Stingray City - Snorkel or Dive?

[occrider]

Not to be deterred by the unfortunate incident that happened to Steve Irwin, I want to take a trip to stingray city when I visit the island later this month. My question is, is it worth it to do the dive over the snorkel? It doesn't even seem worth it to dive since you basically go down 15ft right? Has anyone done both?

 

[diversteve]

If you don't do the dive, do the snorkel with a diveop. The cruisers go over to SandBar which is much shallower and gets cloudy quicker - although you can stand up there.

Imo the dive is the way to go. We had snorkelers on our boat and they kept trying to stay down with us since the rays stay mostly along the bottom. You wear extra weight so that you can stay down and have the rays do all they can to get the squid from you. Also on our trip anyway, only the divers fed the squid to the rays. It's typically a 45min dive.

And when the fun's over, there's usually a resident moray nearby. I spent about 2 minutes laying on the sand in front of him slowly creeping up on him - not recommended btw as they're blind as bats.

That's all you'll see there though, it's mostly a sandy bottom with just a couple of small coral formations nearby.

 

[Skinsfan1311]

I was originally going to dive it....but after speaking to a few folks who did the dive suggested skipping it and doing the snorkel instead. They said the dive was good, for about 10 minutes...then it got boring. I did the snorkel, and I'm glad I did. You don't even really snorkel....you basically stand in waist deep water.

There's a web-site out there, that gives you the cruise ship schedule. Just check the site, and go when there are no cruise ships in port. I think that Fridays are always clear. Good luck!

 

[occrider]

I was originally going to dive it....but after speaking to a few folks who did the dive suggested skipping it and doing the snorkel instead. They said the dive was good, for about 10 minutes...then it got boring. I did the snorkel, and I'm glad I did. You don't even really snorkel....you basically stand in waist deep water.

There's a web-site out there, that gives you the cruise ship schedule. Just check the site, and go when there are no cruise ships in port. I think that Fridays are always clear. Good luck!

That's kind of what I heard too. It should be just as much fun if you're in waist deep water, surrounded by stingrays, and feeding them.

 

[Gradual Ascent]

I have done both. Diving with my wife, and then on another trip snokeling with the family (same wife ) I'd say that snorkeling was a ton of fun for the family, but diving was fun too. The advantage of diving is the the rays all come to you. When you are on the surface, it seems everyone is feeding at once and the rays seem to go round robin to who has the food. Plus it is fun to watch them feed. Bottom line if you have kids go snorkling / wading, otherwise it is one of the funnist 15' dives you will ever do.

 

[mike_s]

I did the snorkel because my wife (who doesn't dive) was with me on this trip and I wanted to take her snorkeling also.

They took to a sandbar that was 3' to 4' deep. You didn't really need a mask or snorkel as most people stayed above the surface. they didn't let us wear fins as they said we might 'bruise' the rays, which made sense. I was one of the few who was actually going underwater with them and it was more fun.

I will say it was amazing how many people they packed on the boat. Somewhere between 50 and 70. Then not to mention there were 5 other boats out there slightly scattered around. However, there was enough rays for everyone.

Also our trip included a snorkel on the reef just beyond the sand bar. This was one of the most dissapointing snorkels i've been on. The reef was really bad shape on any spot near the surface. it broke the surface in a few spots but for the most part was about 3' deep at the top and 10' deep at the bottom. People from the snorkel boat kept standing on the reef. It was definately "impacted" by the tourists.

lots of cruise boat passengers out there too.

I found it amazing how many snorkel boats were out there selling the trip to the reef with the snorkelers but allowing them to destroy it over time standing on it.

 

[Charlie99]

Several years ago I did the dive at Stingray City, and then snorkeled (actually more like just standing) with my non-diver wife at Stingray Sandbar.

Both were good, but I preferred the 3-D experience of diving, where you are on the bottom and you can watch the stingrays both at your level and above you.

Hokey, staged, tourist trap sort of artificial interaction. I absolutely loved it.