All seven Grand Cayman excursions, with the unit beside every price
Why you cannot read this price column straight down
US$650 sits on this page next to US$79. Read the two numbers on their own and the charter looks like eight times the money. It is not the same measurement. US$650 is the price of the boat, up to ten guests aboard, and US$79 is the price of one seat on a boat that carries up to fifty. Fill the charter and you are paying US$65 a head, which is under the shared fare. Take four of you and the same charter is US$162.50 each, more than double it.
So the honest question is not which tour is cheapest. It is how many of you there are. I have done that sum for every group size from two to ten on shared boat or private charter, and the answer turns over at nine people. What follows here is the catalogue, with the unit attached so you can see what you are actually comparing.
The three shared boats, priced per person
You buy a seat. The boat goes whether you fill it or not, and the price does not move with the size of your party.
The only settled ratingGrand Cayman: Catamaran Cruise with Stingray City & Snorkel
Smaller shared boatGrand Cayman: Stingray City and Cayman Reefs Snorkeling Tour
Most stops4-Stop Ultimate Grand Cayman Tour
The catamaran is US$79 per person, three to three and a half hours, and it takes up to fifty people aboard. It is the cheapest seat here and the busiest deck here, and both halves of that are true at once. It is also the only product on this site whose rating is worth leaning on: 4.7 from 325 reviews, against a next-best sample of seventeen.
The reefs tour is US$99 per person for two and a half hours on a boat that takes up to twenty-four. That is US$20 more than the catamaran for an hour less, on a boat less than half the size. Whether the smaller deck is worth the twenty dollars is a real trade and I am not going to settle it for you; what I will not do is point at the 4.9 as though it settles it, because seventeen people is seventeen people.
The four-stop tour is also US$99 per person, up to twenty-four aboard, and it runs four and a half hours — the longest shared trip on the page, at the same price as the two-and-a-half-hour one. That is the genuinely useful thing about it. Its 5.0 is not: it comes from two ratings, and neither reviewer wrote a word. There is no review text behind that score at all.
Two things cruise passengers said about the catamaran, both worth having. Lucia: “We were cruisers and the tour was perfectly fitted for our short time ashore.” And Courtney, on the same boat: “I would try to go on a day when cruise boats are not in port. Much more crowded but still good!” Both of those can be true, and if your ship is in, the second one is describing your day. George Town is a tender port, which is its own constraint on the clock.
The four private charters, priced per boat
You buy the hull. The number on the listing is what the boat costs, and it does not change when a fifth person joins you.
Private — per boat, up to 10Whole boat, up to 10Private: Stingray City & Snorkeling Charter (Most Popular)
Private — per boat, up to 10Whole boat, up to 10Grand Cayman Private Tour: Stingray City & Starfish Visit
Private — per boat, up to 10Whole boat, up to 10Private Tour: Stingray City, Snorkel & Starfish Point Visit
Dearest hereWhole boat, up to 6Private Luxury Boat Tour in Grand Cayman
US$650 per boat, up to 10 guests, four and a half hours. This is the cheapest way for a group to do this, and the arithmetic is the whole reason it is on the page: US$650 across ten heads is US$65, which is under the shared US$79. Across four it is US$162.50 each. The 5.0 rests on four reviews.
US$765 per boat, up to 10 guests, four to five hours — and then a second listing at US$765 per boat, up to 10 guests, four to five hours. Same price, same cap, same length, same 5.0 from four reviews. On the numbers in front of me these two are hard to tell apart, and I would rather say that than invent a difference between them. Either one is US$76.50 a head with ten aboard.
US$1,200 per boat, up to 6 guests, four hours. The cap is the thing to look at, not the price. Six heads into US$1,200 is US$200 each at full capacity, and there is no seventh person to spread it over. Against a US$79 seat that gap never closes at any group size this boat can legally carry. Its 5.0 comes from one review, which is one person.
