St. John: Coastal Cruise of National Park Beaches - STL2??

[Cruiseoholic000]

I was wondering if anyone has taken St. John: Coastal Cruise of National Park Beaches - STL2 and is this new? How is this tour verse taking one of the other 6 1/2 hour tours? With the other 6 1/2 tour most people leave as soon as they reach St. John and head for the beach of their choosing. In STL2 do you see more of St. John and have beach time?

[GracieCat0_1]

I'm also looking at STL2 for the longer time on St. John. It's looking like an additional $6pp each way to Trunk plus $4 entrance fee. The other longer tours look like they have guided tours or shopping. 2 hours of free time doesn't seem like much to include taxi rides both ways.

[catcruisers]

I think this is a new excursion, that might be why nobody has responded that they have gone on it. We are taking this excursion in a few weeks. We thought it would be nice to see the beaches from the water and still have a few hours to go to one of the beaches. The price isn't much more than going to St. John on our own, and we don't have to worry about the ferry running late or traffic. I'll report back how it went next month.

[ashmac8]

I'm looking at this one too because many of the excursions to St. John exclude kids. We are taking our 5 year old son and this might be a good fit.

 

We arent going until the end of April so looking forward to your report!

 

Ashley

[Muushka]

We were there last month and that tour was my first choice (but I didn't get mine!). We are returning in March and considering this.

Hope to hear from someone.

[kruzin']

:) does any1 know if you pick up the ferry at the dock or do you have to ride to the marina? I too am thinking of this tour just solely for the transportation ..just ride to st john go snokeling and a little beach time till its time to ferry back to the ship.,,No worries

[sadie8]

We did this tour in September but at that time they didn't offer the coastal cruise so we booked it as the walking tour. To answer your question, they pick you up at the dock, there is no bus portion on St. Thomas. The boat they use is the Independence of the Sea.

[camaro69]

Hi - we are thinking of this tour as we are on the Allure in early February - can anyone who has been on this make any comments? I see someone posted above this is a new tour. Do they allow you to get off at Trunk Bay and then make your way back to catch the ferry? Any details would be helpful .. thanks!

[camaro69]

Anyone have any input on this tour? CatCruiser ..looks like you may have taken this excursion according to your post... Thanks!!

[catcruisers]

We went on the St. John Coastal Cruise a couple of weeks ago. This is a great way to go to St. John. Highly recommended. Captain Jack (not THE Captain Jack Sparrow from the movies!), is a great narrator, and does a narration of the history of the islands and some of the houses along the way. He does narration on the first half of the trip, but not the second half. It starts a short walk from the ship on a boat the size of the typical people ferries. The trip to St. John takes about 40 minutes. We dropped of the shopping and the town walking tour folks (and for the people who didn't want to do either one, there are cabs waiting to take you to wherever you want to go) before proceeding to the St. John part of the trip. The extra cruise around the western part of St. John takes another 40-50 minutes. We ended up with about 3 1/2 hours of free time on St. John.

 

The trip over to St. John has some great views of St. Thomas that you wouldn't see if you took the short ferry from Red Hook. The views of the St. John coast (a few are below) are amazing! The pics don't do the view justice. We had a pretty nice day, though with the sun behind St. John, some of my pics didn't turn out as well as I wanted. I would recommend bringing binoculars, at least a small pair if you can. It's very pretty without them, but you will see more with binoculars.

 

I think this is a great way to go to and to see St. John. Even if you don't want to do the coastal cruise part, it's still the best way to transport yourself there. For $40, you don't have to worry about catching an early ferry so you don't miss the ship, and the price is probably not much different than taking the cab-ferry round trip. The other St. John transportation only excursions offered on RCI only leave you with a couple of hours on the island. If you are looking to just use this for transportation, you would end up with about 4 hours on the island. We may not do the coastal cruise part every time going over to St. John. We may just head to the beach next time. However, this is something I would recommend doing at least once.

