stingray city crowded?

[deemk]

this is our first cruise and it's been recommended that we absolutely not miss stingray city. all the pictures i've seen look so crowded with people, i wonder how it can be enjoyable. any have any thoughts on this? is it always crowded? or are there ways to avoid a swarm of people?

[sunsetme]

its crowded but there are lots of stingrays. you will be so ingrossed in what you are doing you will not notice

[drew sailbum]

The crowds peak with the cruise ship schedules, which shouldn't be surprising. Typically wednesdays and Thursdays bring the most ships.

 

Go over to www.caymanport.com to check out how many ships will be in port the same day.

 

Depending upon the times of your scheduled port call, you may be able to go in the afternoon. Afternoon trips have the advantage of fewer people at the Sandbar, but the rays may be well-fed by then and not as active.

[deemk]

great info! thanks! i was wondering if there was a place to find out how many ships would be there that day. we do end up there on a thursday. and i was also curious which times of the day are more crowded. thanks for that. i would've thought that first thing in the morning would be less crowded with everyone sleeping in. but i guess not. if we leave port at 4:30, is getting back at 3:15 cutting it too close? i found a company that does a 3 hr tour starting at 12:15.

[98Charlie]

Go to cruisecal.com and enter the name of your ship, sailing date or date you are in port at Grand Cayman and you will find out how many ships are scheduled to be in port with you and at what times they will be there. Site is fairly accurate most of the time.

 

Dianne

[deemk]

i checked and there are 4 ships listed for that day. is that considered "a lot"?

[kosmo]

We were there this past Tuesday and we counted 6 in port and didn't feel as crowded as we thought so 4 is probably a comfortable number. I just wanted to mention that we too thought Stingray City looked busy so we took a deep snorkel stingray excursion where we went out into 8-10 feet depth on into our own area of the ocean with about 20 folks on our boat. It was a nice, comfortable number. The excursion itself was a bit more stressful, at first, because we could not touch bottom to stand and see where the stingrays were, but once the snorkel mask was on, it was awesome to watch them swim below us. Either way, I'm sure you'll have a great time ... don't miss the 'rays!

[scotts8826]

The sandbar will be crowded but also consider the size of the tour you are with. If you book through a cruise ship, there will be hundreds of people around you. People congregate around their own boats. I booked with Captain Bryan and we had around 25. Our guide made sure everyone in our tour had the opportunity to "kiss" a stingray. If I was in a crowd with 150 people (really!, I saw a double decker boat PACKED with people) you may not get personal attention. Later, we stopped over by a reef and our guide lured out an eel. It was funny to see our tour group crowded around our guide as he lured out the eel and when he came out, how quickly fins and feet started kicking to back out of the way!

[tocanada]

I was there on January 16th (Tuesday) when there were 6 ships in port. I used Moby Dick Tours who were just fantastic. Did the 9.30am tour. $35 if you book in advance. $40 on the pier. 10 minute drive to the boat and then about a 20 minute boat ride to Stingray City. The tour included snorkeling on the reef close by (equipment was included). As there were quite a few boats on the sandbank, we went snorkeling first.

 

Even though there were still a lot of boats around, it was not crowded. It really was an incredible experience and I am so glad I went there. Never in my life did I ever expect to kiss a stingray!

 

On the link below for Grandeur of the Seas, i have included some photos.

 

andrew