Snorkeling - Southern Caribbean??

[danyelle]

Hi,

 

Of the ports below, which two have the best snorkeling, in your opinion.

If it makes a difference, I stay right on the surface of the water and my SO dives down as deep as he can.

 

st. lucia, st. thomas, st. martin, barbados, antigua

 

Thanks so much. We want to snorkel twice and plan other days around the snorkel trips, but we've never been to any of these islands.

[cookingchick]

Hi,

 

Of the ports below, which two have the best snorkeling, in your opinion.

If it makes a difference, I stay right on the surface of the water and my SO dives down as deep as he can.

 

st. lucia, st. thomas, st. martin, barbados, antigua

 

Thanks so much. We want to snorkel twice and plan other days around the snorkel trips, but we've never been to any of these islands.

 

I would highly recommend taking a boat over to St. John from St. Thomas and snorkeling there. Trunk Bay has a nice snorkel trail and you can just access it right from the beach. We booked our Caribbean cruise next Spring based on having St. Thomas as a port of call so we can go back to St. John.

 

I snorkeled in Barbados...wasn't all that memorable to me...maybe it was just the location. Perhaps another poster can comment on Barbados snorkeling. We DID go on a cave tour in Barbados (Harrison's Cave) that was way cool...I definitely recommend it.

 

We didn't snorkel in St. Lucia...I'd probably try to do that next time. I think we were too tired that day so we went up to the Caribelle Batik factory instead.

 

In St. Martin we rented a car and drove around the entire island...stopping at numerous beaches on the French side to swim but we didn't snorkel there either.

 

Haven't been to Antigua...yet.

[Lsimon]

Hi,

 

Of the ports below, which two have the best snorkeling, in your opinion.

If it makes a difference, I stay right on the surface of the water and my SO dives down as deep as he can.

 

st. lucia, st. thomas, st. martin, barbados, antigua

 

Thanks so much. We want to snorkel twice and plan other days around the snorkel trips, but we've never been to any of these islands.

 

St Thomas - but the best areas are from a day-sail snorkeling excursion. Google St. Thomas Day Sail, there are several providers. They usually go to snorkeling spots off of St. John. Also good, as another poster mentioned, is to go to a beach on St. John on your own.

 

St. Lucia is supposed to have some good spots but they are a bit of a ways from the cruise pier. We took one excursion once but conditons were so-so that day. Have not tried again.

 

Barbados, has some great catamaran sails through cruise line or independant that go to sites where you swim with giant sea turtles and snorkel nearby reef & sunken ship. Snorkeling is OK, but overall trips are a lot of fun. Look at the pictures in the link by my signature from Feb'07 Glaaxy cruise or March-07 Constellation cruise. Most of the trips go to the same two places, which make them crowded at times. The real difference is the boat you go on and what they do other than stop at these two places.

 

St. Martin - Supposed to be some OK areas but not know for its snorkeling. We love some of the nice beaches, like Orient, and spend our time there but don't even bother taking snorkeling gear there.

 

Never been to Antigua

[danyelle]

Thank you both for your input. I'll check out your links Larry.

[Royal24car]

We love to snorkel and by far one of our most memorable trips was in Antigua. We were on a small catamarran booked through the ship and took an hour ride out to our snorkeling spot - it was incredible. St. Thomas is supposed to be the best snorkeling around. Haven't snorkeled there yet though. We snorkeled with sea turtles in Barbados - not real memorable.

[Stevesan]

Hi,

 

Of the ports below, which two have the best snorkeling, in your opinion.

If it makes a difference, I stay right on the surface of the water and my SO dives down as deep as he can.

 

st. lucia, st. thomas, st. martin, barbados, antigua

 

Thanks so much. We want to snorkel twice and plan other days around the snorkel trips, but we've never been to any of these islands.

 

All except St Martin are good depending on the operator and where they take you.

 

The two "best" are Antigua and St Lucia. Avoid the ship's cattle boats and book an independent. I can recommend Adventure Antigua (The Eco Tour) in Antigua and Dive Fair Helen at St Lucia.

 

http://www.adventureantigua.com/tour.html

http://www.divefairhelen.com/cruise_ship_special.htm

[Loves Snorkeling]

Hi,

 

Of the ports below, which two have the best snorkeling, in your opinion.

If it makes a difference, I stay right on the surface of the water and my SO dives down as deep as he can.

 

st. lucia, st. thomas, st. martin, barbados, antigua

 

Thanks so much. We want to snorkel twice and plan other days around the snorkel trips, but we've never been to any of these islands.

 

I just came back from our cruise.

In St.Martin, we went to Orient Beach. I was hoping to do some snorkeling but the waves were pretty high so I rented a jet ski. It was a blast.

Nice eye candy has well.

 

As for St.Thomas, I went to Saphire Beach. It was great. Lots of fish and some coral, shallow reef. It is not as crowded as Coki Beach. We drove by and I found there was too many tourists.

[cookingchick]

I just came back from our cruise.

In St.Martin, we went to Orient Beach. I was hoping to do some snorkeling but the waves were pretty high so I rented a jet ski. It was a blast.

Nice eye candy has well.

 

Unless you count the 2 old guys strolling down the beach buck naked and waaaaaaay too tan...LOL. ;)

[Toasty Destinations]

Our best snorkeling on that cruise was St. Thomas. Coki Beach has a great selection of fish, both at the surface or deeper. We were viewing live in the water what people were paying Coral World to see from inside. Very nice. Great coral & fish. We've gone there multiple times, and always regret the once we chose to do the St. John's trunk bay tour over Coki Beach. We saw very few fish there (at Trunk Bay) and didn't care for the underwater tour, which was essentially underwater plaques pointing out types of fish that were missing.

 

St. Lucia would be lovely waters for snorkeling, although we didn't do any there. The Catamaran tour to the volcano & plantation was very nice, (one of our favorite excursions) and allowed for some swimmming, but no snorkeling opportunities.

 

The beach we visited in Antigua was pretty cloudy and a bit rough for snorkeling (Miller's By the Sea), but perhaps another location would have been better.

 

The conservative side of Orient Beach in St. Martin was a great pick. Too wavy for snorkeling, but very nice for swimming and jet skiing with friends.

[texswamper]

I have been on the AOS twice and snorkeled at every port of call. We've done both beach snorkeling and boat/offshore sites. By far the best that we've encountered was in St. Lucia at Anse Chastenat. Yes, it's farther from the city of Castries, but there are 2 ways to get there. We've done both. The taxi ride is about an hour, but we considered it an island tour on the way, and the next time we took a boat from the pier. That is a faster route. We just picked up a taxi/boat at the pier and told them where we wanted to go. I had done my research for snorkeling. It's a nice place to spend the day and very good snorkeling right from the beach.

 

Of the other islands, Antigua was probably one of the other better locations, but only offshore from a boat. We weren't all that impressed with Barbados or St. Martin, but St. John is a beautiful island.

 

Snorkeling was always our main activity at every stop, but after 20 years of snorkeling, my DH and I have just gotten certified to dive, so I'm going back to the Southern Caribbean soon to get back in the gorgeous water, only a little deeper!:) Have a great cruise, the AOS is a great ship!

[hoosier78]

Who should we go through to book an excursion in Antigua?

[hoosier78]

What was the name of the catamaran you sailed on?

[texswamper]

We didn't prebook an excursion on Antigua. We only hired a boat from one of the resort beaches not far from the pier. We were then taken to a location offshore. We had 7 snorkelers in my family.

[Stevesan]

Who should we go through to book an excursion in Antigua?

 

Please see post #6.