Bernard's Tour in St Maarten...is it a good tour

[miktek]

I think it depends on whether you have a private tour or a combined tour. I believe if you have booked a private tour, you can probably do whatever you want. That was our experience last month. If you have a combined tour, you will probably have to follow a set itinerary. However, I believe their group tours begin early in the morning and if you have confirmation for a 12:45 start time, it seems likely you have a private tour booked.

 

I think it's a good idea to start your day at Maho. The big birds were coming in as early as the 1:00 hour. I think it varies by day, though. I think Joyce Prince has a schedule on her website. Have a great day in St. Maarten!

 

thanks for the reply!

 

we haven't booked a praivate tour, just the standard group tour. i've checked, and we seem to be the only cruise ship in port on that day, so i'd find it hard to believe that no-one else on our ship (explorer of the seas) will be booked on.

i was just wondering about the logistics of going to Maho first. I'll be honest, if it turned out that we'll miss ALL the bigger planes coming in (up to 3pm) i'd prefer maybe to go on our own, however, that will mean we would miss bernards excellent tour. a bit of a dilema.

[yj2cute]

thanks for the reply!

 

we haven't booked a praivate tour, just the standard group tour. i've checked, and we seem to be the only cruise ship in port on that day, so i'd find it hard to believe that no-one else on our ship (explorer of the seas) will be booked on.

i was just wondering about the logistics of going to Maho first. I'll be honest, if it turned out that we'll miss ALL the bigger planes coming in (up to 3pm) i'd prefer maybe to go on our own, however, that will mean we would miss bernards excellent tour. a bit of a dilema.

 

I suggest emailing Bernard and asking him about it. Maybe, due to the late arrival of the ship, he's already revised the standard itinerary of the ship.

[miktek]

I suggest emailing Bernard and asking him about it. Maybe, due to the late arrival of the ship, he's already revised the standard itinerary of the ship.

 

i think we'll do that. i'm hoping he has what you say, a different schedule. thanks for the advice:D

[Warm Breezes]

We took Bernard's Tour last week while in port on The Eclipse. Thomas was our driver. While no one got injured to my knowledge, it was a very unispiring and disappointing tour.

 

First, my email confirmation said to be at the meeting place at 9:00 a.m. I was there, but the tour did not leave until 10:30 a.m. Others had different, and later, times on their confirmation. As far as I was concerned that was wasted time and I was aggravated.

 

Second, Thomas was not very exciting as a tour guide. As others have pointed out, he was a driver. There was very little commentary and when there was, he was hard to hear and understand.

 

I took the tour because I wanted to go to Maho Beach and his is the only tour that included that stop. Orient Beach was ok. We had a 1 hour stop - long enough to grab a bite to eat, not to swim. We only had 30 minutes in Marigot - not long enough to do anything. And 30 minutes at Maho. We had to leave before the big planes arrived but did get to see a departure.

 

Had the tour left on time, we could have had more time at Marigot and actually seen something other than the bathroom and the local market selling trinkets and sourvenirs. And more time at Maho. As promised in his description.

 

No good recommendation from me. Did not leave with a postive feeling about St. Maarten based on this experience.

 

We were on the Dec 17 -24 sailing of NCL Epic with a stop in St. Martin. We had the $40 Bernards Tour with Slim. We had an awesome time. Drinks were well supplied and Slim was very informative. We stopped and saw the Iguanas and Sea Urchins before spending approx 1 1/2 hours at Orient Beach. From there we spent an hour at Maho Beach seeing many jets land and take off. Our time in Marigot was short...approx 20 minutes but that was ok with us. We had a full tour van but it was very organized and we had a blast.

 

If this board (jd1966) is correct and Slim and Thomas are the same person, then we would have been the same tour. Different ships, however. We had 1hour at Orient Beach, from there we went to Marigot for 30 minutes and ended at Maho with 30 minutes.

 

Hmmmmm...

 

I think the take away is everyone has different expectations and it is critical to be upfront when booking with a tour provider as to what your expectations are.

 

Didn't mean to rattle the cage about Island Time. If I wanted to rattle the cage I'd go over to the Celebrity page and post about dress codes! LOL :D

 

Looks like we were on the same tour (according to ship schedules and tour guide name) but our experiences (expectations??) were miles apart. Our letter had the island time we met at...we he no issues with that. We thought Slim was a good tour driver. We sat in the very back of the bus and we could hear and understand him clearly and thought he was very informative.

 

Since we did not get food at Orient beach we had plenty of time for us to swim and get sun. We were ready to go when it was time to go and thought it was plenty enough time for us.

 

We enjoyed the iguana and sea urchin stop. A very different and new experience for us.

 

The Marigot time was short but we are not big shoppers anyway. We, like you spent more time waiting in line at the rest room than anything else. But again, not a big issue for us since we are not big shoppers to begin with and we really wanted to see Maho beach.

 

As for Maho Beach, we saw 2 larger planes taking off as well as multiple smaller planes landing. I'm not sure what you were expecting, but we saw exactly what we came to see. I'm pretty sure we were there for closer to an hour than a 1/2 hour.

 

Funny how subjective things like this are, when 2 groups of people on the same tour could describe their experiences so differently. We had a blast and would recommend the tour. You did not and would not. I wonder if the time mix up you had at the beginning set the whole disappointing tone of this trip for you.