Best excursion for a 4 and 7 year old?

[FlaMommy75]

Hello! We will be traveling for 7 nights on the Carnival Legend over Thanksgiving and was wondering what the best excursion would be for a 4 and 7 year old. I was thinking about the pirate encounter trip or stingray city. I am thinking the kids may be afraid of stingray city though. We live on the Gulf side of Florida and have always taught the kids to steer clear of stingrays. Thoughts? :)

[stlcruise]

Hello! We will be traveling for 7 nights on the Carnival Legend over Thanksgiving and was wondering what the best excursion would be for a 4 and 7 year old. I was thinking about the pirate encounter trip or stingray city. I am thinking the kids may be afraid of stingray city though. We live on the Gulf side of Florida and have always taught the kids to steer clear of stingrays. Thoughts? :)

 

We're traveling with a 4 year old in Oct. and are considering the same tours as you. We're leaning towards the Stingray City Sandbar, Hell and Turtle Farm. I've read reviews about the Pirate Encounter and some have posted that it could be a little scary with cannons shooting off. I've been to GC a couple of times but have not done the Stingray tour yet. I'll keep researching :rolleyes:. Good luck.

 

Kimberly

[JohninDC]

Several families with children did the stingray tour with us through Moby Dick; great service and kid sized equipment. You will probably have to hold your 4-year old unless he's very tall. Most of the kids had a great time. Good luck!:)

[sbnuggie]

Also look into Cayman in a nutshell dot com . We are using them in about two weeks, good reviews, not just stingrays, goes to hell, turtle farm, lunch on beach and stingrays (I think they use Captain Marvins for the stingray portion). I will have my 8yr old twins and 4.5 yr old boy with us, so this should keep them entertained, I hope. I plan on writing a review when I get back. I know how frustrating it is trying to find info when people never come back to the boards to post a review of their experience.

[jerry2457]

Your 7 year old would probably do okay at Stingray City but it might be a bit much for your younger child if you have warned them to stay away from the stingrays. The sandbar has a lot of them and they are used to being fed so anytime you put your hands in the water they come up to you. There are a lot of the bigger, female stingrays at this sandbar but I noticed that, if my hands were not in the water they ignored me. We were there a few days after Steve Irwin died from the barb of a stingray so we had a lot of people nervous to be around them. Hell and the Turtle Farm and 7 Mile Beach might be a better option doing the first in the morning and the beach in the afternoon.

[FlaMommy75]

Thanks for the replies. I really think the kids would be terrified of the stingrays. Even my husband sounded a little scared when I mentioned it:rolleyes: Where we live we do the "stingray shuffle" in hopes of avoiding them:)

The pirate ship may be scary too though. Maybe just the beach and turtle farm? Part of me just wants to leave them in the camp but we are already doing that in Belize to go cave tubing so I feel guilty.

[m steve]

and think Boatswains Beach would be best for kids. They can see the big turtles and handle the small ones, there are several places to swin, food is available and the cost isn't outrageous. Take a cab from the pier. I think stingray is too deep and scary for that age group.