St Maarten vs Cruise ship for perfume

[bluetardis]

I will be on board Caribbean Princess and would like to know, from experience if the ship or St Maarten would have better prices for name brand perfume. Thanks

[Guindalf]

Neither. You’ll find better prices on Amazon. 

[VibeGuy]

Prices on board haven’t been great on regular stock fragrances but there have been some stunning deals in the clearance bins. 
 

St Maarten used to be a much more solid duty free paradise, but the reality is US duty on perfume is something like ten cents per ounce.  
 

What St Maarten is *still* good for is finding the “travel retail exclusives” and the various box sets with flankers and such.   Penha is known for doing a lot of volume and often has stuff that’s hard to find even in places like the airports in Dubai and Singapore.  But I just looked at three bottles of stuff you’d find at a better US department store (Mugler Goddess Intense EdP,  EL Beautiful EdP spray, Lancôme Idole) and prices were +\- 5% from Nordstrom or Macy’s. 
 

(looking at me, you’d never suspect I smell fancy but I wear really unheard of fragrances and am always on the lookout for stuff that is hard to find in North America)

[bluetardis]

@VibeGuy thanks for the info, I really appreciate it

[devonuk]

5 hours ago, Guindalf said:

Neither. You’ll find better prices on Amazon. 

And you don’t have to worry about any personal allowance total when arriving back in the UK. It amazes me that ships stores sell items as duty/tax free but fail to inform you about personal allowance totals etc. 🤷‍♂️

[stive1]

Do you know if they carry Mugler Goddess Intense on board their ships.   We have a pretty large OBC and was hoping to pick up a bottle on our next cruise.