GSC stingray excursion

Hi everyone!

I am going to be on the Escape in October and starting to look at excursions. I would like to do the stingray excursion at Great Stirrup Cay; however, I understand that the stingrays there are penned and not free to roam. I always have hesitations about this. Can anyone confirm that they are in fact penned and if so enlighten me as to whether this is humane. I have heard a lot of negative things about dolphin enclosures but nothing about stingrays and a google search didn't turn anything up. I wouldn't want to support something that was "inhumane" to the animals. I'm a little bit of a bleeding heart when it comes to animals. Thanks!

Yes they are penned but the enclosure was HUGE. It was an awesome experience and I don't think it was inhumane treatment of the stingrays. If you think of a metropolitan zoo as inhumane treatment of animals then you might want to pass on this. If you look at the picture of myself and my wife you can see the fence in the background and that it extends far into the distance.

I highly recommend the stingray excursion and Great Stirrup Cay.

Thanks for the reply! The size of the pen definitely makes me feel better!

Stringray City or a different place has fences/pens? I did not see any fences or pens; just lots of boats. The google map satellite view even has some boats :) : https://www.google.com/maps/place/Stingray+City+Cayman+Islands/@19.3762866,-81.3049027,371m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8f2f62944080be1f:0x6a68e40347bd6fae!8m2!3d19.37587!4d-81.304609?hl=en

Our tour guides noted that the stringrays were trained to visit the tourists for free food. If there were pens, I missed them. It was a great excursion; we got to hold and feed the stringrays!

Tammy

Stringray City or a different place has fences/pens? I did not see any fences or pens; just lots of boats. The google map satellite view even has some boats :) : https://www.google.com/maps/place/Stingray+City+Cayman+Islands/@19.3762866,-81.3049027,371m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8f2f62944080be1f:0x6a68e40347bd6fae!8m2!3d19.37587!4d-81.304609?hl=en

 

Our tour guides noted that the stringrays were trained to visit the tourists for free food. If there were pens, I missed them. It was a great excursion; we got to hold and feed the stringrays!

 

Tammy

Stingray City is an area on Grand Cayman, the OP is talking about Great Stirrup Cay.

There is a very large enclosure. The natrialist there will talk about the enclosure and what it keeps in and out. And how they rotate the rays through.

It was a really enjoyable animal encounter. It is an enclosed area, but they explain how they open and close it and how different rays will go away and sometimes come back with friends later.

I have had trouble collecting my photograph from them, however -- saw the proofs and placed the order and was told they'd contact me but now can't get a response to emails asking when I will get my glossy. Beautiful photo - hope I get it one day!

One quick note -- in GSC there's quite a hike from the meeting area to the boat that takes you out to the stingrays -- probably a 5-10 minute walk, not terribly strenuous, but full sun and quite a bit more exertion than some in our group were apparently ready for. They waited for everybody, but if mobility is an issue it's one you might take into account. It's possible they could arrange some other means of transporting less physically able passengers. Once you're on the boat you get off at a dock and go into the water where you walk/swim a short distance a ways into waist/chest-deep water (average sized adults). As I recall it was deeper where the dock was and we swam a ways to where we could stand/walk more easily. A person in our group had expected no swimming and chose to remain on the dock, which was a shame.

Thanks guys for all the great answers. I feel comforted that the stingrays are well taken care of. I am pretty sure we are going to do this excursion!