Wave Runner Tour to Stingray City

[snausman]

I am wondering if anyone has taken this tour. It is a 2 hour wave runner tour to see Stingray City then on to Rum Point. I would really like to get some feed back on it, such as what did you think? Was it worth it? Would you do it again? Thank you for taking the time to answer.

[snausman]

ok I am getting a little worried, no one has taken this tour???? Anyone???

[snausman]

its a brand new tour so you might not find any reviews yet. We booked it and will do it in Dec:-)

 

Ok well that makes sense why no one is posting. I went ahead and booked this tour for Nov. 22. I will come back and write a review for everyone.

 

If someone should take this tour before my cruise please tell us what you think.

 

Thanks

[drew sailbum]

This may be a physically exhausting trip. You WILL use muscles you didn't know you had! Depending upon sea conditions it may be a quite bumpy ride.

 

I'm sure the tour operator will advise you about appropriate handling of the waverunner in the stingary vicinity. There may be MANY other boats and hundreds of people in the water so please use the utmost caution.

 

Let the board know what you think about the trip once you're back.

[snausman]

This may be a physically exhausting trip. You WILL use muscles you didn't know you had! Depending upon sea conditions it may be a quite bumpy ride.

 

I'm sure the tour operator will advise you about appropriate handling of the waverunner in the stingary vicinity. There may be MANY other boats and hundreds of people in the water so please use the utmost caution.

 

Let the board know what you think about the trip once you're back.

 

drewsailbum thank you for the words of advice....Will report back when I return.

[okikio]

We were looking to schedule the same tour on 11/21. If you don't see me exhausted on the beach, then you should be okay. It appears to be a fun way to do this. I guess we will be the guinea pigs.

[snausman]

We were looking to schedule the same tour on 11/21. If you don't see me exhausted on the beach, then you should be okay. It appears to be a fun way to do this. I guess we will be the guinea pigs.

 

And here I was so worried about being the guinea pig. lol

ok if I see you exhausted on the beach I will know not to take this

tour, and run and get you a couple of beers to see if this might help you recover???

Enjoy the tour.....

Laura

[J Mack]

I'll report back and let everyone know how it goes!

 

J Mack

[danfiveoh]

Where did you get the info on this tour? I'm interested for our January trip.

[4 cruisers]

Well, we're booked Nov. 21st!!!! We're on Century and have the morning tour. Okikio, wonder if we'll meet?!!! :cool: I'll try to remember to post when we get home!

Nanette

[okikio]

We are a party of 5 and will be meeting there at 9:30. Two weeks...can't wait!:o

[2kidsNOmoney]

My family and I are also considering this excursion for the first of January. Can't wait to here what everyone thinks about it. I Hope it's not too strenuous as i am old and out of shape.

[J Mack]

Here is the link to the excursion we booked...

 

http://grandcaymancruiseexcursions.com/StingrayCityWaveRunner.htm

[4 cruisers]

Okikio, we're a party of three and we're at 9:30 also!!!! I guess we'll see you there! Are you on Century too?

[okikio]

We will be on the Miracle. We look forward to meeting you guys and enjoying this excursion. It will be my wife, 17 yr old daughter and my other daughter and her husband.:D I'll be the one that looks like this when we hit the first wave:eek:

[4 cruisers]

LOL! I decided to "share" one with my husband and let him do the driving! Our son will of course ride his own! I think our two families will be it for our group, then! They said they only take 6 wave runners per group. We'll look forward to meeting you guys! We're Nan, Bruce and Cody from California.

[slackmaster]

Just got back and LOVED IT!!!!

The tour guides were awesome and ended up assisting a lot of the passengers on the LARGE boat tours because their opperators really just kind of dumped people in the water without any kind of supervision (at least from what we witnessed). There were people grabbing stingrays out of the water by their tails and all kinds of other seeming bad activities.

