South Panorama with Beach - Martinique

[Treacher1]

Anyone take this RCI shore excursion in Martinique. Anxious to hear comments about beach and how long it takes to get there. Thank you!

[Life is Good Cruising]

I was going to book it for our April sailing but when I saw the one review on the Cruise Planner for this excursion and some comments in the Caribbean foum, I decided not to book it.

 

 

This review below was taken from our Cruise Planner.

 

MORE than AWFUL - complete TORTURE

 

This is the worst excursion my family has ever taken. Picked up at the dock right after ship ported, about 9:15am - spent 2 hours on a very crowed and cramped tour bus - We even turned around at one point because of traffic. FINALLY arrived at a beautiful beach - for almost a 1 1/2 hour stop and their was no restroom that you were permitted to use near the area. A person had to walk more than 30 min to use a port-a-potty that had feces all through it. It took well over an hour to and from the walk to use a restroom that was not useable - then to almost immediately get back on the bus for more torture. Back on the bus for almost another 2 hours and stop to see a banana plantation right along the road - again no facilities - I could not wait to get back to the ship. I asked the bus driver/host when we stopped at the beach if there was anyway I could get back to the ship as I didn't want to continue with the tour. They told me NO, that was my only way back to the ship. I would never recommend this excursion do to a cramped bus and no public facilities to be had. It completely ruined my stop in Martinique, I don't care if I ever go there again. Most of the people doing this excursion complained to the front desk and also to the excursion desk. The shore excursion desk actually left a terrible message on my phone that I got exactly what I paid for - both shocked and appalled and from now on look very closely into taking a tour like this, I would rather get a taxi off ship and know where and what I was getting into.

 

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2076984

[Treacher1]

I saw that review which surfaced AFTER we booked. That is why I was looking for another opinion. I guess I will be canceling that. What did you do in Martinique?

[Life is Good Cruising]

I saw that review which surfaced AFTER we booked. That is why I was looking for another opinion. I guess I will be canceling that. What did you do in Martinique?

 

We don't go until April 2015. The last time we were there was about 10 years ago and we just walked around in town to shop. The island is very big and there was not much info on the Caribbean forum below. There is a ferry nearby where you can take it to a beach. Unless others post on their experience before we go, we'll just go into town again as we'll have other ports to enjoy the beach.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=115

 

 

Some additional info I found on cc which may help you.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/ports/newport.cfm?ID=22

[DEIx15x8]

We did it on the 12/1 sailing and I would not recommend it. If you have already booked, consider canceling it. That review, while I can't comment on the bathroom situation, is not far off from my experience. We didn't have any traffic but it was still an incredibly long drive for an OK beach and then an incredibly long drive back. Nothing to really see beyond trees the entire way. Certainly not scenic like I have experienced on other "panoramic" tours. We stopped once on the way there at an overlook for 2 minutes to take pictures of the ocean and once on the way back along the side of the road to look at banana trees.

 

Everyone on the bus seemed to be annoyed at how long the ride was and short the beach was, especially since the description didn't seem to make this clear. To make things worse someone supposedly got lost at the beach. Never showed up at the bus, they couldn't figure out who it was that was missing and no one was ever missing from the ship so who knows if anyone really was ever missing, but we were an hour late getting back to the ship at the end.

 

Would never recommend anyone doing it, especially at the insane price they are charging.

You can see all my pictures from that day in my Martinique album: https://picasaweb.google.com/115365916503583655211/QuantumOfTheSeasDecember62014FortDeFranceMartinique

Edited January 19, 2015 by DEIx15x8

[Treacher1]

Thanks so much for the information. I spent over 2 hours trying to get into Royal website to cancel - it finally said click here to cancel - then it scrolled for another 15 minutes and then said Royal Caribbean is on vacation - try later -- cute but not funny when trying to do business. Then I called and cancelled via phone - should have done that right away. That was yesterday and today my shore excursion is still on my calendar. I will give it some time, but usually when a change I get an email within a minute.

 

I am frustrated when people get angry to those posting who complain about Dynamic Dining - I am really looking forward to it, but it sure is frustrating to set things up - and then have them appear/disappear etc. Royal needs a better computer system - it takes forever to set things up and then sometimes you just get the "on vacation message."

[scotandtamcruzn4fun]

We did it on the 12/1 sailing and I would not recommend it. If you have already booked, consider canceling it. That review, while I can't comment on the bathroom situation, is not far off from my experience. We didn't have any traffic but it was still an incredibly long drive for an OK beach and then an incredibly long drive back. Nothing to really see beyond trees the entire way. Certainly not scenic like I have experienced on other "panoramic" tours. We stopped once on the way there at an overlook for 2 minutes to take pictures of the ocean and once on the way back along the side of the road to look at banana trees.

