Stingray Adventure? - Disc. Scuba cancelled

[PizzaPilot]

My son and I were booked for the Discover Scuba excursion and it has been discontinued.

 

Has anyone done the Gibbs Cay beach and Stingray Adventure? How was it??

[hosecaptain]

My son and I were booked for the Discover Scuba excursion and it has been discontinued.

 

Has anyone done the Gibbs Cay beach and Stingray Adventure? How was it??

 

Hi,

My son and I were also booked on the discover scuba tour this past week, and found out it was cancelled three days before (found out Monday for Thursday excursion). I asked at the tour desk why it was cancelled and they said the boat had broken down, and although it was fixed, it was only a temporary fix, and Carnival didn't want to send us out on a boat that could potentially break down at sea. ( :confused: why they cancelled out to end of June for your cruise)

We did the reef and rays tour which was enjoyable. We spent about 30 minutes snorkeling a decent size reef. Saw lots of fish, a barricuda and a nurse shark (as the brochure said :D). then spent 30 minutes at a sandbar playing with 5 stingrays. The tour guides were very frinedly and knowledgable - you can even hold a stingray for a cool pict if you want. The only downside to the tour was that there were 40-45 people on the tour, so until everyone spread out, you were bumping into people for a while while snorkeling. Not everyone got off the boat to play with the stingrays, but we had a fun group so those of us who did pet/play with them had a great time.

Not sure what the Gibbs Cay beach part involves, but I do see that the tour is $10 less than the one we did.

Have a great time on the cruise !!!

 

Jim

[PizzaPilot]

Thanks for the info. We were not notified of the cancellation - I was printing my documents for the criuse and noticed it was no longer on them. I checked my credit card account and found the refund. Just glad I found out so I have time to book another:rolleyes: . We were pretty set on the stingray one, but now my son is interested in the Aqua Boats excursion - we'll see!

 

Thanks again!

[Kwst8ofmind]

Does anyone know if them stingrays on these excursions are debarbed or just wild ones?

[hosecaptain]

Does anyone know if them stingrays on these excursions are debarbed or just wild ones?

 

The one's we swam with were wild Atlantic stingrays, with 2"-4" barbs. Our guide held the stingray, and showed us the barb - he actually let us touch it and he licked the barb !! :p

[jodster]

PizzaPilot,

 

My DH and I did the Gibbs Cay Stingray excursion last November through HAL. I actually enjoyed it more than Grand Cayman (JMO). We took a short walk to the boat and boarded. It was maybe a 20 minute ride to the cay and they actually drive the boat almost right on the beach. So unlike GC you walk into the water from the beach to "stand" with the stingrays. I actually had a hard time in GC because the water was really rough that day and I'm 5' 4" and the water was almost up to my chest and I found it hard to keep my balance.

 

Gibbs cay has some of the bluest and clearest water I have ever seen. The beach where the boat landed was beautiful but if you want to explore the cay I would highly recommend brings shoes with rubber soles. There aren't nearly as many stingrays as GC but I actually liked that better. They are very docile and use to humans feeding them. In fact as soon as we "docked" they seemed to come from nowhere to be fed. The guide held them and also "helped" others hold them too.

 

I don't know how old your son is but we actually booked this excursion again (except this time we are going on Carnival) since we are taking our 15 year old with us and he has his heart set on getting close to the rays.

 

There are no facilities to speak of on the cay (bathroom or food) although we were only there for a little over an hour by the time you add 20 minutes to and from the cay.

 

I hope you find this helpful in your decision.

 

jodi

[lumpkin]

I just discovered that my SNUBA excursuion at Grand Turk (New Waves Snuba) was cancelled. Princess said it was for safety issues....?....that there was something unsafe about the cove where the snuba took place, and they would not rebook the trip unless they found another tour operator. I was wondering if anyone knew any details, as Princess reps could not tell me anything more.

[frofro]

Hi,

 

We did the reef and rays tour which was enjoyable. We spent about 30 minutes snorkeling a decent size reef. Saw lots of fish, a barricuda and a nurse shark (as the brochure said :D). then spent 30 minutes at a sandbar playing with 5 stingrays. The tour guides were very frinedly and knowledgable - you can even hold a stingray for a cool pict if you want.

 

Jim

 

How deep is water where you snorkeled? How about where you played with stingrays? I want to take my mom along, she's afraid to get out of boat if the water is shallow :eek:

[hosecaptain]

How deep is water where you snorkeled? How about where you played with stingrays? I want to take my mom along, she's afraid to get out of boat if the water is shallow :eek:

 

Hi - sorry been off the board for a while.

The snorkel area was about 20-25 ft deep. the reef came up to about a foot or so below the surface, it was close enought that you couldn't swim over it, you had to just swim around.

The Stingray area was around 3 feet deep and it was pretty calm in that area, even though it was somewhat rougher seas that day. It was really close to shore, and a few people went ashore and walkeed along the small beach there.

 

Jim