We rode out in the rain, which was very painful to your skin. Imagine a driving rain storm while traveling at 20-30mph OUCH!!! The operators did give us the option of not going out if we felt umcomfortable with the water conditions and the rain without charging us for the tour. We pretty much figured that we were going to get wet any way so what difference would it make. We are so glad we went. It was a wonderful interaction with the sting rays and very informative & NICE tour guides. You go earlier enough that you will beat most of the big tour boats out to the sandbar. Their was only 2 boats out there when we arrived and as we were leaving Rum Point (which is also nice facility with nice staff) we noticed more boats had shown up. They were all about the safety on this adventure. My wife and I shared a waverunner and when the wife accidently threw me off the back of it, the guide swung around very quickly to insure that I was ok and got me back up and going.

It was a little more expensive than the typical boat trip but well worth every penny

Have a great time

[4 cruisers]

Slackmaster! Thank you so much for posting!!!! We leave in only 10 days and are very excited about this tour! Boy, my husband better not throw ME off the back! LOL! Was it easy to get a cab to the hotel to start your tour? How long was the drive? We have the 9:30 tour so I guess it is good that it is fairly early!

 

Great to hear you had a good time!!!

 

Nanette

[rvalent2]

Hello Fellow Cruisers!

 

I'm booked for the exursion next may so please post, I look forward for your reviews.

[snausman]

Just got back and LOVED IT!!!!

The tour guides were awesome and ended up assisting a lot of the passengers on the LARGE boat tours because their opperators really just kind of dumped people in the water without any kind of supervision (at least from what we witnessed). There were people grabbing stingrays out of the water by their tails and all kinds of other seeming bad activities.

We rode out in the rain, which was very painful to your skin. Imagine a driving rain storm while traveling at 20-30mph OUCH!!! The operators did give us the option of not going out if we felt umcomfortable with the water conditions and the rain without charging us for the tour. We pretty much figured that we were going to get wet any way so what difference would it make. We are so glad we went. It was a wonderful interaction with the sting rays and very informative & NICE tour guides. You go earlier enough that you will beat most of the big tour boats out to the sandbar. Their was only 2 boats out there when we arrived and as we were leaving Rum Point (which is also nice facility with nice staff) we noticed more boats had shown up. They were all about the safety on this adventure. My wife and I shared a waverunner and when the wife accidently threw me off the back of it, the guide swung around very quickly to insure that I was ok and got me back up and going.

It was a little more expensive than the typical boat trip but well worth every penny

Have a great time

 

Thank you so much for coming back on this thread to post a review. Sounds like you all had a great time. Your review made me feel so much better about taking this tour. Only 10 days to go for me.

[slackmaster]

Slackmaster! Thank you so much for posting!!!! We leave in only 10 days and are very excited about this tour! Boy, my husband better not throw ME off the back! LOL! Was it easy to get a cab to the hotel to start your tour? How long was the drive? We have the 9:30 tour so I guess it is good that it is fairly early!

 

Great to hear you had a good time!!!

 

Nanette

 

It wasn't really that difficult to grab a cab. Basically got off at the tender dock, went out front and there was a lot of cabs waiting to take people places. The issue was there really wasn't anyone in any of the cabs because they were all standing out front with their signs trying to get (selling) people to go to specific beach clubs. We went up to one of the port officials and asked who to talk to about getting a cab to the Grand Caymanian Resort. He then called over to a guy and he said he would be glad to take us anywhere we wanted to go he also gave us his card so when we returned for the excursion we could call him to come get us. Sure enough we called and 10 mins later he was there to take us back. He kept reminding us that it wasn't raining "it's only liquid sunshine mon". He even stuck around to make sure the tour was going to take place since he was a little concerned about the rain delaying the tour. The ride was about $13 each way.

 

As far as time to get there: About 10-15 mins even though the resort is only about 5 miles away it's kind of a strange convaluted way to get there since there are no direct routes. Tendering only took about 5 mins, so if your boat docks at 8-8:30am you should have a problem getting there in time.

 

We actually had someone for The Valor that overslept and missed the 9:30 depature time, but the other guy running the facility just locked up his stand and ran the late arrive out to the sandbar to join us. Pretty professional and laid back if you ask me.

 

Great people on Grand Cayman, good tour operation, and excellent excursion.

 

Have a great time

[joebrandon1977]

Great info!

 

One more Q...

 

Once you got back to the resort - Grand Caymanian Resort, was it nice enough to stick around and hang out at their beach?

