Review of RCL's St Barts on Your Own Tour

We’ve been to St Maarten MANY times. It is one of my favorite islands. The last time we took the ferry on our own to Anguilla. This time we wanted to do something different so we booked (EGADS) St Bart’s on Your Own ship tour. I tried to do this on our own literally but the ferry schedule just didn’t work for our times in port. The ships tour met about 9:30 and we left for St Bart’s shortly after 10. You do need your passport and they checked and sent you back to the ship if you didn’t have it. It was a ROUGH ferry ride over. I had heard this before, but they were not playing. When they give you Ginger ale and show you the location of the barf bags as you board….they mean it. We had several people who puked the entire ride it seemed. We didn’t get sick but I completely acknowledge that this ride is not for the faint tummies. There were times when I literally felt we were flying above the water and landing.

Anyways we arrived just before 11. The 4 hours on your own time starts as soon as you arrive. We were given a 3pm return time. We walked around a bit before we decided to take a taxi tour. Many of the stores started closing about 1pm. So, if you really want to do some shopping you need to do this first. Hindsight, I wish we would have done the taxi tour first and then walked around. We missed the opportunity to split cab fare with others. We ended up paying about $80 US for a 1hr tour of the island. A one hour tour is sufficient though as it is a very small island. He returned us at Shell Beach were we spent about a half hour. My kids wanted to pick up sea shells and there were a TON of them to pick from. We walked back to the ferry area (a few blocks) and browsed for souvenirs on the way back. We were warned to prepare for sticker shock here. That was so very true. A kid’s meal (burger and fries) was almost $20 US dollars. Typical souvenir t-shirts averaged 30 to 80 Euros. Most of the stores here are your high end stores, Cartier, Ralph Lauren, Dolce and Gabanna, Versace, Prada etc.. If these are not the typical stores you frequent, don’t plan on a day of shopping. There were no flea market style vendors to bargain with.

St Barts was really nice. I’m glad we went there. It’s worth it to go if you have never been. The seas going back were very smooth by comparison. We had a little time to look around St. Maarten and then we were back on the ship.

Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to post this. We will be in St Maarten in Sept on Oasis and like you we have been there many times before and looking for something different. I saw this trip on the excursions and pondered over it. I will continue to review further before making my mind up but this was very helpful.

Regards

Ron.

Have tried to do the St Barts on your own tour many times but never succeeded. Not enough interest (on a smaller ship and no other ship in port) I heard. How many people on your tour?

Will be in St Maarten again in a week and will try one more time. Your review has encouraged me to try. See that price has gone up though!

:cool:

Have tried to do the St Barts on your own tour many times but never succeeded. Not enough interest (on a smaller ship and no other ship in port) I heard. How many people on your tour?

Will be in St Maarten again in a week and will try one more time. Your review has encouraged me to try. See that price has gone up though!

:cool:

Maybe 15-20 people? Yeah it's not cheap that's for sure. It just seems to be the primary option to get there on a 1 day trip.