Help with ideas in the Caribbean

[lancing2]

We are going on Regal Princess on January 10th for 14 days. We have looked at port reviews and are just confused.

The ports we are visiting are St Thomas, St Maarten, Cozumel, Costa Mayer, Fort Lauderdale and Grand Cayman.

We have been to St Maarten but went no further than the main beach and shops.

Any advice would be welcome

[CruiserBruce]

Have you looked at the Port boards, here:

 

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587

 

 

Have you looked at what Princess is offering? What interests you? Do what interests you...that is the final result.

[Nic6318]

We are going on Regal Princess on January 10th for 14 days. We have looked at port reviews and are just confused.

The ports we are visiting are St Thomas, St Maarten, Cozumel, Costa Mayer, Fort Lauderdale and Grand Cayman.

We have been to St Maarten but went no further than the main beach and shops.

Any advice would be welcome

 

One of the great things about cruising is being able to explore many different ports. While some ports offer many things near the port, venturing away from the port somewhat will allow you to experience much more.

 

If you don't feel comfortable making arrangements on your own, follow CruiserBruce' advice and investigate which excursions Princess offers that might be of interest to you and pick a few. These are all beautiful islands so you should be able to come home with many wonderful memories.

 

have a great cruise

[SuiteTraveler]

The best place to go from St. Thomas is to go to St. John - there should be a ship's excursion to take you to Trunk Bay - really great! St. Thomas is just a big city (relatively speaking for the Caribbean) and all there is in town is a bunch of shopping at jewelry stores - not even good shopping - you can get the same stuff at home in the US cheaper. There are some restaurants and bars, I've done the driven island tour and don't think much of it. I did scuba and it was rather blah as the reefs are not that good there. But over on St. John - that is the place to go. Unspoiled beauty and just a wonderful time.

 

St. Maartin offers amazing snorkeling, so I would definitely do that there.

 

Cozumel - think about booking on your own at either Mr. Sanchos or Nachi Cocum or Playa Mia - taxi ride is like $17 each way for 2. You have to pre-book and bring your receipt or iPhone or tablet with the receipt.

 

Grand Cayman - don't miss going to Stingray City - you can easily book a tour through your ship.

 

Costa Maya- consider seeing the Mayan ruins. If your cruise is during very hot weather, though, you are better off choosing a water based excursion.

[lancing2]

Thank you Suitetraveler. That was useful advice

[OCruisers]

Please tell us what type activities you enjoy -- beach/water sports, shopping, sightseeing, etc. :)

 

LuLu

[EGG]

What we would do when we went on a new itinerary is look at all the excursions. If you can print them all, or just the ones you are interested in, it makes it easier to go back and discuss. We narrow it down to what we are interested in doing. I'll add here that we may end up doing an excursion, an independent tour with our roll call, or on our own. This just helps us decide what we want to do at each port.

 

If you want to do Mayan ruins, which is specific to a few of your ports, try to find out more about the ruins by reading on the port of calls board and choose this first so you do not have to research beaches or shopping or island tour. (Costa Maya and Cozumel).

 

A few of the ports may have a more interesting island tour so you might want to do this. Later you can decide whether to do it as a ship excursion or with people from your roll call.

 

If you want to do Sting Rays than that is what you need to research for Grand Cayman.

 

Out of the ports that are left, we choose one or two islands for a beach day.

 

The worst thing to do is to get off the ship and have no idea what you are going to do. If it is our plan to get off the ship with all our beach stuff and get a taxi to the beach that is fine. But we do not like to get off with no idea what we are going to do because we may miss interesting churches or museums that are nearby. As an example, St. Thomas has one of the 4 synagogues with a sand floor. Both times we have been there someone from the synagogue has sat with the visitors and given a half hour talk. This is off the beaten path, a few blocks from shopping, but we would not have known about this if we did not do a little research first. In this case, we got a guide book from the library that told you places to go in town. Then we copied the map, because decent maps are not usually available on the ship.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587 This is the link to the ports of call boards for the Caribbean.

 

Good luck.

[lancing2]

We like to be active such as bikes or a catamaran trip. I'm not a very good swimmer but I will do one snorkel trip for my husband's sake. We are in Costa Mayer only from 2pm till 8pm so I don't know if we have time for the ruins.

[cruiseapril]

We find it important to book an excursion for St. Thomas due to the increase

in traffic when several cruise ships are in. The last time we were there, the

traffic was so busy that we were concerned with being stuck in traffic- so we

were glad we had booked a ship's excursion ahead of time.

 

We took the ferry to town at the St. Maarten pier and later took an excursion to Orient Beach- which was a nice beach- but the surf was up. Another time we would go to the Marigot area and a nearby, calmer beach.

 

Have a great cruise.

[geocruiser]

Have you been to both sides of St Maarten? The French side spells St Maarten different. If you have only been to the Dutch side, you may want to tour the French side.

 

By the way I am also on the first leg of your cruise. I am doing the eastern route. Please join our roll call. You might get other ideas there for your trip.

 

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2212016

[Nebr.cruiser]

We have been to most of these islands/ports several times. The first thing we do after booking a cruise is look at the ship tours; we rarely book any, but it gives a good idea of what to do and what the ship is charging.

 

Next we go to the Ports of Call boards on this site and start reading posts. We also look on Trip Advisor and other sites. After some study we book tours we are interested in with independent operators.

 

We don't book tours for every island; sometimes we just want a laid back beach day, sometimes we just want to walk around the town, shop, sight-see, etc., especially if we have been there many times. Sometimes we get ourselves to a destination using advice on these boards; ie Water Island on St. Thomas.

 

Sometimes we do pick up a tour at the dock if we see a price and itinerary that sounds good. Mostly they've been just fine.

 

We do mostly independent tours because the price is usually much better as well as the quality. We especially like small groups instead of big busloads of people.

 

Many cruisers like ship tours because there is a safety factor built in; the ship will almost always wait for their tours if they are running late. We've never had a problem getting back on time so far, but we do try to leave a nice cushion of time before the ship sails. I wouldn't, for instance, book a tour that gets back at 4:45 for a 5:00 sail time.

[cb at sea]

Get yourself a guidebook on your ports! Learn something about where you're going, and what there is in each place that interests you! Don't just look at excursions...find out something about the country! A guidebook tells everything...points of interest, shopping, beaches, transportation, food/drink, safety.....everything! You will get much more from your time ashore if you do a bit of research!

Libraries have guidebooks!

 

You may find what interests you requires NO excursion at all!!!

Edited September 25, 2015 by cb at sea

[capriccio]

We usually do private excursions but in St. Maarten we did a Princess excursion - America's Cup Race. It was so much fun! Two old America's Cup yachts race against each other. There is a professional crew but much of the work is done by the guests. If you have ever sailed before (or wish you had) I highly recommend it.

Edited September 25, 2015 by capriccio

[OCruisers]

We usually do private excursions but in St. Maarten we did a Princess excursion - America's Cup Race. It was so much fun! Two old America's Cup yachts race against each other. There is a professional crew but much of the work is done by the guests. If you have ever sailed before (or wish you had) I highly recommend it.

 

Agree! The America's Cup Race is a GREAT excursion! :D

 

LuLu