One "Must-Do"

I will be posting in each port section also but for those of you familiar with the Gem out of Puerto Rico it is very port intensive. A different port each day and we have the $50/port promo so will be limited to NCL excursions.

Since we may never return to these ports (you never know) if you had to pick ONE must do, what would it be? Port times are listed as 8:00 to 5:00. We are open to all types of excursions, wanting to make sure we don't miss what is most memorable for each destination. In other words, although I love to snorkel I would not want to waste time snorkelling at a destination where that is poor, etc.

Bridgetown, Barbados (never been)

Fort-de-France, Martinique (never been)

Basseterre, St. Kitts (never been)

Philipsburg, St. Maarten (spent 2 weeks here but what would you do?)

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (have done Trunk Bay and Buck Island, loved the turtles at Buck Island)

I will be posting in each port section also but for those of you familiar with the Gem out of Puerto Rico it is very port intensive. A different port each day and we have the $50/port promo so will be limited to NCL excursions.

 

Since we may never return to these ports (you never know) if you had to pick ONE must do, what would it be? Port times are listed as 8:00 to 5:00. We are open to all types of excursions, wanting to make sure we don't miss what is most memorable for each destination. In other words, although I love to snorkel I would not want to waste time snorkelling at a destination where that is poor, etc.

 

Bridgetown, Barbados (never been)

 

Fort-de-France, Martinique (never been)

 

Basseterre, St. Kitts (never been)

 

Philipsburg, St. Maarten (spent 2 weeks here but what would you do?)

 

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (have done Trunk Bay and Buck Island, loved the turtles at Buck Island)

Which shore excursions are NCL offering in Martinique since you are limited to NCL excursions.??

Mostly tours, one of a garden, one of rain forest, one that goes to Mt. Pelee. That is the one I'm leaning toward. I didn't realize this is where that horrible eruption occurred...

Crêpes and cidre!

We did a private snorkel tour with sail with calabaza included lunch and drinks. They picked you up at the cruise pier.

After a lot of research I originally wanted to book with Karambole Tours but her tours obviously book up very early. She then recommended Thomas Vincent of TaxiNordenVincent. I emailed him and set up for a tour of the North part of the island as I was extremely interested in seeing Mt. Pelee. We were to meet Thomas “outside the ship” at 8:45 am. Now, I am one of those people who are nervous about directions that are not exact and minute in detail so we disembarked early to try to find him. Directly outside the ship were dozens of companies with NCL excursion signs. Not seeing any non-NCL signs we headed down the dock and stopped at the Tourism tent. A nice woman there told us most taxi tours did indeed pick up there and so we waited. When 8:45 arrived and we still had not seen anything she used her phone to call Thomas and found he was still in traffic but now he knew exactly where we were. That was good as there had been enough interest in his tour that he had lined up a second van. Unfortunately there was some confusion as to the meeting place and only 2 people showed up for that van.

He told his driver to wait some more and we would meet up later and, from what I heard, if the other people did not show up we would move some of the people from our packed van into the other one. That is not what happened. It turned out he had the other driver cancel the tour and I am hoping arrange something for the other couple with another company. I felt bad that, not only did that couple have to miss this particular tour, but his other driver would not be working or paid that day. He and I had a good conversation as to how to clarify his instructions and hopefully later tours did not run into these problems. I just noticed on his website that he has expanded and clarified instructions on the North tour explanation to include the wearing of water shoes to see the Falls (as I did not see them as my shoes would have been ruined) and to wear a swimsuit under clothes for the beach stop. (We had suits on as I had emailed him prior about changing facilities but others on our tour did not). So it sounds like subsequent tours should have some kinks already worked out. Unfortunately it rained pretty much the whole day so we never did get a good view of Mt. Pelee. We stopped at the Balata church and then drove to the Falls. We did have a nice drive through the Rain Forest after the Falls but did not make the scheduled botanical garden stop. We toured the Depaz Rum Distillery and tasted a variety of rums. We ended up buying Punch Cacahuete or “Peanut Liquor”. It is simply great! I thought it would be weird and it does smell like green peanuts but it tastes like peanut butter and is great mixed with ice cream. We went to St. Pierre and ended up at a black sand beach and ordered food at a local beach shack. All through the tour Thomas gave us a pretty good background on the Island, the sights, unemployment, etc. Truthfully not the most polished presentation but by education he is an Engineer, not a history major. While I would not repeat this particular tour to the North I would recommend it if you go. I think the rain really dampened our experience, pardon the pun.

Here is a link to some Martinique pictures: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php...3&uploaded=102

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We did a combination of all three :St. Pierre, Rain Forest, and Balata with one of the bus tours through the ship. Purple buses- can't recall name of Co.- very good guide- Yves.

I will be posting in each port section also but for those of you familiar with the Gem out of Puerto Rico it is very port intensive. A different port each day and we have the $50/port promo so will be limited to NCL excursions.

 

Since we may never return to these ports (you never know) if you had to pick ONE must do, what would it be? Port times are listed as 8:00 to 5:00. We are open to all types of excursions, wanting to make sure we don't miss what is most memorable for each destination. In other words, although I love to snorkel I would not want to waste time snorkelling at a destination where that is poor, etc.

 

Bridgetown, Barbados (never been)

 

Fort-de-France, Martinique (never been)

 

Basseterre, St. Kitts (never been)

 

Philipsburg, St. Maarten (spent 2 weeks here but what would you do?)

 

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (have done Trunk Bay and Buck Island, loved the turtles at Buck Island)

Martinique: A must do? Then a bottle (or 2) of a Rhum never seen in the USA - For that special occasion.

La Favorite - La Flibuste Rhum - Martinique

Mostly tours, one of a garden, one of rain forest, one that goes to Mt. Pelee. That is the one I'm leaning toward. I didn't realize this is where that horrible eruption occurred...

My husband and I will be on a Princess cruise in October to Martinique. Have you found out anymore information on Mt. Pelee and the Rum Distillery? We are leaning toward this tour.

Thank you.

Betty

We did a combination of all three :St. Pierre, Rain Forest, and Balata with one of the bus tours through the ship. Purple buses- can't recall name of Co.- very good guide- Yves.

Our cruise ship has a tour to Balata, Mt. Pelee (St. Pierre) and Depaz Distillery. Were you happy with the tour you went on.

Thank you.

My husband and I will be on a Princess cruise in October to Martinique. Have you found out anymore information on Mt. Pelee and the Rum Distillery? We are leaning toward this tour.

Thank you.

Betty

If you look at Post #6 you will see a mini review of the tour we took...

:cool:

If you look at Post #6 you will see a mini review of the tour we took...

Thank you for sharing your review. We did book this tour through Princess and look forward to it. Have a great day.

Which shore excursions are NCL offering in Martinique since you are limited to NCL excursions.??

Greg tours in St. Kitts. Owner by Thenford Grey. You will not be disappointed.

Greg tours in St. Kitts. Owner by Thenford Grey. You will not be disappointed.

I agree!!!! We went last November ....great ‼️