What to do in these ports?

[needabreakcanada]

I chose to post here as the ports of call are slow for response.

 

We will be on adventure of sea for the following ports and would like to know what you recommend doing in each port? Love beaches with bar/hotel nearby for changing/food/washroom etc. Also want to swim with turtles somewhere (barbados)? Please also recommend tour operators where applicable.

 

First we are sailing out of San Juan,

 

Bridgetown, Barbados

Castries, St. Lucia

St. John's, Antigua

Philipsburg, St Maarten

St Croix, US Virgin Islands

 

Thank you so much!

[Sugar*Magnolia]

I chose to post here as the ports of call are slow for response.

 

We will be on adventure of sea for the following ports and would like to know what you recommend doing in each port? Love beaches with bar/hotel nearby for changing/food/washroom etc. Also want to swim with turtles somewhere (barbados)? Please also recommend tour operators where applicable.

 

First we are sailing out of San Juan,

 

Bridgetown, Barbados

Castries, St. Lucia

St. John's, Antigua

Philipsburg, St Maarten

St Croix, US Virgin Islands

 

Thank you so much!

 

Carlisle Bay has some beautiful beaches in Barbados, and it is not far from the port.

If you have never been to Antigua, I would take a tour with Lawrence of Antigua. I cant recommend him enough. St Lucia and St Croix we have not been to yet. And, in St Maarten, wow, there is so much to do. Are you beach people? Orient is popular, on the French side...

[pat1975]

Just got back from a few of those ports. In st Lucia we booked with real st. Lucia tours island tours. It was a cool tour. Private van and our driver Danny boy was great! He took us all over the island. We got to see things at our own pace.

 

In Antigua we took a cab to jolly beach. Just get off the ship cab drivers are everywhere. Very nice beach.

 

Let me know any questions I can help with

[Sinppu]

We are going on four of these ports in May (no USVI).

I'll write a trip report so you can see what we did.

 

Though it might not be that much of interest to you as we are not beach people :o

[NorbertsNiece]

Barbados : highly recommend Calabazza Catamaran to swim with turtles.

St Maarten : grab a taxi at the pier and head out to the beach at Maho to watch the planes land. You can arrange for the same cab to bring you back.

[Riff Sniff]

We just returned from a cruise last week, and our favorite beach day was in St. Croix!!! We took a taxi on our own to the Cruzan Rum factory for the tour. The tour was very simple, and the rum punch was delicious. Our taxi driver waited for us. After the tour, we had the taxi take us to Sandcastle Beach Resort. We had reserved a day pass before the cruise ($25 for 2 beach chairs, one umbrella, and 2 rum punches). When we arrived, the resort did not have our reservation, but it was no problem for us to buy it on site. A worker put our chairs where we wanted them & set up our umbrella. The water was GEORGEOUS!!!! The restaurant had good food and drinks. The bathroom was clean. Our only complaint was that we couldn't stay:cool: You can see the ship from the beach. We had an easy time walking back to the ship along the beach as we finished our drinks. We ended the day buying jewelry from the vendors in the street. It was a fantastic, low key day, the perfect way to end our cruise. I would repeat that day in a second!!!!! I'll try to post a pic of the beach.

[Riff Sniff]

Attached is a turtle pic from Barbados.

[Trekker954]

In Barbados you must swim with the turtles. There are numerous catamaran tours to chose from. I use silvermoon, small group. Depending on your price range. Avoid the ship's tour which will be overcrowded.

 

Antigua, i second Jolly Beach.

[Miss Vickie]

I chose to post here as the ports of call are slow for response.

 

We will be on adventure of sea for the following ports and would like to know what you recommend doing in each port? Love beaches with bar/hotel nearby for changing/food/washroom etc. Also want to swim with turtles somewhere (barbados)? Please also recommend tour operators where applicable.

 

First we are sailing out of San Juan,

 

Bridgetown, Barbados

Castries, St. Lucia

St. John's, Antigua

Philipsburg, St Maarten

St Croix, US Virgin Islands

 

Thank you so much!

 

 

Barbados - several good catamaran tours, best place to swim with turtles, our favorite is Calabazza

St. Lucia- beautiful island, well worth an island tour, with Spencer, or Cosol. We like doing a day package through Ialand Divers at Ti Kaye Village, Anse Cochon. It includes transportation, lunch, a couple of drinks, snorkeling gear, use of lounge chairs and cabana. Very good snorkeling.

