Half Day Catamaran to Pitons

[luv2cruise2thebeach]

Has anyone ever done a half day catamaran cruise to the Pitons?  Carnival offers this as an excursion and I hate booking cruise ship excursions, but can't seem to find any other vendors that offer this same trip.  Has anyone ever had experience with this excursion?

[mitsugirly]

Why only half day? 

 

I would HIGHLY suggest using Spencer Ambrose. His tours are AMAZING! A lot of information on the boat ride over and back. You can take a tour just to the pitons and the beach with lunch and all drinks included (and there's AMAZING snorkeling there) or you can do the tour that takes you to the volcanos or mud baths and then on to the pitons. It's a wonderful tour (we've done both and just came back 2 weeks ago). They get you back in plenty of time to catch the ship. 

 

You can CLICK HERE to find my very detailed review with TONS of pictures of the trip just to Jalosie Beach and the Pitons (scroll down to post #672 where it starts). I'm currently working on my trip we just took, which included the mud baths. 

[luv2cruise2thebeach]

We only want to do the half day catamaran because we want to see the Pitons and spend a little bit of time at the beach.  We also want to spend some time in port and be back on the ship in the middle of the afternoon.  Most of the tours seem to be 7+ hours.  We are planning a full trip to the island next year for my wife's birthday, so for now just wanted to do something, then next year we can see all of the other attractions when we have a lot of time to do so.

[snirpville]

I took the Catamaran excursion which included lunch with NCL. It was great. I really liked it. We took the catamaran over (with a brief stop for swimming) to the Pitons and then transferred to a bus for the drive up to an estate for lunch. A couple more stops before arriving back at the cruise ship in the mid-afternoon. It was really nice.

[aquidneck1]

I have been researching this as well as we would like to do a half day trip.  The problem is that the Pitons are not close to Castries where most ships dock and therefore it takes time to get to the Pitons and the snorkeling areas.  Instead you have to take the speed boats in order to do a half day tour.  In the winter it tends to be windy and many encounter high waves so the ride is not that wonderful according to one dive company.  We may just go to the beach.  Still deciding.  

[WisconsinFan]

We just did a half day tour on a cat to the Pitons. We did not include snorkeling, but had a stop at a beach to swim for a bit. We booked it through the cruise line (RC). We wanted to see the Pitons, but didn't want to spend the entire day as well. We sailed into Marigot Bay which has no roads to it. If you are old enough, this is the location of the original Dr. Doolittle movie with Rex Harrison from the 1960's, it also was called the worlds most beautiful bay by James A. Michener. Our day was one of a mix of sun, rain and clouds so my pictures reflect that.

[Dragon2109]

Most catamaran companies do not offer half days as it is more economical to do full days given the distance. Only thing I can suggest is booking private and that will be expensive. There are a few companies with small catamarans such as Mystic man, Bateau Mygo or you can look to tour operators like Serenitytvl , Barefoot holidays to arrange something private.

[brookie848]

On 5/8/2019 at 4:18 PM, aquidneck1 said:

I have been researching this as well as we would like to do a half day trip.  The problem is that the Pitons are not close to Castries where most ships dock and therefore it takes time to get to the Pitons and the snorkeling areas.  Instead you have to take the speed boats in order to do a half day tour.  In the winter it tends to be windy and many encounter high waves so the ride is not that wonderful according to one dive company.  We may just go to the beach.  Still deciding.  

 

We did a catamaran tour at the end of February and the seas were beyond rocky and the weather was not pleasant for part of the day. Because of this, it will be a long, long time before I get on a small boat in St. Lucia again. Actually, St. Lucia is now a "bad word" (two words, actually) in our household. 

 

We chartered a boat for the day (Bateau Mygo) and it would have been wonderful if Mother Nature had cooperated with us. 

 

[jestlove]

We did a catamaran tour with Mystic Man Tours. It was wonderful! It does take a little longer to get all the way down the coast, but we loved it. It was our favorite day of the cruise. They picked us up right at the ship (we had a party of 6). They provided drinks all day, lunch, we saw some pilot whales and dolphins and sailed along the coast. We also had some time to snorkel. It was $88 pp and well worth it. Total time was about 6 hours. 

[luv2cruise2thebeach]

On 5/10/2019 at 10:39 AM, WisconsinFan said:

We just did a half day tour on a cat to the Pitons. We did not include snorkeling, but had a stop at a beach to swim for a bit. We booked it through the cruise line (RC). We wanted to see the Pitons, but didn't want to spend the entire day as well. We sailed into Marigot Bay which has no roads to it. If you are old enough, this is the location of the original Dr. Doolittle movie with Rex Harrison from the 1960's, it also was called the worlds most beautiful bay by James A. Michener. Our day was one of a mix of sun, rain and clouds so my pictures reflect that.

This sounds like the same excursion that Carnival offers.  We get a short time at the beach with no snorkeling, which is fine we just want to see the Pitons and get a little bit of beach time