Beth

Going in November, staying at North 7MB and definitely want to do a half day snorkel trip to Stingray City. Any recommendations for operators? What day(s) of week are the least amount of people at Stingray City? <BR>Thanks!

mlw

Really enjoyed trip with "Captain Marvin" 3 years ago. Snorkeling and stingray city, and they fixed us a great lunch while we relaxed on the beach. The stingrays are really fascinating, it was the highlight of our GC trip. Don't know what day we went but it wasn't too crowded for enjoyment. Have a great time.

Sandy

Beth,<BR>Captain Marvin is very good for the Stingray trip, but I heard he was going to retire. Also, Fantasea tours, Captain Dexter is excellent. Go on a day when the cruise ships aren't in and it shouldn't be that crowded.

Randy

Beth-<BR>I think it prefers how you choose to do a day trip like this. We did Stingray City during our spring break this year---we absolutely did NOT want to go on one of the larger boats. I prefer smaller crowds and a bit more personal service. My wife, daughter and I went on a small boat with about 10 others. We had two crew members who made our experience wonderful. If you go to the marina (on the east side of the 7MB peninsula) you'll see boats in all the slips that offer these trips. We just pulled up and walked the dock to find someone that we felt understood what we wanted--just be sure to do this first thing in the morning or around noon when the boats are returning from the moring tours.<BR><BR>We even got our boat to do an additional stop so that we could dive for our own conch---the "first mate" cleaned the conch as we traveled to Stingray City and then marinated it in lime juice, hot sauce, onion, etc and we had a great snack with our drinks on the way back to the marina.<BR><BR>We saw the larger boats (100+ people), but we really prefered the smaller boats. Try the marina for leads on these--sorry that I can't remember the name of our boat or Captain.<BR><BR>Have a great time!

linda

Beth,<BR> Just returned from there. I saw people packed like sardines on some boats. Capt Marvin's had 14 people on our boat. It was great!They were so friendly and spent time answering all sorts of questions.Thursday is a big cruise ship day- check on this first.

Beth

Thanks so much to all for the info. Sounds like Captain Marvin is still around. Hopefully he'll be there in November. I'll check out his website. Thanks!

Zoe

We went w/Bob Sotos. We only had maybe 15 people.Decent sized boat. Two guides, who were young and Jamaican. They were funny but sometimes we had difficulty understanding them, they talked very fast. I was astounded with how the one guy handled the stingrays. It was too much; he actually kissed one - weird! The only thing I didnt like was when some of the girls were afraid but still got in the water-(me included but Im 48 yrs old)they kinda pushed the stingrays on us. I guess we would not have experienced what they felt like or seen them up close and persoanl otherwise, but it scared us. Two of the younger girls (older teens) actually were in tears and upset cus the guys were too assertive w/ bringing the rays to them. All in all most thought they had done a good job and worked hard to show the rays and give people a first hand experience.