All seven, with the unit attached
The column that matters is the third one. The fifth column is the same money divided by a full boat, which is the only way the two halves of this table can be compared at all — and it only holds if you actually fill the charter.
| Tour | Price | Sold by | Up to | Per head, full | Rating | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catamaran cruise, Stingray City and snorkel | US$79 | per person | 50 aboard | US$79 | 4.7 from 325 reviews | 3–3.5 hrs |
| Stingray City and Cayman reefs snorkelling | US$99 | per person | 24 aboard | US$99 | 4.9 from 17 reviews | 2.5 hrs |
| 4-stop ultimate tour | US$99 | per person | 24 aboard | US$99 | 5.0 from 2 reviews | 4.5 hrs |
| Private Stingray City and snorkelling charter | US$650 | per boat | 10 guests | US$65 | 5.0 from 4 reviews | 4.5 hrs |
| Private tour: Stingray City and Starfish Point | US$765 | per boat | 10 guests | US$76.50 | 5.0 from 4 reviews | 4–5 hrs |
| Private tour: Stingray City, snorkel and Starfish Point | US$765 | per boat | 10 guests | US$76.50 | 5.0 from 4 reviews | 4–5 hrs |
| Private luxury boat tour | US$1,200 | per boat | 6 guests | US$200 | 5.0 from 1 review | 4 hrs |
Seven products, and that is the whole catalogue I can vouch for. I am not going to pad the list out to a rounder number.
One rating here is evidence. Six are not.
Sorting this page by score would put the single-review product at the top of it. The sample sizes are 325, 17, 4, 4, 4, 2 and 1. Only the first of those is a number I would act on. Four products carry a perfect 5.0, and a perfect 5.0 from one review is not a rating of a boat, it is one person who had a nice morning.
That cuts both ways, and I want to be clear about it: a thin sample is not evidence of a bad boat either. It is an absence of evidence. The reviews that do exist are worth reading in full rather than averaged into a star — I have gone through them on the reviews page, with longer write-ups of the catamaran cruise, the reefs snorkelling tour and the private charter.
The ticket is not always the last payment. Two reviewers on the smaller shared boat rated the trip well and then flagged the same extra: Marcus wrote that “the prices for the photos were too high”, and Mark, who gave it four stars, wrote “I think $100 for their photo/video was too expensive.” Onboard photo packages are sold on the day and are not in any price on this page. Decide before you board whether you want one.
Every price on this page is US dollars
All seven listings returned US dollars as their own currency, so the figures above are the ones your card will be charged in. That is worth saying out loud because it stops being true the moment you step off the dock. Ashore, a price written “$” on a menu, a bus or a taxi board is very often CI$, and CI$1 = US$1.20, pegged since 1 April 1974. Misread one and you have paid twenty per cent more than you thought. The public bus fare is CI$2, which is US$2.40, not “two dollars”. The whole of that argument is on the dollar trap, and it is the page I would read before this one.
Can’t make these dates?
Browse more available grand cayman excursions and find one that fits your schedule.
Next: the crossover sum if there are more than a few of you, what a day on the water really costs, how much time you actually have ashore, and whether any of it is worth paying for.
Frequently asked questions
How many Grand Cayman excursions are on this site?
Seven, and that is the full catalogue I have figures for. Three are sold per person — US$79 and two at US$99. Four are sold per boat — US$650, US$765, US$765 and US$1,200. The per-person and per-boat prices are not comparable until you divide the boat by your group.
Which Grand Cayman excursion is cheapest?
It depends entirely on how many of you there are. Below nine people the US$79 shared catamaran is the cheapest per head. At nine, the US$650 charter for up to ten guests takes over at US$72.22 a head. Fill it with ten and it is US$65 each.
What does “per boat” actually mean?
The price buys the whole vessel for your party, up to the cap on the listing — ten guests on three of the charters here, six on the fourth. It does not change if two of you board instead of ten, so the per-head cost only falls if you bring the people.
Which rating on this page can I trust?
The 4.7 on the shared catamaran, which rests on 325 reviews. Every other score here rests on 17, 4, 4, 4, 2 or 1 reviews. A 5.0 from a single review is one person, not a measurement, and four of the seven products are in that territory.
Are the prices in US dollars or Cayman dollars?
US dollars. All seven listings quote their own price in USD. Ashore is a different matter: a price written with a plain dollar sign is often CI$, and CI$1 = US$1.20 under a peg set on 1 April 1974, so misreading one costs you twenty per cent.