Stingray City-Rhapsody

[sugcarol]

Has anyone done the stingray city and snorkel tour that is offered by the Rhapsody of the Seas? We are trying to find out the advantage of booking an independent tour company and need some information about the ship's tour. Since the tender tickets are given to people with the ship's excursions first wouldn't this be an advantage?

Thanks to all;)

[lov2sun]

I am wondering about this too. Also wondering what is the difference between the Stingray Swim and Snorkel, Stingray Adventure and the Stinray Snorkel - they all are same price, same duration and descriptions sound the same - what makes them different? did I miss something?

[02bthere]

I'm a first timer; am on the Rhapsody in April; from what I've found out from my travel agent, the three excursions are all the same 'trip'; the difference is the time the excursion starts (7:45; 10 a.m;8:30; 9 am; 11:30 a.m. (Adventure & city Swim & Snorkel). From reading mega numbers of posts about this excursion, and the Grand Cayman's tourist site - it's 'the' thing to do; and apparently every cruise line has at least 4 or 5 trips each docking; if you keep reading the other posts, there seems to be a lot of pros and cons for doing it thru the cruise line and independently; as well as opinions that it's not that big a deal...others (the majority) say that this is one thing to 'do' for sure. I did read in the description of the excursion, that you're only snorkeling for about 45 minutes total; out of 2.5 hours or so...I don't know if any of that helps...you've got more info about the 'tender tickets' that I did till now...Also, it seems that if you can go earlier on the excursions the areas (all of them) are less crowded, especially when there a multiple cruise ships there at the same time. Also, I've read many posts about booking with independent excursions (some are actually the same companys that the cruise lines use) - there seems to be some 'arrangement' between the cruise lines and the excursion operators that if you book your excursion thru the cruise line you can be fairly certain that they are 'safe' operators and will get you back to the ship on time (many posts about unsafe/dangerous operations in water activities). There's even an article on this sites home page about how to decide if you want to go thru the cruise line or go it alone...