Sailing Magic soon - How are St. Maarten & St. Kitts

[redrider73]

For those that have visited since the hurricane, are the sightseeing tours on St. Maarten & St. Kitts worth the money?  We are not much for just shopping or laying around on a beach and would like to take a driving tour around each island.  It will be our first visit to these islands.

Edited June 20, 2019 by redrider73

[jbethel11]

18 minutes ago, redrider73 said:

For those that have visited since the hurricane, are the sightseeing tours on St. Maarten & St. Kitts worth the money?  We are not much for just shopping or laying around on a beach and would like to take a driving tour around each island.  It will be our first visit to these islands.

Although I did not take a sightseeing tour per se, I did drive from the port to Maho Beach. The island is trying to recover, but you can notice damage to not only the shores but also inland, and by inland, I mean about a mile or two inland. Unfortunately, tourists areas are the only ones being restored, but I still loved my time there!

[PhillyFan33579]

We drove from the port to Maho Beach a few months ago. Like the last poster mentioned, you will see a lot of damage in certain areas and a lot of destroyed boats that are still out in the water.  Watching planes land from Maho Beach is a must see in my book, but I spent 20 years in the Air Force so I am pretty biased when it comes to planes. 

[jbethel11]

34 minutes ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

We drove from the port to Maho Beach a few months ago. Like the last poster mentioned, you will see a lot of damage in certain areas and a lot of destroyed boats that are still out in the water.  Watching planes land from Maho Beach is a must see in my book, but I spent 20 years in the Air Force so I am pretty biased when it comes to planes. 

You're an aviation enthusiast too? Nice! Thanks for your service.

[georgiacat]

We were in St. Marteen and St. Kitts this April (2019).  St. Marteen was hit hard by the hurricane and still shows a lot of damage.  St. Kitts missed the hurricane and is not changed.  (We went to both in 2017 also).  I wanted to see what the hurricane had done.  On St. Marteen we did the Shore Excursioneer Best of Island Highlights.  It was very enjoyable and I would recommend it.  One of the stops was Maho Beach for about 45 minutes of plane sighting.

 

On St. Kitts we did Thenford Grey's tour of the island.  I don't remember the name of the tour.  It was the same tour we did in 2017 and enjoyed it both times.  I would highly recommend his tour also.

[purplephenom]

On St Maarten, we did Bernard's Tours.  We did see some damage, but everywhere the tour stopped was fine.  The tour we did had some beach time, but there is an option without a long beach stay.  The rest of the tour was driving around in a van, and we definitely saw a lot of the island.  Check them out, they may have what you are looking for. 

[mdin]

We visited St. Kitts and St. Maarten this past February. Both are great islands. St. Maarten is still recovering and you do see a lot of damage, but we were still able to tour the island and really enjoy our time there.

 

In St. Kitts we used Thenford Grey's Tours. They did a great job, I highly recommend them. We did a quick city tour and beach day, but they have different tours available. In St. Maarten we used Bernard's Tours. They were great as well, very organized. We did a beach day and visited Orient and Maho, both amazing (Maho is quite an experience).

[thesmiths]

Off the Magic last month.

We did Thenford and Bernards on both Islands.

 

Give them both a 10.

We had my parents  (86&87) with us, so I setup private tours in advance.

 

Request "The Pastor" for Thenfords, he is a great man!

 

 

[2wheelin]

In April, we did an off-road Jeep tour in St Kitts and an ATV tour in St Maarten. Both were great both on the roads and off. Saw very little damage and were all over the islands. Well worth doing any sightseeing tour. If you do a bus tour, you may have more narration about any damage you see.

[havanadaydreaming]

Maho Beach is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, place in the Caribbean.   Last trip there we got a day pass from the all inclusive Sonesta Maho Beach resort...the only downside was couldn't see the planes landing from the pool.  But it's a quick walk down to the beach, we hung out there for hours watching planes land. I was pretty surprised at the surf level, good tide!

[NWACruiser]

For a rundown of St. Martin, visit post # 63 on the review below:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2631214-it-was-our-destiny-to-enjoy-the-sunshine-journeys-cruise-review/?do=findComment&comment=56808743

Edited June 24, 2019 by NWACruiser