 

Everyone on the bus seemed to be annoyed at how long the ride was and short the beach was, especially since the description didn't seem to make this clear. To make things worse someone supposedly got lost at the beach. Never showed up at the bus, they couldn't figure out who it was that was missing and no one was ever missing from the ship so who knows if anyone really was ever missing, but we were an hour late getting back to the ship at the end.

 

Would never recommend anyone doing it, especially at the insane price they are charging.

You can see all my pictures from that day in my Martinique album: https://picasaweb.google.com/115365916503583655211/QuantumOfTheSeasDecember62014FortDeFranceMartinique

 

 

I was also on the this excursion and agree with everything you said. It was awful.

We met the "missing " person, he got on a earlier bus and did not tell the guide.

 

 

 

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[nelblu]

We ported there some 15 years ago and found the inhabitants to be very unfriendly. Was not surprised when a few years later RCL dropped this island. from their itineraries. Was surprised that it's back on--maybe things have changed.

[Clancy14]

Hi!

 

I have just returned from the 12 night Southern Caribbean cruise and we stopped at Martinique. We also did not do a ship's excursion, due to the negative reviews and the high cost of some the excursions. Here's my own experience on Martinique.

 

It is VERY hot and humid. It is a "longish" walk from the gangway to the Port entrance and back. No shuttle or assistance of any kind from ship to entrance that I could see.

 

Several vendor tents set up along the pier, along with a visitor tent with chairs and tables to use while you decided what to do. A few people spoke LIMITED english, but all the Quantum cruisers are trying to get their attention and to get their questions answered, so it is very chaotic.

 

You can walk along this pier front to the ferry dock, where 3 ferries come in and out and take you across the bay/sea/water to different beaches. DO NOT expect the same kind of ferries that you see in Bermuda, or St. Thomas, or ANYWHERE modern, up-to-date. They look more like a larger version of the Minnow on Gilligan's Island.

 

The shops we walked to (through neighborhoods and streets that you needed to pass through ) made me slightly nervous. Crowds of citizens standing around on street corners or hanging around building doorways, once again only speaking French (I know, it's their native language but being called to and yelled to loudly and then having everyone laugh, is unnerving). Shops want Euro's primarily but some have signs that say US $ accepted. Change is given in Euros.

 

We ended up taking a Horse and Buggy ride through the streets. There were 12 of us in the carriage. It was 10 Euro or $13 US. After a hysterical attempt at trying to get the driver to tell us that there would be an English speaking guide accompanying us, we all waited for the ride to begin. Suddenly, he takes off on our tour with no guide and none of us speaking French! As we drove along, we would grunt out something and point. We would all look in that direction and take a picture, but of what, we still have no idea what we were looking at!!! It really became to get very funny and we ended up having a great laugh! (We did know what the cemetary was!)

 

All in all, it was an expensive, HOT, HUMID, tiring day that we will never repeat.

 

Also, the Shore Excursion desk on the Quantum is on open VERY LIMITED HOURS. It also has no ship phone number. All inquires must be done in person! Guest Relations cannot and will not help you in any way. The hours are usually only 6pm to 9pm on port days. On sea days, they open for a few hours in the morning, but the line is very long.

 

Hope this helps! - Miriam

[DEIx15x8]

Also, the Shore Excursion desk on the Quantum is on open VERY LIMITED HOURS. It also has no ship phone number. All inquires must be done in person! Guest Relations cannot and will not help you in any way. The hours are usually only 6pm to 9pm on port days. On sea days, they open for a few hours in the morning, but the line is very long.

 

I noticed this too. They seemed to be completely reliant on the Royal iQ app and chose not to staff it. We had to book an excursion on our second sailing so we did it as soon as we got onboard the ship. It was day 1 so lots of people were booking stuff and they had nobody there. The printers had no paper and the people that would walk through to go to the storage area had no idea how to fix it because it wasn't their area. In order to get the tickets to even allow you to print you had to purchase them, click ok to the error (trust you purchased it since it wouldn't show up or confirm anything), log out, then log back in, and then they would appear so you could hit print. You could only do that at one of the 4 iPads at the desk that actually had a functional printer though. The other desks wouldn't work. Ironically that was the desk that the auto login didn't work while the one with the non functional printer did login with the SeaPass (but not wow band).

 

The over believing that technology would fix everything seems to be a quantum problem onboard. IMO they should have made an area dedicated to reservations in general. Somewhere that provided more informative displays of information such as show and restaurant capacities and had a team there to handle all kinds of reservations; excursions, dining, entertainment, and even sports. The setup of going to complimentary venues to book those, fee venues to book those (they couldn't book each other or even check availability for some reason), watching the compass for when someone would be at a random location for entertainment reservations, going to the sports desk to book RipCord, and the excursions area for those just seems cumbersome, especially since nobody can see anyone else's information or even your other reservations outside of their area.

Edited January 25, 2015 by DEIx15x8