Advice on Caribbean ports?

[goaliedad30]

We're heading to the Caribbean on Quest in Dec 2012. Ports include San Juan, St. Barts, Guadaloupe, St. John. Any advice on these ports? We love food, wine, walking, cycling, and exploring. Not so much on the shopping front (been there, done that). We are happy to book "local" tours outside the ship, as long as we've done some research.

[JaneBP]

I think if you plug in the ports in the search function you may get some recommendations. Check the Ports of Call Forum, too.

I cruise the Caribbean a lot, never get off, so can't really help. To me, the islands are all alike. Sorry.

 

You will enjoy a Seabourn specialty, the island BBQ and Caviar in the Sand presentation.

[CLOU]

We have travelled to Guadeloupe several times, not off of a cruise ship. It is a great island for hiking, if you like. There is a volcano you can hike up, although the top is often shrouded in clouds. I have never done that hike, becuase it is probably beyond my level of fitness. There are also several waterfalls you can hike to, which are less strenuous, which I have done. You would probably need to rent a car for the day to get to these sites, but driving on the island is quite easy and we found the roads generally well marked.

 

We were on St. Barts for one day, off of a cruise ship. There we rented a car, and drove around the island, ending up at a lovely beach. Other than that there is food and shopping. In addtion to your normal caribbean port touristy stores, St. Barts is quite tony, so it has Hermes, Lous Vitton, etc.

[hoosier74]

We've spent some time in the Caribbean, but not much of it cruising. However we were on the Legend last March and visited some of the ports you mention. The port section can be useful at times but sometimes it's crowded with tour questions from specific cruise lines.

 

Your best bet for food and wine would be St. Barts. It is France, after all. On our trip, departure was late...11 PM I think... to allow for those who wished to have dinner. You'll have to ask about restaurants as we did not take advantage of any, but expect them to be pricey. We did not do a ship's tour here.

 

The only other on port I could comment on would be St. John. I'm not sure if you mean St. John's (city) Antigua, or St. John (USVI). These are very frequently confused. Last year on Antigua, we did the ship's tour zip line and it was a blast. I have also visited the historic sights and Nelson's dockyard and that is really interesting.

 

On St. John (USVI), there are some really nice hiking trails, fabulous beaches and some nice restaurants and some fun restaruants. We've been going there for about 25 years. Most of the island is a US National Park and the park service offers some guided hikes (Reef Bay trail is very nice). The National Park beaches are great. There is an underwater snorkeling trail at Trunk Bay but you can see great fish almost anywhere. There has been pretty extensive coral bleaching on the north side of the island, but it's coming back. I really like Francis Bay, and Honeymoon beach. A fun restuarant is Skinny Legs in Coral Bay.

 

We've done city tours of the historic center in San Juan that were great but it was so long ago, I really couldn't comment

 

As Jane says, many of the islands are the same, but actually St. Bart's and St. John (USVI) would be two that stand out as different.