 

Our ship will be docked from 10am to 6pm, so I expect we will have some time after this excursion to hang out. So our options are to stay at the Grand Caymanian Resort, take a cab to another resort on 7 mile beach or head back to the ship.

[snausman]

Great info!

 

One more Q...

 

Once you got back to the resort - Grand Caymanian Resort, was it nice enough to stick around and hang out at their beach?

 

Our ship will be docked from 10am to 6pm, so I expect we will have some time after this excursion to hang out. So our options are to stay at the Grand Caymanian Resort, take a cab to another resort on 7 mile beach or head back to the ship.

 

I was wondering the same thing..Is the hotel nice to stay for a couple of hours??

[rain_bowbrite]

I would also like to know more about the resort and make sure that we are refering to the same waverunner excursion. The one I am interested in is found on the grandcaymanexcursions website not shoretrips and it doesn't say on the website which resort it just says a nice one.

 

I am curious becuase we are traveling with a group and it would be nice if they could come hang out at the resort without going on the excursion so I want to make sure I have the right hotel. I ask in my reservation request and they sent back a generic reply that still just said nic resort. I guess they don't want to tell you whch hotel until you have actually booked the excursion??

 

How was the restuarant and was there shopping nearby or anything like that?

 

Thanks for any information.:)

[J Mack]

We took this excursion last week and it was amazing! I've never been on a wave runner before, so I was a little nervous, but our guide (Lee, who was AMAZING!) walked me through the operations and I was off! It was great. I can't fully explain how free you feel jetting across the water, water as far as my eyes could see!!

 

There were only five in our group, us and another couple, and, of course, Lee. PERFECT! The ships had so many people, and only 1 or 2 guides. I have never witnessed stingrays before, and again, was a little nervous. Lee showed us how to feed and pet and kiss the rays! He was quite angry at the other tour 'guides' who were letting people bring the rays out of the water and not respecting them. I loved being in such a small group, it was perfect. Lee was a pro!

 

After loving the rays for a bit, we headed out to Rum Beach (or was it Rum Point?). In any event, a truely beautiful place. Beware, our US $ does not go very far in CI - a Red Stripe beer and a bottle of water was $10 US. OUCH. We soaked up some sun while the other couple snorkeled for a bit, then back to the Grand Caymanian.... LOVE THOSE WAVE RUNNERS!!

 

The Grand Caymanian was very nice, very very quiet. Nobody at the beach and only 3 or 4 people at the pool. We relaxed at the pool for a little bit, then headed back to the ship.

 

A couple words of warning for anyone who takes this excursion... since the resort is a bit off the beaten path, it was very difficult to find a taxi to take us. We were told by someone at the shore excursions desk on the ship that it would cost $4-$5 each, but it was $10 each to get there, when we finally were able to talk a taxi into taking us (I was desperate thinking they were going to leave without us!). All the drivers kept saying "see that guy over there, he'll take you, no problem..... frustrating.

 

The staff at the Grand Caymanian was very helpful in getting us back to the ship, their shuttle drove us to the bus station and we were going to take the regular city bus back to the pier, but a taxi came by and only charged us $3 each to get back (she was going that way already!).

 

So, what did we learn? Bring a lot of money (we didn't expect to do any shopping so didn't take nearly enough cash (we paid for the excursion with traveler's checks!). Get off the ship as early as possible to allow yourself time to get to the Grand Caymanian (they are one hour ahead of the ship's time, so it cuts it pretty close). AND DON'T FORGET YOUR CAMERA WITH ALL YOUR TREASURED VACATION PHOTOS IN THE WAVE RUNNER (like I did). I'm praying that someone will mail it back to me, I left messages with the resort staff and with the agency who handles the bookings, but haven't heard anything back from them yet (Lee was already gone with his next group when I realized that I didn't have my camera).

 

If you have an opportunity to do this excursion, I highly HIGHLY recommend it. It was a highlight of our vacation, for sure.

 

I'm happy to answer any questions if there's anything I didn't cover!

 

Here's the website for the company we used....

http://grandcaymancruiseexcursions.c...WaveRunner.htm

 

Happy cruising y'all!!!

 

Jennifer