 

 

 

 

 

Trunk Bay Beach above

[camaro69]

Thanks so much CatCruiser - Really appreciate your feedback and the pics are pretty awesome! A couple quick questions - where do you get dropped off for the 3.5 hours that you had for your free time? Just wondering if he can drop you off at Trunk Bay or something or if you need to take a taxi there from a central drop off point. Thanks again!! I think i am going to book this now!!

[catcruisers]

The boat drops you off at Cruz Bay, and you can catch a taxi from there. The pic above is as close to Trunk Bay as you will get on the boat.

[camaro69]

Perfect thanks so much - just the info I needed! Will research Cruz Bay for shopping, restaurants etc for our free time on the island - the excursion on the RCL site says it is 6 hours - looks like it heads back to the ship around 330 or so. Thanks again!

[Mom.to.2]

Catscruiser, thank you for all that information!

 

Forgive my ignorance, I'm still trying to figure out the difference between this excursion and the shopping one. Are you dropped off at the exact same place as the shopping/walking tour, just 45 minutes later (after you've taken a water tour of St. John)? Is transportation back to the ship combined with the shopping/walking tour?

[Cruiseoholic000]

Thank you so much for the great pictures. This might be a silly question but do you go around all of St. John or just a portion of it. Is there really enough time to do this excursion then take a taxi from Cruz Bay to a beach (Trunk Bay etc.) and then back to Cruz Bay?

[catcruisers]

For this excursion, the folks taking the shopping and the town walking tour are on the same boat. The folks for the other two excursions are dropped off at Cruz Bay, then the boat continues up the St. John coast to around the northern tip of St. John. It then returns back the same way to Cruz Bay to drop you off. All three excursions return on the same boat a few hours later. We took a cab to Trunk Bay for a couple of hours, then returned to Cruz Bay for some quick shopping and lunch. The cab ride to Trunk Bay and back is fairly short.

[Mom.to.2]

For this excursion, the folks taking the shopping and the town walking tour are on the same boat. The folks for the other two excursions are dropped off at Cruz Bay, then the boat continues up the St. John coast to around the northern tip of St. John. It then returns back the same way to Cruz Bay to drop you off. All three excursions return on the same boat a few hours later. We took a cab to Trunk Bay for a couple of hours, then returned to Cruz Bay for some quick shopping and lunch. The cab ride to Trunk Bay and back is fairly short.

 

Thank you for spelling that out so clearly for us slow folks;)

 

When I'm in St. Thomas this February, we'll be joined by 5 other ships including the Allure & Epic :eek: so I'm thinking we're better off skipping the coastal cruise and getting ourselves to Trunk Bay 45 minutes earlier while there is still a scrap of sand to be found.

 

Thanks again for the help!

[emilymad]

Thanks so much for the pictures and information. We are booked on the coastal cruise. If we decide when we get there we want more time on St John do you think it would a problem to get off with the shopping people?

[sadie8]

Thanks so much for coming back and posting your review and photos of the coastal cruise.

[catcruisers]

Thanks so much for the pictures and information. We are booked on the coastal cruise. If we decide when we get there we want more time on St John do you think it would a problem to get off with the shopping people?

 

Nobody did it from our group, but I don't think they would care. They didn't seem to care if the shoppers and town tour people went on their tours, or went on their own. I don't know if you could join one of the other tours though.

[emilymad]

Nobody did it from our group, but I don't think they would care. They didn't seem to care if the shoppers and town tour people went on their tours, or went on their own. I don't know if you could join one of the other tours though.

 

Thanks! We wouldn't want to join any other tour. We don't dock until 11 so it is already late in the day. I could see us just wanting to get on to St John as soon as possible.

[fraternal]

We just booked this coastal cruise from the Jewel of The Seas in 2wks. The tour says that it will return us to the ship at 515pm but the ship leaves at 5pm. Does anyone know when the ferry actually leaves St John to return to the ship? IS there an earlier ferry that we can take? Will we have time to go to Honeymoon beach during our "free time"?