true45 Posted July 5, 2010 #1 Share Posted July 5, 2010 Planning a January Eclipse vacation. Not very happy with some Celebrity Shore Excursions - just want to be careful with our $ (love Celebrity otherwise). Anyone with good experiences on St. Kitts (never been there) and St. Martin (liked Marigot but open to other things)? Also San Juan but it is 2-10pm We like the beach & nature tours, city tours, hate shopping on excursions. Thanks alot - cruisers are so helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friscorays Posted July 5, 2010 #2 Share Posted July 5, 2010 Have you tried the ports of call section of this site? http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=428 http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=133 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texkan Posted July 5, 2010 #3 Share Posted July 5, 2010 Planning a January Eclipse vacation. Not very happy with some Celebrity Shore Excursions - just want to be careful with our $ (love Celebrity otherwise). Anyone with good experiences on St. Kitts (never been there) and St. Martin (liked Marigot but open to other things)? Also San Juan but it is 2-10pm We like the beach & nature tours, city tours, hate shopping on excursions. Thanks alot - cruisers are so helpful. Have you joined a Jan '11 Eclipse Roll Call? http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=573 Connect with others on your cruise and discuss excursions. St. Kitts there is the train or book excursion to the Fort. San Juan we did the Fort by Segway (lots of fun): http://www.segwaytourspr.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txsloth Posted July 5, 2010 #4 Share Posted July 5, 2010 St. Martin has always been strictly a beach day for us. Three years in a row now we've just taken a cab to Orient Beach and spent the day there- we've never been disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiserssandr Posted July 5, 2010 #5 Share Posted July 5, 2010 When we were in St Martin in 2009 with did a tour with Bernard Tours. Great day. Did have a stop for shopping. He took us all over the place, we spent a couple hours at Orient Beach, stopped at the airport beach and saw a couple of planes come in and take off. It was one of the best tours we had ever done. It was us, a family of five and one other couple. Bernard provided drinks all day. There was water, juice, soda, Carib Beer and his famous rum punch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
true45 Posted July 5, 2010 Author #6 Share Posted July 5, 2010 txsloth, haven't been to st martin in a long time. a taxi sounds good - what is a good price? do they wait for you? is it practical to try to go to marigot for pastry & cafe au lait on the way back to the ship? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txsloth Posted July 5, 2010 #7 Share Posted July 5, 2010 txsloth,haven't been to st martin in a long time. a taxi sounds good - what is a good price? do they wait for you? is it practical to try to go to marigot for pastry & cafe au lait on the way back to the ship? Without looking at a map, I believe Marigot is on the opposite side of the island from Orient Beach--not really feasible to just swing by. Cabs are reasonable--somewhere around $15 per person round trip. Three years in a row our driver has offered to meet us at a pre-arranged time to return to the ship and they've always been prompt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lsimon Posted July 5, 2010 #8 Share Posted July 5, 2010 In St. Martin it is easy to get a shared taxi at the taxi stand. I saw a link to this web site a long time ago that shows the rates - for more than 2 it is all per person but the more in each cab the less it costs and the dispatchers will group people together: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v357/gtaylor/Taxi/?action=view¤t=DSCN3859.jpg If you're on a tight budget the bars with chair rentals near the south end of the beach (just north of the CO area) will usually bargain a price for a couple chairs and a couple drinks. The nicer beach clubs a little to the north from there are a bit mroe expensive and the food at some is pricier too. The downtown area is nice for shopping and has very nice beach there too (although not as nice as Orient in my opinion). It is close by at either a very long walk (around a mile, possibly longer) to the shopping district or you can take the water taxi or taxi for $3 or $4 each way/pp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruiser Susie Posted July 5, 2010 #9 Share Posted July 5, 2010 We have also taken a cab to Orient Beach many times... it is one of our favorite beaches. There is a charge for chairs and umbrellas if you want to rent some of those. There are lots of places to choose from for food and drink. We enjoy swimming there, but there isn't any snorkeling that I know about. Here's a shot of the beach from a few years ago... We have done a catamaran sail through Celebrity several times in St. Kitts. It is called the Fan-ta-sea excursion, and if you like sailing on a catamaran, doing a bit of snorkeling and having a barbecue lunch on the beach over on Nevis, then you might enjoy this. Lots of people drink rum punch while on this excursion, but they have other drinks available, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. It is a fun day, but can be a bit crowded sometimes; other times not at all. Here's a couple of pictures, some on the catamaran, or at the beach barbecue. The last one was taken on the way back in the afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gracie115 Posted July 5, 2010 #10 Share Posted July 5, 2010 Planning a January Eclipse vacation. Not very happy with some Celebrity Shore Excursions - just want to be careful with our $ (love Celebrity otherwise). Anyone with good experiences on St. Kitts (never been there) and St. Martin (liked Marigot but open to other things)? Also San Juan but it is 2-10pm We like the beach & nature tours, city tours, hate shopping on excursions. Thanks alot - cruisers are so helpful. San Juan- Take the Segway tour...it's wonderful...you see so MUCH more of San Juan close up...takes you from the pier all the way to the fort and so much more and it's a blast too!! Guides are very informative and riding a Segway is unbelievably easy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orlando Greybeard Posted July 5, 2010 #11 Share Posted July 5, 2010 My DW and I were on the Constellation in Jan 09 and joined a St Kitts tour that was put together via our Cruise Critic Roll Call. The tour was thenfordgrey which you can google. It was very nice and long tour, about 6 hours. The guide was very knowledgeable and very pleasant with good audio equipment in the van. The van held about 15-20 people and was very comfortable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LKN-NC Posted July 5, 2010 #12 Share Posted July 5, 2010 My DW and I were on the Constellation in Jan 09 and joined a St Kitts tour that was put together via our Cruise Critic Roll Call. The tour was thenfordgrey which you can google. It was very nice and long tour, about 6 hours. The guide was very knowledgeable and very pleasant with good audio equipment in the van. The van held about 15-20 people and was very comfortable. A second recommendation for Thenford Grey. Great tour and great guide (either Thenford or his brother, Sackville, are delightful hosts). And Segway in San Juan was a highlight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
true45 Posted July 5, 2010 Author #13 Share Posted July 5, 2010 Thank you everyone - happy to do some homework with DH. Smooth sailing on your next cruises. Loved the pics, sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.