A question about booking tours

[TandTinHou]

Hi everynone;

 

We're newbies, and have a question about tours. What do people recommend--Booking your shore excursions directly through Celebrity or booking them on your own? Ideally, we want to do a simple beach trip on St. Kitts and a snorkel tour on St. Maarten. We see that Celebrity offers tours that would work, but there are also a LOT of different operators out there that offer similar packages...Any advice? Thanks!!!

[Brad1185]

We have done it both ways. We look at price, evaluate the chance of not getting back to the ship if we do a private tour (your out if luck if you miss the ship) and we look at how many people will be on the tour.

[hajekfam]

It depends on the length of time we will be in port and the excursion length. If we in port for 8 hours and the excursion is 6 hours, then we will go with the ship's excursion. Also, if the excursion is quite a distance away from the port (like Seville, Spain or Rome, Italy where it is an hour or more away by train or car) then we will book a ship's excursion.

[sunlovermtl]

Hi everynone;

 

We're newbies, and have a question about tours. What do people recommend--Booking your shore excursions directly through Celebrity or booking them on your own? Ideally, we want to do a simple beach trip on St. Kitts and a snorkel tour on St. Maarten. We see that Celebrity offers tours that would work, but there are also a LOT of different operators out there that offer similar packages...Any advice? Thanks!!!

 

 

St-Martin the ship is right on the beach so just go to the beach relax then shop right off the beach. It is our favorite stop. St-Kitts there are lots of taxis taking groups to different beachs. Turtle beach is good or an island tour that ends up at one of the beachs. I tend to do all our excursions now on our own. Check on your roll call for your sailing and see what the others are up to.

 

happy sailing

Claudette

[Lsimon]

Lots of people recommend doing trips on your own and lots of other people recommend doing trips through the cruise line. I would say that most of the more vocal people on Cruise Critic are the types that do a bit more research and planning on their trips than the average consumer so a lot of us do more private trips than cruise line trips.

 

I tend to to both. But if all I want is a simple beach trip then it has never made sense to do this through the cruise line.

 

On St. Martin, and most other Caribbean islands, you can easily take a taxi to a beach. Not only will this cost much less than a cruise excursions but you won't be bound by the "group" as to where you can go, how long you can stay, and where you will eat and drink.

 

If you want to do more than just go to the beach then there are both private tours, do it on your own planning, and cruise line tours to consider.

 

But do plan your day and make sure you are back at the ship with lots of time to spare. You don't want to watch the ship sail away.....from the port dock.

 

The best place to start learning about the different options and recommendations are the Port of Call forums. The Caribbean ones are here. When you get to each port of call message board you should not only read the messages you see, but you can search for past messages about a certain topic like "best beaches" using the search feature on that page - learn to use it and it will help a lot!

 

Another great resource on Cruise Critic are the Roll Calls - here is a thread which explains those - click here. It will put you in touch with others on your cruise and one of the favorite topics on these boards is what to do at each port of call.

 

Hope this helps.

 

One more comment direct to your own plans: My recommendation do the snorkel trip on ST. Kitts if you'd consider the Fan-ta-sea Catamaran trip offered by the cruise line. St. Martin is a great place for a simple beach trip as there are several of the world's nicest beaches on the island. Orient beach is our favorite.