Snorkeling in St Maarten? Please help with suggestions.

My son (who will be 15 at the time of the cruise) and I are going to be stopping in St Maarten while on our Liberty of the Seas cruise in October. I was originally thinking of possibly doing the zipline treetop tour in St Maarten because my son loves that type of thing and I thought it would be fun to do together. But then it dawned on me that we don't have any snorkeling plans for the cruise. (So far on all of the Bahamas & Caribbean cruises we've done, we've always snorkeled in at least one port and we've come to enjoy doing it.) Since our cruise isn't very port intensive, and the other two stops we are making are San Juan and Labadee, I figure that St Maarten is our only choice if we want to snorkel.

The last time we were in St Maarten we did the shipwreck snorkel experience through RCI. My son really enjoyed it (especially when they let everyone jump off the top deck of the boat after snorkeling) but I'd like to try something new this time. We've snorkeled a total of about 4 times, and they've always been with a guide. I don't know if we're "experienced" enough to go off on our own somewhere and I want to be sure we see some interesting stuff. Can anyone give us some suggestions? Either a tour to take, or a good beach/area to go to on our own? Thanks in advance for any help.

We have gone on our own to Pinel Island and had some okay snorkeling. I think that we didn't find the good spot! We have snorkeled at Dawn Beach, and had some decent snorkeling there.

These are both easy to get to w/ a taxi.

Hey Jane,

Fancy meeting you here.:)

I was thinking about trying the shipwreck snorkle after seeing your pictures. Alex and I went to Pinel Island last October. It was beautiful at the beach, but probably the least impressive snorkeling tour I've taken (I've only done 3-4 trips myself). You have to swim out a bit on your on to get to the reef, and there were quiet a few fish, but nothing really impressive. Alex is a good swimmer, but he was hesitant to swim out that far from the shore, so he didn't see much. Like you, I'd like to snorkle somewhere, and this may be our only option. Otherwise, I'll probably just rent a car and drive around. I've been to Maho beach to see the planes landing and I think the kids would enjoy that. I hear Orient Beach is a good place for parasailing too. We've never done that, and I think they'd like that too.

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Hey Doug! Thanks for the heads up! I'll keep that in mind when looking through the snorkel tours. I think your kids would really like the shipwreck snorkel because you take a boat out to the area, then snorkel directly off the boat. Not a lot of swimming out from the shoreline. Plus that whole jumping off the boat thing--the kids love it. The shipwrecks aren't like pirate ships or anything, they're just old sunken ships--I'm trying to remember if they're from WWII era or something like that. You don't swim down into them or anything, and they advise you not to touch them because the rustiness can irritate you skin. (At least, that's what my son remembers about it, so I'm taking his word for it.) Let us know what you decide on, maybe we may end up on a similar tour with you guys.

We are going to. St. Martin in May, and were there last year. We booked a private excursion. It is on the Lord Sheffeld. It's a pirate ship and the excursion includes lunch and drinks and snorkling. We were unable to go because they were having problems with the ship, but they arranged for us to go on another snorkling excursion and bascially took us to the same place, but instead of sailing on the pirate ship, we were on a speed boat. Anyway, we have booked it again for this year, and we have my 16 year old nephew with us and he saw the ship last year and was so excited and can't wait to do it this year. They actually have the crows nest up top that you can jump off into the water. All drinks and lunch are included and it is very reasonable. If I can remember right, if you book through them just for the two of you, its like 60 bucks a person (we booked the whole ship as a private excursion as there was 18 of us)... but according to testimonials on their web site, they can hold like 20 people but there is usually only a handful of people on each excursion. I believe the web site is www.lordsheffeld.com. Hope that helps.

We want to snorkel in St. Martin, too. With the shipwreck trip, how are the fish/reefs? The shipwreck sounds neat, but I really want to see lots of colorful fish and coral.

Any other suggestions?

We usually just beach-it in St.maarten. The island is not known for great snorkling due to lack of coral reefs in the area. The only decent snorkling is at 'Dawn Beach' and 'Pinel-Island'. We plan on spending most of the day at 'Orient-Beach' just chillin-out!....

Enjoy your day!

We too would like to snorkel in St. Martin. So far, in terms of snorkeling from land it appears the options are Pine Island and Dawn Beach although neither seem to knock anyone's socks off.

If anyone has been to either spots, some further description of what you saw would be great.

Has anyone done RCCL's Tiki Hut Snorkel Park excursion? I like the description of that one because it says you can come and go at your leisure. Another quick question....if we do decide to go somewhere else to snorkel like Dawn Beach is there snorkel equipment to rent or do you have to bring your own? Thanks!

Try Baie Rouge on the French side, right side as you look at the water.

We;re also interested in snorkeling on our own. I've heard a LOT of good things about DIVI as well. We're also considering the Tiki Hut. The Lord Sheffeld site wasn't up when I last checked.

We have snorkeld Pinel Island a few years back...was not impressed. Not clear and rough. We are also looking into Tiki Hut. At least if the snorkeling is not that great they have a beach and food... Interested to read comments on this.