 

Antigua- http://www.adventureantigua.com. Eli offers our absolutely all time favorite excursions. He has an Eco-tour, a Circumnav excursion, and a day sail on a hand built 40' Carriacou sloop, Ocean Nomad. All are about 6 hours long, include a delicious lunch, with great crews.

 

St. Maarten- we usually spend part of the day relaxing on the beach and part wandering around in Phillipsburg. If you're interested in shopping, this is the port to do it in.

 

St. Croix - on our last visit there we did an excursion with Virgin Kayaks. It was just 4 of us, in state of the art kayaks equipped with pedals, so you could either paddle or pedal. Brian is really interesting, tells you all about the history of St. Croix and the general area as you are kayaking, and kept us out as long as we wanted. It was a great day!

[LindaAndBillTravel]

Barbados : highly recommend Calabazza Catamaran to swim with turtles.

I second Calabazza in Barbados. Awesome trip! The crew was friendly, saw lots of turtles and fish, and the drinks and food were excellent (especially the rum punch with fresh grated nutmeg on top!).

[skiiergirl]

I chose to post here as the ports of call are slow for response.

 

We will be on adventure of sea for the following ports and would like to know what you recommend doing in each port? Love beaches with bar/hotel nearby for changing/food/washroom etc. Also want to swim with turtles somewhere (barbados)? Please also recommend tour operators where applicable.

 

First we are sailing out of San Juan,

 

Bridgetown, Barbados

Castries, St. Lucia

St. John's, Antigua

Philipsburg, St Maarten

St Croix, US Virgin Islands

 

Thank you so much!

 

Barbados: Our group still talks about Silvermoon being their favorite excursion ever and it was several years ago with lots of excursions since

 

Antigua: grab one of the 1,000 taxi drivers and take an island tour or get a day pass at one of the beach resorts

 

St Maarten: love America's Cup and Golden Eagle catamaran tours, Segway rides along boardwalk, shopping and lunch....way too much to do ..lots to choose from!

[ssb]

Lots

Go far it

Been to them

[DaddyBytes]

In St. Maarten you could try Orient Beach. If you find Orient a little crowded for your liking you could try LeGalion Beach which is walking distance from Orient.

 

- Le Galion Beach (Baby Beach)

• beautiful and calm, shallow waters, good for kids
  
• no real waves or rocks
  
• low key
  
• close to Orient beach
  
• calmest crystal waters on the island.. especially at northern end of this beach
  
• you can get beach chairs & umbrellas and some great food ‘Chez Pat’ (Tropical Wave beach bar – the only one on the mile long stretch).
  

 

Hope that helps!

 

DaddyBytes

[erniesband]

We'll be doing a B2B in January on Jewel and have done 15 Southern cruises from San Juan. Here's some things we've done over the years and would recommend:

 

St Croix - Virgin Kayaking on the Salt River - http://www.virginkayaktours.com

Cane Bay for snorkeling

A trip into Christianstad for it's history

Rainbow Beach really close to the pier

You can see most of Fredrickstad in an hour

 

Antigua - For water adventures any of the tours by Adventure Antigua - http://www.adventureantigua.com

For history, a tour that goes to Nelson's Dockyard, Shirley Heights, etc. Gordon or Lawrence get good reviews.

 

St Lucia - this island is best seen with an all day tour like Cosol, Mystic Man and others offer, It's a natural paradise. Ziplining is very popular here. If you want a great beach day with good snorkeling look into a day package with Island Divers at Ti Kaye resort. http://www.tikaye.com

 

St Martin - shoppers paradise Front Street in Phillipsburg

Orient Beach to people watch.

Maho Beach to watch the planes come in.

Bernard's Tour comes highly recommended

 

Barbados - most popular thing is swimming with the turtles, go with

Calabaza - http://www.calabazasailingcruises.com or

Silvermoon - silvermoonbarbados.com

If you like chocolate there's a small factory that gives tours

http://www.agapey.com

For history Glory Tours has some interesting tours.

 

And don't forget to give yourself some time to explore San Juan. Come in a few days early, see Old San Juan, the forts and El Yunque.

[Gina130284]

We had nothing booked for Antigua and regretted it. As we got off the ship for a wander around we were bombarded by at least 100 taxi drivers and in the end we just got back on the ship and sunbathed! Book an island tour or book a beach escape- I heard some people saying some of the beaches were amazing!

