012

Here are links to all the photos we took at Stingray City. Our tour was from 10:00 to 1:00, we had lunch in St. John's a did a bit of shopping afterwards.

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-08-17A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-03-22A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-06-19A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-05-20A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-17-8A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-16-9A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-15-10A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-14-11A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/025436-R1-13-12A.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/DSCN1708.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/DSCN1710.jpg

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u443/Centralcalirunner/Cruise%202012/DSCN1711.jpg