A shore excursion in collaboration with Celebrity Cruises UK.
Grand Cayman is one of three Cayman Islands, British Overseas Territories, located in the Caribbean Sea. It was the first stop on a five-night Caribbean Cruise I was on recently with Celebrity Cruises UK. Early one warm sunny morning I found myself boarding the tender from the cruise ship; we were on our way to swim with the stingrays in Stingray City.
This was my first (and only, so far!) ever experience with going on a shore excursion and I was really looking forward to it.
Security through to the island was quick, and we were greeted (gluffed!) by a Jack Sparrow look-alike (he’s willing to have his photo taken with you for a small fee) before boarding the tour bus to where our catamaran was waiting. Our guide was a Jamaican gentleman with a deep molasses accent I could have listened to all day.
The catamaran journey to Stingray City, located in the barrier reef northeast of the island, was a pleasant half an hour sail across gentle turquoise waters. We had the option of either sitting in the sun on the trampolines at the front of the catamaran or sheltering under the canopy at the back of the boat. Drinking water was available if needed.
To be honest, Stingray City was rather crowded with several different tour operators clustered around the shallow sandbar, but there was still plenty of room to get into the water for a swim. I’m only five foot four and three-quarter inches in height and the gorgeously warm water was about chest height for me.
It didn’t take long for the stingrays to appear – they’re regularly fed by the tour operators and so they are very used to being around humans. I, on the other hand, was not used to being around stingrays so I confess at first I was worried I was going to step on one and injure it! It took me a good ten minutes to realise they were just going to swim around me, and I didn’t need to try and tread water every time one appeared.
The stingrays are so used to humans that they didn’t seem to mind being manhandled by the guides. We had the opportunity to touch the stingrays and have our photograph taken with them for a fee (I paid about £40 for ten images sent directly to my email). To be truthful, I felt that the guides were rather rough with the stingrays, catching them and bringing them out of the water to have tourist after tourist kiss and touch them, but they really didn’t appear to mind as they kept coming back.
I had my Go Pro with me and took some underwater footage. Have a look at the video below to see what it was like to swim with the stingrays!
We were only at Stingray City for about half an hour before we had to return back to shore and Georgetown, where we had the opportunity to browse the shops and do a bit of geocaching.
Each of the ports on our cruise had free gemstone and charm bracelet charms on offer; all you had to do was visit each of the jewellery shops with your vouchers to collect them. As a geocacher, this real Caribbean ‘treasure’ hunt appealed to me, and so I collected each of the pearls, rubies, amethysts, tanzanites and charms at the ports we stopped at, including a tiny gold stingray in Grand Cayman. In Curacao, I picked up a small painted treasure box and gifted the Caribbean treasure to my daughter for her 11th birthday when I returned home, much to her delight.
All in all, the Grand Cayman shore excursion was a rather fantastic experience. I certainly wouldn’t say no to returning there again sometime in the future.
Have you ever swum with the stingrays in Grand Cayman? What did you think about the experience? Let me know in the comments!
Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary was a guest of Celebrity Cruises UK, although all thoughts and opinions expressed are our own.
Tomato, Lentil & Bacon Soup
I have swam with turtles and dolphins but sting rays sounds so exotic! I love the charm bracelet idea too!
It looks like so much and the pictures and videos are so awesome.
Ohhh this is amazing! Looks so fun 🙂 I so want to experience one too! Great photos!
It seems that you had a great time! The pictures are lovely!
Oh my gosh! I would love to do this! I love stingrays!
What an amazing place, love your natural footage. Shame the guides were rough with them, I guess its unregulated, hopefully one day it will become more so. Fantastic experience.
I haven’t experience any related activity that comes with swimming with marine life, so this is exciting! I want to experience it.
Oh, I’m really quite envious. I love Stingrays. They are so strange looking but really graceful swimmers. It looks like a fantastic experience. 🙂
Oh that sea looks gorgeous and the experience sounds amazing. Last time I was on a catamaran I nearly lost my bikini bottoms as I climbed over the net to sit down. I was mortified!
Definitely a blue theme . Stunning photos and looks like a wonderful trip. Thank you for sharing.
Wow, this sounds like a dream! My bf is utterly petrified of fish (?!) so I’d have to do this one alone but I’d love it!
Katie xoxo
missing holidays so much…a lot of beautiful places in the world. could visit it someday. love the rainbow pics 🙂
This looks awesome I want to visits a place like this soon. I haven’t been abroad in so long.
Having done similar activities I can honestly say that interacting with animals in the water has been some of the most relaxing and invigorating experiences I’ve tried.
I took a cruise to the s. carribean but was not as daring as you haha. Maybe because I can’t swim. This is how you do a vacation right!
wow I would love to try this! The water is so gorgeous!!!! I need something like that right now
What beautiful photos. I have not been aboard in over 13 years now. I would love to get away somewhere like this 🙂
What an amazing experience although sad to hear the guides are a little rough.
This place looks stunning. Although you spent such a short amount of time there and it’s quite crowded. I don’t think I’d be that brave though!
That’s breathtaking stuff right there . What an amazing experience to have. Beautiful pictures and video x
I’ve never swum with stingrays, but one of my all time travel experiences was snorkelling in the Seychelles and being approached by a wild turtle who followed me around for ages, before I approached it face to face and it let me swim with it ‘flipper’ in hand. You simply cannot forget an experience like that. xx
Wow so much fun!!! That looks so good. Great pics and videos
Half an hour doesn’t sound so long but I expect it’s just right really. Looks like an amazing experience!
Wow what an experience. This sounds amazing. I don’t think I would be brave enough to do this but thanks for sharing. You have some fab photos too. I’m off to watch your video.