Fascination cruise from San juan tips?

[volbeatpete]

Hey

in may we go on cruise from san juan with the fascination,anyone done this ?maybe then you can give us tips wich excursions are good to do on the islands were going to visit.

[hrmkr]

We were on the Fascination out of San Juan back in February. Here is the list of excursions we did on each island.

 

St. Thomas- Godfrey Tours

St. Maarten- Bernard's

St. Kitts- Thenford Grey

St. Lucia- Spencer Ambrose (The best excursion we have done of any island we have visited).

 

I would highly recommend any of these tours. You will not go wrong taking any of them.

 

You might want to go to the Caribbean Ports of Call pages for each island to get additional information

[ragethjj23]

We were on the Fascination out of San Juan back in February. Here is the list of excursions we did on each island.

 

St. Thomas- Godfrey Tours

St. Maarten- Bernard's

St. Kitts- Thenford Grey

St. Lucia- Spencer Ambrose (The best excursion we have done of any island we have visited).

 

I would highly recommend any of these tours. You will not go wrong taking any of them.

 

You might want to go to the Caribbean Ports of Call pages for each island to get additional information

 

I second these choices and have done them all as well. They are all great! In fact, i am going back in june and will be doing spencer's again! In barbados we are doing calabaza's sail and snorkel, again. It is great! Price is $100 includes a day of fun, drinks and food! They even have an underwater camera that they take complimentary pictures with! Only 12 people on the catamaran!

[jthrog]

We did almost this exact cruise on the Liberty in 2015 (ours also included Barbados).

 

For St. Thomas, I highly recommend the "St. John Trunk Bay Beach Getaway & Snorkel" excursion. This included an exciting boat ride to St. John and back (they go really fast!), and a brief tour with stops on St. John for pictures. Then they take you to Trunk Bay which is a park and is really well kept. Down side of this was that the time there was too short (approx 2hrs), and there were no beach chairs. There was plenty of shade from trees on the beach, however I'm not sure what state it is in now or next May after Irma came through....We intended to go back on our cruise next week, but Carnival rescheduled that port to Amber Cove.

 

St. Maarten - I honestly can't recall the name of this excursion, but it was essentially a "best of" tour. It stopped at an open market area next to a marina and a huge mall. We really weren't interested in shopping so were bored. We went into the mall to use the restroom and found that you had to pay to use it! Plus, there wasn't anyone working so you couldn't use it even if you did want to pay! We ended up finding some public restrooms which weren't too far off from campground bathrooms...We wished that we had done a beach excursion instead.

 

St. Lucia - We did "Scenes of St. Lucia". This was was pretty good. The highlight was the house tour (don't remember what it was called) that had a nice overlook of the island and refreshments. The rest was mostly shopping stops and ended with a stop at the rum distillery (which was kind of boring for us because we don't drink). It was basically 30 minutes of people sampling rum and then going into the store to buy some. We ended up waiting on the bus in the A/C.

 

St. Kitts - Top 10 Best of St. Kitts". The highlight of this excursion was the fort. Very neat! The rest was mostly bus tour with a few stops for shopping and/or pictures. There was also a stop a neat garden that had a really old tree. I would recommend this if you want to see a lot of the island and take pictures.

 

Barbados - We decided not to book through the ship and took a taxi to Harbor Lights on Carlisle Bay. I would not recommend doing this unless it was a ship excursion. We waited in a taxi for over 20 minutes for other people who wanted to go to the same place. We then were moved to a different taxi with another family before finally leaving. Once we were at Carlisle Bay, there were vendors all over the beach. We were approached several times to buy things and people were standing around the lounge chairs the whole time looking for customers. This was very uncomfortable and we did not feel safe leaving our stuff unattended due to so many non-tourist people walking around (we had some expensive camera equipment with us). Harbor Lights did have food (expensive but good) and bathrooms that we could use.

 

If I could do this cruise over again, I would do more beach excursions and less tours.

 

[volbeatpete]

ok thx :)

[shark&minnow]

Valor:PR, St. Tom, Barbados, St. Kitts, Lucia, Martin

This is a link to my review of similar cruise on the Valor in 2014. We've done 2 cruises out of Puerto Rico--it's one of my favorites! Since it was hit so hard by the hurricane it will be interesting to see how they are recovering.

[telebax51]

Forgot one Barbados we used Ted Blades Tours its a tour and comedy act oohh also don't be surprised his tour is done BAREFOOT very entertaining.

[Herfnerd]

St Lucia - Cosol Tours

 

 

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[tikitammy]

We did this itinerary 2 years ago on the Liberty and loved it. Doing it again 8/26/18.

St Thomas- we went to St John on the Champagne Catamaran. Would do that again in a heartbeat but would love to take an excursion to Tortola- if the island is ready for visitors by August. Carnival used to offer an excursion there.

St Kitts- we took a tour through Carnival that took us to Timothy Hill and to a great little beach with a beautiful view of Nevis right in front of us. Great day!

St Marteen- we took a cab to Maho Beach. So much fun.

St Lucia we did a carnival excursion sail to the Pitons and a black sand beach.

Thanks for the info on other excursion companies. Will check them out.

[tikitammy]

We did this itinerary 2 years ago on the Liberty and loved it. Doing it again 8/26/18.

St Thomas- we went to St John on the Champagne Catamaran. Would do that again in a heartbeat but would love to take an excursion to Tortola- if the island is ready for visitors by August. Carnival used to offer an excursion there.

St Kitts- we took a tour through Carnival that took us to Timothy Hill and to a great little beach with a beautiful view of Nevis right in front of us. Great day!

St Marteen- we took a cab to Maho Beach. So much fun.

St Lucia we did a carnival excursion sail to the Pitons and a black sand beach.

Thanks for the info on other excursion companies. Will check them out.

 

 

 

Oh and in Barbados we did the turtle snorkel excursion. Very fun.

[SpaceCowboy9]

St. Thomas- Dollar Bus to red hook, ferry to St john, cab to trunk bay

St. Maarten- Bernard's (three times-taking it again in April)

St. Kitts- Done both the train and Sir Walter Tours (the train is expensive, but worth doing once/if on a budget, go with Sir Walter)

St. Lucia-walked around town and hiked up to the governor's mansion

Barbados-walked around, then went to Copacabana Beach Club our cab driver got us in with no cover

 

I would recommend all of these. Have fun

[printingchick]

OK, I'll play...

 

St. Thomas

Prefer St. John. I recommend any excursion that gets you there. Or you can taxi to Red Hook and take the ferry.

 

 

St. Maarten

I agree with the Bernard's recommendation. Have visited St. Maarten a few times and it was not among my favorites. But a tour with Bernard's showed me sides of the island I'd not previously experienced and I left with a much higher impression of this lovely port.

 

St. Kitts

I highly recommend Royston among those offering the island tours. On our upcoming trip, we're going with Javin, as the tour does some unique things. For example, the rain forest, walking DOWN to sea level at the Black Rocks, snorkeling at a sunken ship, etc. Looking forward to it.

 

 

St. Lucia

 

I cannot recommend the Land and Sea tour with Herod's highly enough. Phenomenal!