Beaches

[NOLA4]

I am a first time, solo cruiser that will be on the Nov Celebrity Reflection Cruise. I am looking for recommendations for beach days in Antigua, Barbados, and St. Maarten. I’m obviously new to cruise critic as well and have had a problem getting  logged on, so if I have posted in the wrong section, I apologize. Thanks!

[cb at sea]

You're fine....just google your ports...and add "beaches" to the search.  St. Maarten has great beaches...they should have recovered from last years storms by now.  Orient beach is close and fine.  

Definitely research your ports before you go...the more you know, the better your time ashore will be!

[CruisinUngs]

I am also new to cruising and will be on a ship in January.

 

I’m not sure what kind of details you’re looking for but when I started researching by simply typing “beaches” at the end of my search it ended up being waaayyyyy too broad. The best ways I found to research is to look at the forums here for your specific port of call and to search those forums for “beach”, or to go on to trip advisor, look up your port city/town, then search the reviews for the word “cruise”. Both ways will not only give you beach reviews by experienced and new cruisers but will tell you what beaches were convenient and usually how they got there from port.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited October 28, 2018 by CruisinUngs
Spelling

[mom says]

Maybe this will help get you started:  https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/456-caribbean/

[NOLA4]

Mom Says- Thank-you very, very much! That was quite helpful. I am not very good with computers so this whole cruise critic process has been very difficult for me. Thank you again!

[evandbob]

13 hours ago, cb at sea said:

You're fine....just google your ports...and add "beaches" to the search.  St. Maarten has great beaches...they should have recovered from last years storms by now.  Orient beach is close and fine.  

Definitely research your ports before you go...the more you know, the better your time ashore will be!

Orient Beach may not be fine, many of the restaurants along that stretch of sand may not have been re-built yet. They certainly were not last time I visited a few months ago.  Hopefully a recent poster to Orient can clarify?

[Hlitner]

13 hours ago, cb at sea said:

You're fine....just google your ports...and add "beaches" to the search.  St. Maarten has great beaches...they should have recovered from last years storms by now.  Orient beach is close and fine.  

Definitely research your ports before you go...the more you know, the better your time ashore will be!

Actually, St Maarten has been terribly slow to recover from the hurricane.  Orient Beach (which is not really that close) was decimated with every restaurant and vendor destroyed.  We have heard that there are now two places functioning but not sure that this is the place to go at this time.  We are on another cruise next week that will stop at St Maarten and noticed that the cruise line does not have a single excursion to Orient...which might say it all.  It appears that the cruise line's are funneling passengers to some of the Dutch-side beaches such as Mullet Bay.  We are thinking about renting a car (if we can even find a rental) and driving the entire island to check-out the damage.  I do know that the Condo that we used to rent in Grand Case is history as was much of that favorite little community.

 

Why has it taken so long for the island to bounce back?  Friends who live on the island have told us that what the hurricane did not destroy, looters decimated!  We were shocked to hear about all the looting (and some violence) since we always felt very comfortable around the locals.  Apparently the insurance companies were slow to settle many business claims (what else is new) which did not help the recovery and quite a few businesses decided not to rebuild.  Much of Phillipsburg is back to normal but some good guesses are it will be another year until the island returns to anything close to its pre storm condition.

 

Hank

[NOLA4]

Hank- Thank-you so much for your feedback on the condition of St. Maarten. Your responce was the very reason that I wanted specific feedback on an island that someone had recently been to, but I kept getting reprimanded when I would ask questions and was told to just go to the boards, etc., etc. I am from New Orleans and my family was in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Luckily, I happened to be living in Kentucky at the time. But my family suffered terribly. They were smart enough to all evacuate, but their houses all suffered damage. One of my sisters totally lost her house and everything in it. The house was almost totally submerged in water for three weeks. Only the very top of the roof could be seen from the helicopters. And if the destruction was not bad enough, as you previously stated with St. Maarten,  looting, the crime, gangs with guns firing at police officers who were trying to keep some semblance of law and order was appalling. They were even firing at hospital personnel in the rare hospital that was still open in order to steal drugs. I am living back home now, and there is still not a day that goes by that you don’t hear someone utter the word Katrina. So I can understand why a poor little island like St. Maarten is so slow to rebuild. So, I think you have helped me decide to stay on the ship that day as I do have a couple of other excursions planned on other islands. Thanks again for taking the time to answer my question. It is greatly appreciated! Sylvia

[NOLA4]

Thank-you to CruisinUngs, Evandbob, cb at sea and anyone else that I may have missed for your help with my question concerning beach day excursions.

[Bevv]

33 minutes ago, NOLA4 said:

 So, I think you have helped me decide to stay on the ship that day as I do have a couple of other excursions planned on other islands. Sylvia

On the other hand, the island could use the tourist dollars so leaving the ship and eating on the island or spending money on the island would be a great help to the residents there.

 

[NOLA4]

Bevv-That is a great idea. Thanks for sharing.