Snorkeling in the Southern Carribbean help!!

[JackieD223]

DH and I are headed off to the Southern Carribbean on Carnival Victory in April. His only request with the excursions is that we snorkel and/or scuba dive. (Neither of us has done either thing before.) I don't want to let him down and pick a bad excursion, so please let me know what excursion or at least what island to book it on!! We are visiting St Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St Kitts, St Lucia and St Maarteen. :D

[gone_cruisin]

St. Thomas and St. Maarten were my favorites.

We did the Buck Island snorkleing in St. Thomas and just took a taxi to local hotel/resort and snorkeled on our own in St. Maarten.

[rickcop44]

We, too, love to snorkel and dive when we're on cruises. After much research, we have chosen to snorkel with Shasa Catamaran Cruises when we're in Barbados in February. They're cheaper than a ship sponsored excursion and they take us out in between the ship excursions. It's much less crowded in the water. The other nice thing is that the excursion is limited to six individuals. $40 for 3.5 hours. They bring us back in plenty of time so the missus can still have plenty of time to shop.

[wdnoble9999]

We've snorkeled in the southern Carribean on several cruises. We always make it a point to head over to Trunk Bay on St. Johns when porting in St. Thomas. The beach is beautiful, with showers, changing rooms, and equipment rental (chairs, umbrellas, snorkel gear, etc.) There's also an underwater snorkel trail, which is pretty cool. Normally we skip the excursions and make our own way (and our own schedule). But since you have neither snorkeled or skuba'd before, I'd think the instruction that comes with an excursion would work better for you. In St. Maarten, we really liked Dawn Beach, but the snorkeling can be a bit rough if the surf is up. Other than these two, we're looking for the same info for when we head out on the Victory in March.

[preciouspup]

Snorkeling with turtles Barbados is also good. Would skip St. Kitts, especially for diving. The dive operator used by Carnival in St. Kitts had old and broken equipment.

[Karlyn8]

Snorkeling with the Turtles in Barbados was my favorite. We took the Turtle Encounter Tour and snorkled with turtles, a shipwreck and had lunch and drinks on a beautiful deserted beach.

 

I also loved snorkeling on the Private Island in Antiqua. Prickley Pear Island is a small island with a reef around it, a nice beach with lounges, umbrellas and a bar. This is very easy to get to from shore and takes about a 10-15 minutes boat ride. :)