 

In St Maarten we went to the beach which is located next to the airport for the 'get blown' experience! We certainly got the experience, and unfortunately one of our party was totally unprepared and ended up getting blown into the sea along with her bag containing purse, money, passport, seapass, phone and camera! However if didn't spoil the day!!! That's how good it was!

[Eriksgarden]

In St. Maarten, we took a cab to Marigot in the French side ($8 per person) and walked the open air market there. The Spice Lady is AMAZING! After, we took a cab back, then walked the beach and main strip of Philipsburg. We also swam a bit at the beach there. Low impact but great fun!!!

[Virtopia]

I'm visiting some of these ports in my September sailing and gathering information for what to do, so thank you for starting this thread!

 

I've been to St Maarten before and have done Bernard's Tours, so this time around, I'm going to take a ferry across to Anguilla for the day. I only plan to spend 3 hours there, which will give me 4 hours to get back to the ship in time. The ferry ride is only 20 minutes and it runs every hour, so I'm really looking forward to it!

 

I'm also going to San Juan two days prior to the sailing to enjoy the city I've heard so many good things about.

[needabreakcanada]

Definately seeing a pattern in the recommendations.

 

First - we already have booked flights and are coming in day before at 4:30 - so not much looking around there except night time.

 

Day we come back our flights are at 4:30 pm so might have some time to look around before the airport - have some new found friends that have offered for us to chill with them after cruise - may take them up on it if they can stand us;)

 

Definately want to snorkel with turtles - will look into that.

Yes we love beaches - and will lookin into resort option pass in St Lucia

 

Not big on Maho as we live near an airport:eek:

 

Now to start clicking on all the links you offered - thanks so much its a really good start indeed!

[Nvtitan89]

Why not post in the boards for those ports or google?

[Murncath]

Thanks for the great info on St. Croix. How long of a walk is it back to the cruise ship from the Sandcastle Beach Resort? Can you walk the entire way along the beach?

[snownyet]

We've done countless catamaran trips all over the Caribbean and the Calabazza In Barbados for us was the very best of them all. They're priced competitively, have a maximum of 12 passengers with a crew of 3, two of which are the boats owner and her son. Great people and a top rate experience. While onboard, they pamper you with wonderful fresh prepared food and drink and they'll collect email addresses so when you return home you'll find n email with trip photos and recipes for the foods you were served.

[hummy0605]

We just came back a few weeks ago and this is what we did (group of 4)

 

St croix - got off ship and walked right around the bay and stopped at a beach bar with beds and brollies - €5 each and option to get drinks - takes about half hr but you can see ship all the time.

 

St Maarten - duty free shopping walked around but went to tourist information and asked about the sea trek as only one space on the ships e cursing - went back at 1pm to jetty and had the best time ever doing this

 

Antigua - got off bit cloudy and rainy so got a taxi with doctor d ( there's a lot of drivers trying to get your business) - took us on a tour of island down to nelsons dockyard then weather cleared and went to St. John's beach.

 

St lucia - went to tourist information and asked about horse riding - someone came to pick us up and we went horse riding in forest and beach and took saddles off and went in sea

 

Barbados - took a taxi outside (Annette) and went to feed wild monkeys and then to paynes bay beach - went snorkelling with turtles then to see a wreck - someone on a adventure review though has said they took a bus south and snorkelled out themselves rather then paying for a boat trip but both options good

 

We had a busy busy busy week but all loved every minute

[BTSEN5]

We will be on this cruise July 30. We plan on coming into PR the day before. We are staying in Isla Verde, and we plan on checking out the beach, restaurants, and shopping for our wine to take on the cruise.

 

St. Croix: we are going to Mass at the Catholic church in Fredericksted, and walking back to the ship to change into beach clothes. We will go to the beach close to the pier.... Rainbow? Us this walkable?

 

St. Martin: Phillipsburg to shop. We have been to Maho, Marigot, orient... Rented a Jeep. We always enjoyed, but have never just shopped and explored that area.

 

Antigua: segway tour.

 

St. Lucia: planning on an island tour to see as much as we can.

 

Barbados: sea turtles

 

We cannot wait for this cruise. We have been wanting to go on a southern forever, but I hate flying. I was waiting for Royal to do one from Florida. Didn't want to get too old, so I am sucking it up and medicating myself well. :)

[snownyet]

Sailing from San Juan is our absolute favorite by a wide margin. We love the inteneraries and we love staying pre or post cruise in San Juan. We just wish there were more ships to choose from.