Captain Marvins?

[Keisele]

I have read a lot of recommendations about Captain Marvin's tour of Stingray City. Is this a tour your can book through Princess? If not, where and how do you sign up?

Also, please explain why everyone seems to like Captain Marvin's tour better than the other Stingray City tours.

[chloeleigh]

we did the captain marvins tour of stingray city and would highly recommend it...main reason for not booking thru cruise is that it's more expensive..not a heck of a lot difference, but when dealing with a family of 5, it does add up...once tendered in, it was an easy 2 block walk to capt. marvin's storefront...main advantage i saw on the trip itself was that we were in a small group..i'd say maybe only 15 of us as opposed to large boatloads of people on other tour groups...we parked a little bit away from the other ships, toward the end, and our leaders brought plenty of food and the stingrays came running...our guides were friendly and helpful and lifted stingrays out of the water for us for photo ops...photographer on board selling his digital pic disks..but we ended up buying them since they were so good, a unique experience, and chalked it up to blowing the money we had saved from not booking thru the cruiseline...they ahve 2 options..a 2 hr tour that does stingray city and then one snorkel stop...and a longer tour that does stingray city and TWO separate snorkel stops...think it was only $5 more for the longer tour, but it was sold out..ours was fine..either way, don't expect to spend a very long time at stingray city, as all tour groups have limited time there since it is the major attraction and has to accomodate many...we also added the turtle farm and hell tour thru capt. marvins...it was an ok addition, but not a "must do"...stingray city alone would have been fine...hope this was helpful

[BettyFB]

I used Captain Marvin's last year and had a wonderful tour. We did the 1/2 day swim with the stingrays and everyone in my group loved it. Since we had so many people in our group (I had 52 people that cruised with us) we had the whole boat (30 people did the tour). You can't book this through your cruise....just search for Captain Marvin's Watersports - Grand Caymen and it will come up (tried to do a link and it didn't work).

What I liked was the size of our group....I believe that if you do the cruise ships tour, you will be part of a much larger group/boat. The crew was excellent...in fact, one of the crew members brought one of the stingrays right up to the boat so that one of our passengers could touch it(she was afraid to get into the water).

There shop is also easy to get to....just a short couple of blocks away from the cruise ship dock.

I would not hesitate to recommend or to use them again.

[thebrat99]

I did Capt. Marvin with my granddaughter last fall. Booked thru his website. As said before, small group, less expensive, personalized attention. They were great!

Till two weeks on the Golden Princess!
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[pattie63]

We did the 1/2 day with Captain Marvin's last week. Very good time and I would highly recommend them. Main reasons for booking with Cpt. Marvin
1. Soto's was booked.
2. Less expensive than cruise ship (i think $39 for adults, $22 for children for 1/2 day)
3. Boats are much less crowded than the cruise ship excursion. We had about 25 people.

Enjoy.

QE2 - 2000
Grand Princess - 2002
Coral Princess - 2004

[Keisele]

Thanks for the reviews!

Chloeleigh, so when you went to Hell, did they have t-shirts and other touristy stuff to buy? Did you mail any post cards from there?

[geoherb]

We went with Captain Marvin's in December and had a great time. Some of the other boats that stopped at Stingray City were huge. We were glad that we were with a smaller group--probably 20 passengers with us. We did the 1/2 day (Coral Gardens, Stingray City, and Barrier Reef stops). Our tablemates did the shorter excursion and had Captain Marvin as their captain.

One of the nice touches was that they gave us a free rum cake when we got back to the store and a discount on anything else we purchased. The rum cake might have been special since we were there the week before Christmas. I haven't seen others write about getting one.

[Jaxsonbrownie]

We booked an excursion through another private company called Nativeway,the groups are alot smaller than with the cruise ship excursions.More one on one, and you can book through their website Nativewaywatersports.com. I believe the cost is $30 pp.You get taken on a snorkeling tour and then a stop at stingray city.All your gear is supplied ,with food for stingrays and refreshments on boat.

[LarryF]

Went on Captain Marvin's two years in a row. Great tour. You can order on line at [url="http://www.captainmarvins.com"]www.captainmarvins.com[/url]

[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=8b0000&cdt=2004;6;5;17;00;00&timezone=GMT-0500[/img]
on Caribbean Princess June 5, 2004

Larry

[sea-escape]

Don't forget to book early! When we tried, Capt. Marvin's, Capt. Bryan's and Nativeway were sold out!!! There were 7 cruiseships in GC that day. That could be the reason! [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

[crusing plantlady]

okay I have to great my 2cents for Soto's. Google Soto's Grand Caymen. This trip stopped at two dive spots and Sting ray city for $24. They guides were great. They got in the water and one knows were a moray eel lives and he brings it out with food and plays with it in front of you. Nice, clean boat with maybe 30 people. Great trip and great value. Alot of fun.

[pattie63]

Cap't Jimmy who works for Captain Marvins also found the Green Moray eel for us last week -- what a sight.

With respect to the free rum cakes - Captain Marvins was giving them out last week. Very tasty and we were starved at the end of the trip (LOL).

QE2 - 2000
Grand Princess - 2002
Coral Princess - 2004