Marseille & San Tropez

My extended family (21 in total) are taking a trip on the MS Westerdam this September, Marseille and San Tropez are two of the ports. Any advice or tips on what we should do our day at these ports ? Would you recommend any of the HAL shore excursions ?

Welcome to CruiseCritic. I’m not a fan of ship’s excursions, but that may be easier for your planning for 21 people. :) We’ve found that we see a lot more independently, and we feel like sheep being herded on the ship’s excursions.

In Marseilles, I encourage you to contact Olivier of http://www.rendez-vous-provence.com to arrange to see some of the lovely villages in Provence. Olivier is a great guide and took us to the Palace of the Popes in Avignon, to Les Baux-de-Provence, and to Arles. Olivier is a wonderful guide and provided informative commentary for our group. His charges were very reasonable, and his cancellation policies are also very reasonable (passengers are not charged for events beyond their control such as change in ship's schedule due to weather, etc.). There are 3 drivers in his group, so he can accommodate all of you in 3 vans or in a larger vehicle. I've spent time on ground trips and on ports stops to Marseille and can tell you that Les Baux is my favorite and is quite a place to see.

Almost all of the ships dock in a yucky industrial port in Marseille, so a private guide will pick you up there. You would need a ship’s shuttle or taxis to go into Vieux Port in Marseille to take a train or bus to Aix en Provence. The Vieux Port area of Marseilles is nice, but it is not as nice as the surrounding villages in my opinion. If you want information on seeing the Vieux Port area independently, please do a search because I've spent time writing about that on other threads.

A shore excursion is not necessary in St. Tropez. It’s wonderful to walk around St. Tropez; in the harbor, the yachts are just stunning, and the village streets are very scenic. We also had great visits to Port Grimaud and Saint Maxime last September while docked in St. Tropez. We used the public boats (see below to go to Port Grimaud and Sain Maxime. It was so nice being out on the water with the beautiful scenery and pulling into all the harbors. Both of those villages were very different from St. Tropez, so it was nice to have that much variety in one day. St. Maxime was just delightful with a street market the day we were there. Port Grimaud was very scenic too, and we went on a boat ride to up into all the canals. Port Grimaud has been called the biggest fake since Disney because the canals are man made. I liked it very much. Many of the buildings have the faux scenes painted on them, and we found an open market there too. Others from our ship took a sightseeing excursion around the port in St. Tropez to point out all the star homes, and they were pleased too. We were in port until 11:00 p.m. that day, so I don't know if you'll have time to see the three areas like we did.

Have a great cruise,

Donna

http://www.bateauxverts.com

click on the English flag

click on Presentation

click on Activities

then Shuttles toward St. Tropez