captain marvin's or native way?

Hi,

Going to be in Cayman in late August.

Narrowing down my stingray excursion between Native Way's Stingray/coral garden for $25 or Cap Marvin's similar tour for $34. Cap Marvin's also has a 3 stop tour that is 1/2 longer for $39.

Any input/recommendations? Thanks!

We never tried Captain Marvin's, but Nativeway was great. One feature Nativeway offers is that after your tour they will drop you at the beach which works out great if you were considering that.

We have gone on Capt. Marvin's twice and really like it. The boats are nice there are bathrooms on board. They had a private videographer on both of our tours we took. (The videographer is from a private company and comes on all of the longer tours. You need to tell them you want the videographer for the shorter tours and they will give you the email address for the private company so you can make the request for you specific tour.).

If you like to snorkel, the longer tour is the best deal. No one can really snorkel at Stingray City--there are so many Stingrays around. You can use the mask and look underwater and take pictures, but it is just too crowded to snorkel and frankly you don't see much other than Stingways anyway under the water there. On the short tours, you either go to Coral Gardens or the Reef and snorkel a little while longer. On the longer tours you go to both and get to snorkel much longer. There are lots of fish and beautiful coral.

Capt. Marvin gives everyone a small rum cake when you leave. They did drop some folks off at the beach, but I think you need to request this. After the long snorkel tour, we always just go back to the ship.

We decided to go with Captain Marvin's 3 hour stingray & snorkel tour plus an 1 1/2 hour Hell/Turtle farm land tour right after. Just what we wanted and Ruth was able to accomodate our ship's port schedule and coordinate it all. Fantastic service. I'll post how it went when we get back.

We just did a snorkel and stingray city tour with Capt Marvin on 7/15. Great fun. Capt Marvin himself piloted the boat on our trip. When you leave the pier, turn left, the sidewalk runs out pretty soon and you think maybe you've gone wrong. Cross the street (for the sidewalk)and keep going a short distance (continuing left from the pier) and you will see Capt Marvins storefront. Check in at the store, then board a bus for a 10 minute drive to Capt Marvin's dock. Workers quickly route you onto one of the half dozen or so boats (all owned by Capt Marvin or others in his family). Pretty soon Capt Marvin boarded, shook hands with everyone on the lower deck and thanked us for coming. Recognized him from his picture on one of these message boards. Workers fitted us with snorkel gear and lifevests and coached us on snorkeling and feeding the stingrays. First snorkel stop was great. Our guide (Eric, I believe) asked to stay near the board, but allowed us to swin around on our own. He soon coaxed a stingray into his arms and allowed all of us to touch before we got to Stingray City. After maybe 25-30 minutes, we got back in the boat to go to the next stop. Capt Marvin decided to do Stingray City next (second reef was nearby also). Sandbar was crowded with several boats and many people, but was still fun. Stingray are unbelievable -- like tame puppy dogs -- swimming around you and bumping into you. Eric taught us how to feed them (he brought squid). Eric and another guide picked them up, let us hold them and take pictures, and the videographer was recording all of this. Incredible. Spent may be 30 minutes here. We then proceed to the second reef which was just a few tens of yards from a sea wall that reportedly drops off six thousand feet into the ocean. Very shallow reef with more great fish, crabs, etc. Eric knows where a moray eel hangs out, but the eel was gone during our time. Eric found a small reef shark that he couldn't coax out with food. Spent another 30 minutes here, then boarded the boat for the return trip. Videographer was showing the tape on the return trip and selling copies. No pressure if you declined.

We would definitely book with Capt. Marvin's again.

How does one get in touch with Captain Marvin? Does he have a website?

Thanks!