Tour in St Kitts or St Martin?

[AdamInKC]

We are going on our cruise in a few weeks to Barbados, St Martin, St Thomas, St Kitts and St Lucia. We are already booked for a catamaran tour in Barbados and a Cosol tour in St Lucia. We are contemplating taking another tour in either St Kitts or St Martin (going to the beach in St Thomas). Which island would you recommend for a tour? Which has more to see?

 

Thanks!

Adam

[bingobango]

From reading these forums it might be best to do a tour in St Kitts and maybe head to the beach in St Martin (Orient beach is the most popular but definately check out Maho beach where the planes fly in right over your head - search youtube for Maho beach).

 

We hired a car for $94 and drove to both as they are in opposite directions and taxis would have cost more (as there were 4 of us).

 

My friends did a tour on St Kitts, they just got a tour from the pier - they though it was just ok and they mostly took back how much poverty there was on the island.

[Siglaw1893]

For St. Kitts, we're signed up with Thenford Grey for "The Tour". It gets very good reviews on Trip advisor and seems to be a good value.

[snowbirds2]

I'd recommend doing tours in both places if it's your first visit to get a good overview of the Islands.

 

We just did "The Tour" with Thenford Grey - Kevin was our guide - and had a great time. Very informative and well paced. Would definitely recommend him.

 

We used Bernards in St. Martin - again a great tour.

[AdamInKC]

I'd recommend doing tours in both places if it's your first visit to get a good overview of the Islands.

 

We just did "The Tour" with Thenford Grey - Kevin was our guide - and had a great time. Very informative and well paced. Would definitely recommend him.

 

We used Bernards in St. Martin - again a great tour.

 

We booked Javin's 'Myisland Tour' in St Kitts since it takes you off the beaten path and sounded less touristy than some of the other tours. In St Maarten we decided to rent a taxi for the day and are going to Marigot, Orient Beach and Maho.

[catl331]

We did a tour on both a few wks ago. Thenford Grey is a good tour guide for St. Kitts. I think there is more to see/Kodak moments on St. Kitts. St.Maartin tour took us to the French side with a stop in Marigot to shop etc. Most of the outside mkts had the same things to buy. The rest of the tour was a winding ride around the larger Fr. side of the island. The island is quite barren as it doesn't get much rain. So if you had to choose one or the other, do St. Kitts.

[LondonTowner]

We have recently returned from a cruise visiting all the islands you are going to. As we are not beach lovers we do trips in all the ports of call.

 

I have booked some previously on the internet and others at the cruise terminal when we arrive.

 

In St Kitts we went with Pereira Tours which I booked on the internet. We had a very good guide and everthing went to plan.

 

St Maarten was the least favourite of the islands we visited. Too many people and too commercialised, but still enjoyed our tour around the island.

[tropicslady]

We recently visited both St. Kitts and St. Martin and toured both islands with tour guides mentioned frequently on the CC board.

 

In St. Maarten, we got a complete tour of the island, both French and Dutch sides, and were SUPPOSED to have almost an hour at Maho where we could eat something and watch the planes. We were excited about this, but....we had only 20 MINUTES there. No time to eat and we were very hungry at that point, that's for sure. We did arrive at Orient Beach at 10:00 and stayed until 12:00, but weren't ready for lunch at 10:00 a.m. It was nice to see the island by van, as we usually just walk around when we visit that port. The guide was informative, and had beers and soda and rum punch to quench our thirst. This was Bernard's Tours.

 

We chose Thenford Grey tours for our St. Kitts tour. We were previously told we could either have 2 hours at Cockleshell beach at the end of the tour, or go back to the port for shopping. We took our snorkeling gear because the highlight of our cruise was to go to Cockleshell beach. This did not happen, unfortunately. Our tour guide took us to Friars beach for FIVE MINUTES because a couple of ladies in our tour were rushing to get back to town to shop and the tour guide said he could not take us to Cockleshell, then take them to town, and then come back to pick us up. Had we known that we weren't going to be able to spend time at the beach, we would have hired someone else to drive us to Cockleshell instead of plunking down $100 and not receive what we wanted/expected. Oh, but they did give us a little bottle of water. That said, being our first time in St. Kitts, the tour was informative and our driver was safe.

 

Whatever you decide, let your preferences be known so that you do not end up disappointed.

[cluelyss18]

We booked Javin's 'Myisland Tour' in St Kitts since it takes you off the beaten path and sounded less touristy than some of the other tours. In St Maarten we decided to rent a taxi for the day and are going to Marigot, Orient Beach and Maho.

 

when are you going? have you gone already?

[startpacking]

Thenford Grey's "The Tour" is one of the best excursions I've been on. Thenford was the guide and he was excellent. Fortunately, we had a small group and as you can imagine somepeople wanted to go to the beach and others wanted to shop - Thenford ensured those who wanted to go shopping were back in town with plenty of time to roam around the stores. Everybody headed to the beach were taken to Cockleshell beach and had two hours of free time. Thenford, even had people who wanted to experience the scenic drive to the beach and didn't want to stay at the beach, he paid for a transfer for these people to get back to town. He truely did what he could to accomodate everybody and made sure that everybody enjoyed their visit to St Kitts.

 

I've also been on Bernard's Tours in St Martin, again in a small group, there was no flexibility and the company followed their schedule to a T. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the company was not as accomodating as Thenford Grey. The hightlight of St Martin for me was Maho beach, we only had 20 mins there to watch planes land and take off and it was also our lunch break. I think overall the tour was poorly planned and the time spend at each stop was either too long or too short.

[danfiveoh]

Just back from both islands and I would do a tour on St. Kitts. The shopping and beaches are very good on St. Martin. The scenery on a tour of St. Kitts is fantastic. We did Royston's tour, very informative and he is a great guy. He even had sugar cane to feed the donkeys. No worries about finding a tour tho. There are lots of taxi drivers at the port in St. Kitts offering island tours for $20.

[CaryN8V]

I did land tours on both St.M & St.K. I highly recommend Royston's Island Tour on St.Kitts. I had his co-worker, Ashton, as our guide & he was FANTASTIC. He grew up on the island & knows so much history. He shared personal stories, too. He allowed us as much time as we wanted at each stop & offered to be our tour guide at the stops as well. Our lunch & beverages (including Carib Beer) was included in our tour fee. The island was beautiful & it was money & time well spent there. Some wanted to stay at Frigate Bay area while others wanted to go back to port for shopping. We dropped off the folks at Frigate & he arranged a time with them of when he'd be back to pick them up, then he took the others back to port. Very, very accommodating.