Thinkin of renting a jeep

[phannie]

We are thinking of renting a jeep while in St. Martin.

Is the traffic really as bad as I'm hearing? If so, would it better to book a guided tour that stops at the beach?

This is our first time in St. Martin and want to make sure we make it back to the ship on time.

[HBrad]

We did a jeep tour with St Thomas Excursions, and it included a 2 person boat trip, got to drive the jeep with a guide, there were 6 jeeps in our group,

 

http://www.stmaartenexcursions.com/

[chipeneezer]

We are thinking of renting a jeep while in St. Martin.

Is the traffic really as bad as I'm hearing? If so, would it better to book a guided tour that stops at the beach?

This is our first time in St. Martin and want to make sure we make it back to the ship on time.

 

When will you be there? We will be there at the end of the month and are renting a Jeep. If you are going after us I'll let you know how it was.

[phannie]

Our cruise leaves April 6.

[chipeneezer]

When I get back I'll let you know how it went. For me, I know that with a little research I can save money and be able to do whatever I want on my own schedule.

[renza]

Have any of you used st.marteenexcursion. we are looking into booking through them for the aqua tour on the small boats? Please give me any feedback

[HBrad]

We used them in St Maarten, and also in St Thomas, I mis quoted in my post above

 

Here we did a jeep tour that included the little boats, in St Thomas we were booked for a 1/2 day sail trip but were rained out, we received our deposit back right away.

[Boo's Mom]

We are thinking of renting a jeep while in St. Martin.

Is the traffic really as bad as I'm hearing? If so, would it better to book a guided tour that stops at the beach?

This is our first time in St. Martin and want to make sure we make it back to the ship on time.

 

We rented a jeep, on our own.

 

The traffic was very bad.

At one point, while in traffic.....

I got out of the jeep and went into a store to get something we needed.

 

(Went into a pharmacy, looked around, spoke with the employee, paid for item, and was back in the jeep while my husband barely progressed in the traffic)

 

Allow lots of time to get back to the ship.

 

And, our jeep (I guess you would call it a jeep) (it was some little vehicle, like a jeep) .... did not have much power.

It became an issue as we were wandering around and found ourself in a very hilly area. Our "jeep" could barely move up the hill. It was making my DH rather nervous.

 

[sillylizzie]

We did the "4x4 Jeep Expedition with Beach Stops" in St. Maarten through Shore Trips (http://www.shoretrips.com). We had a really great time, and they let you drive the jeep, if you wanted.

The tour was completely customizable, and our guide was great. We told them what time we wanted to be back at the ship, and they were excellent about making sure it happened.

It was a $65 excursion at the time (it seems now that they're charging $75). I'm not sure if that's expensive or not, but we felt safe and had an amazing time for 7 hours while in port, doing what we liked. Can't ask for much more than that.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[chipeneezer]

We just got back from St Martin. It was the best day of our 8 day cruise. Driving was not bad at all. Our ship got in to port at 8:00 am. We ended up renting from Reynolds Rentals right inside the port. We had a reservation at another place, but they were not open when we got there and reynolds gave us a Jeep for $74.99 (plus about $20 in taxes etc..). Jeep had about 56k on it, but that was fine with us. We didn't have to worry so much about driving a brand new one.

 

We headed out in a counter-clockwise direction and stopped at Orient Beach just to take a quick look. We did this at many different beaches on our drive around the Island. Even though we had not planned on going to Orient we decided to go back in the afternoon because it was so beautiful. Got back in the Jeep and headed to Marigot and shopped a little. Drove on around to Maho Beach and had beers and guavaberry coladas and watched a few planes land. All of this was by 11:30.

 

When we left we hit some traffic towards Phillipsburg, so we just turned around and went the way we came. We had lunch at Talk of the Town, a local caribbean BBQ (or Lolo), in Grand Case. Excellent grilled ribs, chicken, shrimp and cheap too.

 

Spent the afternoon on Orient Beach swimming, tanning, and body surfing. It is a must see. We didn't plan on going there because we thought it was just a nude beach. I would say that 90% of the people were fully clothed. There were a few topless women here and there, but unless you went up to Club Orient you didn't see anything that you didn't want to. We left around 4:00 and had no problems on the way back to Phillipsburg.

 

There is no way that we could have done and seen everything that we did unless we rented a Jeep. We stopped at many different beaches just for a quick look and only stayed at the places we liked. Traffic was not bad at all. The only time there was any sort of backup we just went the other way. The island is not very big. You can drive around the whole thing in about an hour or less.

 

Hope this helps. Have fun.

[cooganbs]

We are thinking of renting a jeep while in St. Martin.

Is the traffic really as bad as I'm hearing? If so, would it better to book a guided tour that stops at the beach?

This is our first time in St. Martin and want to make sure we make it back to the ship on time.

 

 

fyi..spent a week in SXM last month and I would not want to end up on the wrong side of the bridge in Simpson Bay, yes it can bad! If you want a driver that is fun geekmo@hotmail.com, just tell him Brenda sent you!