Dawn is a nice beach and has great snorkelling right off the beach. One thing to note. A bad snorkel does not equal a bad site. Sometimes conditions don't line up right and visibility, wind, waves are not optimal. Try to keep an eye on the weather and don't snorkel the windward side of the island if the seas are very high. Also, everyone's taste is different. I've had awesome snorkels in mangrove wetlands: visibility was not good, but I saw different creatures than I would have on the reef/wrecks. Good luck and enjoy whatever the seas give you.

SNUBA!

hehe i've recommended it to so many people on this site!

its amazing! i loved it and im 15 also.

Its half scuba diving, and half snorkeling. There is an oxygen tank at the surface attached to a raft, and a hose a good 20 feet long, connected to your mouth piece. you get to go underwater and breathe as if you were scuba diving, just whithout the tank on your back! its so much fun! he will definitly enjoy it if he likes snorkeling! hope you enjoy!

Thanks for all of the recommendations! (green27, it was nice to see the perspective of a 15 year old, since that's how old my son will be):) For anyone who was trying to see the Lord Sheffield site, it's not down. I think that andyjo0930 just left the "I" out of the name. www.lordsheffield.com is where I found them.

http://www.sint-maarten.net/St-Maarten-Beaches/stmaarten_Beaches.html

This website may help with providing info on ST. MArtin Beaches. Have been to Dawn Beach a few times, but notice fron the info given here that the Westin is now open there and may have changed the flavor of the beach. But the snorkeling was good there.

We went on a tour snorkeling at Pinel Island. The snorkeling was quite good, but I don't think we'd ever have found it without our guide. He took us out to where there were loads of different fish. If you have the beach behind you, we swam to the left, out over some seaweed and to a reef. The sea was a bit choppy that day which spoilt it a bit.

Also I got a very nasty, itchy rash afterwards that took weeks to clear up. :eek:I think I'd been stung by something, but it didn't hurt at the time. I think I was just unlucky, no-one else had any trouble.

Hey all.

We just got back from a southern caribbean cruise which included St Maarten. We took an excursion to the Tiki Hut Snorkel Park. It was the highlight of the cruise. The tiki hut floats in about 20 ft of water. We saw everything there. Turtles, squid, barracuda. One of the staff took my girlfriend and me to see a stingray in about 30 ft of water. He dove down and took a picture for us. They have several sunken boats, a sunken submarine and a couple of cannons. You can snorkel or try their kayak, lounge chairs or float in noodle chairs. The staff there is great, friendy and knowlegable. There are burgers, dogs and drinks for sale and you can stay as long as you want.We stayed 5 hrs

Hey all.

We just got back from a southern caribbean cruise which included St Maarten. We took an excursion to the Tiki Hut Snorkel Park. It was the highlight of the cruise. The tiki hut floats in about 20 ft of water. We saw everything there. Turtles, squid, barracuda. One of the staff took my girlfriend and me to see a stingray in about 30 ft of water. He dove down and took a picture for us. They have several sunken boats, a sunken submarine and a couple of cannons. You can snorkel or try their kayak, lounge chairs or float in noodle chairs. The staff there is great, friendy and knowlegable. There are burgers, dogs and drinks for sale and you can stay as long as you want.We stayed 5 hrs

Did you do that as an excursion through your ship? (Which ship were you on?) Or did you do that on your own?

I just did a search for the Tiki Hut Snorkel Park and the only thing I found was an excursion through Carnival. We're going to be on Royal Caribbean so I don't think they offer that excursion. Does anyone know if there's a way to book this snorkel tour on your own?

We purchased this through Royal Caribbean. I found it in the Cruise Booklet but had to search for it to book it online. I bought a t-shirt which I think has the web sight on it. I'll let you know.

Oh, that's great to hear, thanks! I looked at the excursions listed for our cruise for St Martin but didn't see anything that mentioned "Tiki Hut" in the title. Do you recall if the excursion itself was called something else?

It's listed in the book as SM72-Tiki Hut Snorkel Park

Their web page is www.snorkelstmaarten.com.

Good Luck

Thanks for this info and the recomendation....could I ask the price.....I didn't see that on their website....Thanks.

Hey all.

We just got back from a southern caribbean cruise which included St Maarten. We took an excursion to the Tiki Hut Snorkel Park. It was the highlight of the cruise. The tiki hut floats in about 20 ft of water. We saw everything there. Turtles, squid, barracuda. One of the staff took my girlfriend and me to see a stingray in about 30 ft of water. He dove down and took a picture for us. They have several sunken boats, a sunken submarine and a couple of cannons. You can snorkel or try their kayak, lounge chairs or float in noodle chairs. The staff there is great, friendy and knowlegable. There are burgers, dogs and drinks for sale and you can stay as long as you want.We stayed 5 hrs

We also just returned from a cruise on the Navigator of the Seas (returned on April 15th). We rented a 4 wheeler and hit various beaches on St. Maaten where we snorkeled (the best being Dawn Beach).

I in your second picture there was land in the background. Where on the island were you snorkeling, or I guess the better question is, where was the Tiki Hut snorkel Park on St. Maarteen. If possible, on our next trip there we would love to rent to 4 wheelers again and add a stop to the area you snorkeled.

I believe the price was $62.00.