St Maarten - St Barths - Ferry Svce

[SConnolly]

Anyone recenty taken the ferry to St Barths for the day.

How was it.

Did you do it with RCCL or independently.

 

Just wondering it it was worrh a day trip and if you had any reccommendaitons upon arrival.

 

I found the Ferry website,

 

By Boat

Voyager offers ferry service for day trips between St. Barths, St. Martin (Marigot), and Saba. Round-trips are offered for about $60 per person. All service is from the Quai de la République. Private boat charters are also available. Rapide Explorer is a super-fast catamaran service with several daily 45-minute crossings between St. Maarten's Chesterfield Marina and St. Barths. Information

 

Voyager (PHONE: 0590/87-10-68, http://www.voyager-st-barths.com). Rapid Explorer (PHONE: 0590/27-60-33, http://www.st-barths.com/rapid-explorer).

 

http://www.st-barths.com/guidepgs/public_sea.html

 

Shay

[Squire5000]

We booked it thru RCCL. We enjoyed the island. Just walked around had some lunch. Very expensive. Burger, fries, a beer and one bottle of water was $40

 

A word of caution. The ride over was very rough. A number of people got very sick. The ride back was not as bad.

[racephoto]

I think this is the kind of thing I'd only book through the ship.....all you need is for the ferry to break down! :eek:

 

Gail

[negc]

we were just on the Rapid Explorer high speed ferry to St. Barts from St. Maarten. It was quite rough on the 40 minute ride over because we were going into the waves, but extremely smooth on the return trip. We booked through the cruiseline for two reasons: 1)strangely enough, the price quoted by the cruiseline:$82 pp roundtrip, was less than the company listed on their website ($115 pp roundtrip); and 2) the schedule on their website only showed a return trip to St. Maarten leaving St. Barts at 6pm. Since our ship was sailing at 7 we would have missed the ship. Actually, they had a 2pm return (which is the one the ship put us on)so if we had known that and there hadn't been that strange difference in price we might have been tempted to book it on our own. I think it is the only time I have found it to be cheaper to book an excursion through the cruiseline than directly from the operator.:confused:

St. Barts is beautiful and we had a great tour of the whole island for a reasonable price. However St. Jean's beach had no public changing facilities (others told us that Shell beach near downtown Gustavia lacked changing facilities as well) and they wanted 20 Euros ($27USD) to rent a lounge chair. Mixed drinks were expensive, but at Le Select in Gustavia a Heineken and most of the other beers were only $3.

Since we had been to St. Maarten many times in the past, we enjoyed the opportunity to visit some place different. If you are at all prone to motion sickness, however, make sure that the seas are very calm before taking this trip.

I must say that the crew onboard the Rapid Explorer could not have been nicer and were especially solicitous of those in our number who were affected by the high seas.

[SConnolly]

Thank you everyone for the promt repsonses.