Royal Caribbean Basseterre port beach quality

[xps15z]

RCI port to Basseterre, st kitts how are the nearby beaches? Is it swimmable? Water clear? Beautiful fishes to see if we decide to snorkel off the beach? We like to just relax at the beach and stay in the water the entire time. So curious how the beaches are there. Thanks.

Edited March 10, 2019 by xps15z
title fix

[paul58]

The nearest beaches are at the minimum a 10-12 min taxi ride away. The farthest is at least 25 min away. The water is clear and swim-able. There will be places to see some fish but there are no real close in  reefs to explore and St Kitts is not known as a snorkeling mecca.  l

[mystkittsdivebuddy]

The best snorkeling you will find in the Caribbean is around the "coral islands", these are the "flat" islands such as Turks and Cayman.

St Kitts is a hilly volcanic island and as such we mainly have fringing reefs which do not extend to the shoreline.

There is snorkeling at Friars bay, go to Shipwreck bar, the reef is just in front of the beach. (15 mins drive).

Cockleshell beach (Reggae beach bar) ( 25 mins drive) has good snorkeling if you go out from the beach and snorkel in front of the headland to your left.

For scuba diving reefs I would give us a score of 8 out of 10 . For Snorkeling reefs it's a 5 out of 10.

Hope this helps.

[xps15z]

Thank you for the information. I'll be with my daughter, so we don't need to see the most exotic things. It's more so as long as she's able to see a lot of different fishes with ease as that's her favorite part. 

[gatour]

21 hours ago, mystkittsdivebuddy said:

The best snorkeling you will find in the Caribbean is around the "coral islands", these are the "flat" islands such as Turks and Cayman.

St Kitts is a hilly volcanic island and as such we mainly have fringing reefs which do not extend to the shoreline.

There is snorkeling at Friars bay, go to Shipwreck bar, the reef is just in front of the beach. (15 mins drive).

Cockleshell beach (Reggae beach bar) ( 25 mins drive) has good snorkeling if you go out from the beach and snorkel in front of the headland to your left.

For scuba diving reefs I would give us a score of 8 out of 10 . For Snorkeling reefs it's a 5 out of 10.

Hope this helps.

Not interested in the snorkeling aspect.  But just the logistics of getting to and back from the beaches.

 

Last year, we did St Kitt's on our cruise just for our second time.  We took an excursion booked through the cruise line to Cockleshell beach.  We enjoyed it, but felt the time was a bit short (2 and 1/2 hours).  For our upcoming cruise, I am thinking of doing this on our own.

 

My thought process is to hire a taxi upon arriving to take us to the beach and then have a pickup about 3 or 3 and 1/2 hours later.

What about access to the loungers.  When we did the ship tour, we were just let out of the bus, given a punch drink and then made our way to a lounger.  I don't recall any signs mentioning entrance cost if you were doing this on your own.

 

The place was at the far end of the beach away from the pier.  I did walk down to the places nearer to the pier, but prefered the sand at the restaurant/bar where we were dropped off at.

 

Is this do-able and if so what would be the expected cost?

 

Alternatively is another beach a better choice?  Taking into account that having food options available is not a major consideration, however having ready access to drinks is a player.

 

Thanks.