Arriving in time for daysail??

[bbkitty]

I am on the Carnival Valor September 2007 and it says we arrive in port to St Thomas at 9:00 am. I REALLY REALLY wanted to do an all day sail with Rumbaba. (I thought St Maarten would be more expensive to do something like that, so I figured that stop for just a beach day...any thoughts on that? I found reviews of Random Wind daysails in St Maarten for $85 which sounded great so now am not sure...)

Anyway, it seems like the daysails START at 9 am or so. This is my first cruise and so I have read alot of varied things on these boards about getting off the boat fast or tediously slow, all of which affect your ability to get to your daysail on time. So now I don't know which way to go with this. Should I just do the beach on St Thomas (we are in port til 8 pm so have plenty of time to go to St John) and try the daysail on St Maarten because we dock earlier (7 am)? That's ok, its just Rumbaba sounded so great. Any advice appreciated!:)

[kelmac]

I am on the Carnival Valor September 2007 and it says we arrive in port to St Thomas at 9:00 am. I REALLY REALLY wanted to do an all day sail with Rumbaba. (I thought St Maarten would be more expensive to do something like that, so I figured that stop for just a beach day...any thoughts on that? I found reviews of Random Wind daysails in St Maarten for $85 which sounded great so now am not sure...)

Anyway, it seems like the daysails START at 9 am or so. This is my first cruise and so I have read alot of varied things on these boards about getting off the boat fast or tediously slow, all of which affect your ability to get to your daysail on time. So now I don't know which way to go with this. Should I just do the beach on St Thomas (we are in port til 8 pm so have plenty of time to go to St John) and try the daysail on St Maarten because we dock earlier (7 am)? That's ok, its just Rumbaba sounded so great. Any advice appreciated!:)

 

bbkitty,

It might not work? To exit the ship and taxi over to the sail boat harbor will take around 45 minutes. Like you said, most day sails leave the harbor around 9:00am. In addition, if you visit a non-US port just before entering St Thomas, the entire ship will have to go through customs before anyone can get off. The only way I can see it working, is if you have all six day sail passengers on your ship, and they (Rumbaba) are willing to wait for you. We had six people on High Pockets, all couples from different ships, and it took over an hour to get everyone to the harbor.

 

Good luck!

Kel

[critterchick]

Call or email Captain Bobby and explain the situation to him - he'll work with you on it, especially if you can come up with six passengers from your ship. If that's the case and it'll be light out, then you can still get in the entire day's worth of activity with no problem. Check on your Roll Call to see if anybody else is interested - you REALLY, REALLY want to do this trip - it's the most fun and relaxing excursion we've ever booked!

 

We cleared customs in St. Thomas in about 3 minutes on the RCI Jewel. Although we were supposed to go by deck number, there was no general announcement, so we went down early to see what was happening and were waved right it. Also, we were free to disembark as soon as we cleared - we didn't have to wait for the other 1000 passengers who hadn't bothered to clear, thank goodness!

[excalwop]

Wife and I did a daysail with Captain Max in DEc. 05.

Had no problems getting to Red hook In fact we had to wait before our Captain arrived. The time to get there was about 25 min. Also check the time for your arrival time can be ships time and daysail departure time might be on island time.

Have taken 5 daysails in the Carib. and every one was more than willing to arrange the departure time to fit into your sechule. Even with only two pass.

Also we found it helped to get off the Ship as soon as you can. In fact we were the second couple to depart and had our choice of taxis. Got ours for 5 dollars per, each way. And did not pay until we got back to the ship.

[excalwop]

We were on the Valor in Dec 2005

Wife and I did a daysail with Captain Max in DEc. 05.

Had no problems getting to Red hook In fact we had to wait for our Captain to arrive.

The time to get there was about 25 min.

Also check the time for your arrival time can be ships time and daysail departure time might be on island time.

Have taken 5 daysails in the Carib. and every one was more than willing to arrange the departure time to fit into your sechule. Even with only two pass.

Also we found it helped to get off the Ship as soon as you can. In fact we were the second couple to depart and had our choice of taxis.

Got ours for 5 dollars per, each way. And did not pay until we got back to the ship.

Captain Max give him the time of our return and he was waiting. It took about 45 min. to get back to the ship. For everyone was returning :rolleyes:

Enjoy your cruise

Paul

Carnival Destiny 25 Nov 2007 Just 312 days to go:eek:

[bbkitty]

thanks for the advice everyone! I just posted a message on the roll call to see if anybody wanted to join us. How soon do you think I should try and book with Rumbaba? I'm going to wait until I (hopefully) hear from some people I guess.

Anybody done the Random Wind in St Maarten? Like I said, I CAN switch this around if I have to....

[kelmac]

The taxi from CA to the red hook area is now $10 per person. This is regulated by the government.

 

Have a great cruise!

Kel