For our stop in Antigua, we’d booked another excursion with P&O – this time the ‘Stingray Sensation’ excursion, which takes you to the so-called ‘Stingray City’, where you get to swim and interact with stingray on a sandbank just out off the coast of Antigua.
The Stingray City excursion turned out to be one of the coolest, most fun things we’ve ever done on a holiday – it was absolutely superb and if you’re looking for P&O shore excursions to do in Antigua, there cannot be a better option than the Stingray Sensation excursion to Stingray City.
We were off the ship at 8.15am, ready to board the P&O excursion bus that took us the short 20-minute or so drive from the cruise port in St John’s, to the base of Stingray City.
It’s a small area of beach with some facilities (toilets, drinks and snacks, etc) and jetties where small motorboats are moored, which take you out to the stingrays.
It seems stingrays have a bit of a bad name since the death of Steve Irwin from a stingray barb through the heart and this, combined with their actual name, meant we weren’t totally sure whether there was a risk they could hurt / sting you somehow.
It turns out that risk is almost zero – as the “sting” is just a spike in their tails, which can only get you if you somehow step on it.
The stingray can’t attack you with it, inject it into you or sting you in any way – the only risk is from stepping specifically on the tail spike, which is very unlikely, particularly if you just shuffle your feet along the seabed rather than step up and down.
So we were reassured by the brief safety instructions that the crew gave us – and were soon on our way, skimming across the flat waters of the bay and off out towards the Stingray City sandbank.
It’s about an 8-minute ride on the boat out to sea, after which you arrive at some floating jetties that are positioned on a sandbank, which means that despite being out in the sea, it’s actually only about 5-feet deep at its deepest point, so it’s shallow enough to wade around on – you don’t even necessarily need to be able to swim.
It’s a totally natural environment – the stingray aren’t captive or enclosed in any way, they just choose to hang around here because of the regular source of food provided by the Stingray City visitors – and the fact it’s a calm and safe environment for them away from their main predators.
And while Stingray would normally want to avoid people, these ones have grown used to the visitors – and actually want to swim up to them and interact and play with them, mainly because they get a constant source of free food from them.
You could tell everyone was a bit apprehensive at first, climbing down a ladder into the water, wondering what the Stingray would do – and there were definitely a few surprised shrieks as the Stingray came straight up, sniffing around for food.
With the snorkels and masks provided by Singray City, we looked down to see loads of huge Stingray swimming around our legs, happily letting us swim up to them and stroke them.
You could tell they were friendly – even acting playfully – swimming through our legs and around and between us all.
The Stingray City crew gave us small squid to hold and feed to the Stingrays – and, if you held out your arms, the rays would just float on top and let you hold them – as long as they got their reward of a squid, which they suck up out of your hand like a vacuum cleaner.
Once the initial uncertainty had worn off, everyone on the excursion was having an amazing time.
It was so much fun – and such an unusual thing to be able to do.
The crew were taking photos of people who wanted one, holding the rays, which you could buy a copy of back at the base ($15).
We were very pleased we’d brought our GoPro, which let us get some awesome footage under the water of us swimming and playing with the Stingrays.
It was so much fun we didn’t want it to end and it felt like we could’ve spent all day there with those amazing, friendly, funny creatures.
We totally lost track of time, but I think we were out on the sandbank for about an hour before it was time to head back to the boat and back to shore.
It was one of the cheaper shore excursions offered by P&O – about £50 per person – but definitely stood out as the best of the holiday, and one of the most brilliant experiences we’ve ever had anywhere in fact.
If you get the chance to do the Stingray Sensation excursion with P&O in Antigua, we highly recommend you book it up straight away, as it’s very popular and sells out fast with P&O.
You can also do your own independent excursion to Stingray City if you want to arrange it for yourself.
It’s only a short taxi drive from the cruise port to the venue and there are plenty of taxis around the port that can take you there.
Once we’d got back to shore, we were given plenty of free rum whilst we waited for the minibus to take us back to the ship.
However, as we’d booked the early morning slot, we were finished by about 11.30am and, with Arvia in port in Antigua until 8.30 tonight, we wanted to do something else to extend our time ashore.
So instead of getting back on the minibus, we arranged a second excursion – snorkelling at Galleon Beach – and headed straight there for another memorable experience, which you can read the details of here.