Charter or on our own?

[lv9777]

We will be in St. Thomas in December and are trying to decide wether to pay for a charter to snorkel or just hit the beaches on our own. We have had good luck in the past with doing our own thing. Is there decent snorkeling off the beach or do we need to go to St John? We are thinking of booking with Simplicity if we rent a charter. If we do, is half day enough? We also want to be able to shop. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

[Tak8]

If you do a sail, I'm not sure you would get much snorkel time with a half day. I did 2 day sails and we spent alomost 4 hours, I'm talking combined, sailing. That gave us 2 hours to snorkel, swim etc.

If it's a powerboat, no problem. We rented a powerboat and went to BVI in under an hour.

Others may disagree, but I don't think you will find great variety of sea life snorkeling from the shore on St. Thomas.

[lv9777]

Thanks so much for the info. We will definately pay for a charter. It sounds like you would recommend a powerboat instead of a sailboat. Did you have a captian or just rent the boat itself?

[Tak8]

I rented the powerboat with Captain. I used VIBE charters and have heard good things about Big Blue Charters. Good luck. It's a wonderful trip.

[Cruisesquatch]

Five of my friends and I chartered a day-sail for 8 hours.

It was awesome, still the best part of any of my three cruises. It was $110pp, food and drinks included. The Capt. has his own itinerary or will customize one for you, just let him know in advance what you want. We went sailing, swimming and snorkeling. I even had the wheel for awhile as he worked on the sails.

It was like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous".:cool:

 

The charter was the IKE WITT with Capt. Pat.

[inai]

When we go to St. Thomas, we usually shop when we get to town, then head to Coki Beach for sun, sand and snorkeling.

[mitsugirly]

If you want to do it on your own and save $$, please read my review:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=26340389#post26340389

[sapereaude]

I rented the powerboat with Captain. I used VIBE charters and have heard good things about Big Blue Charters. Good luck. It's a wonderful trip.

 

Just got back from a cruise we did a day on big blue. LOVED IT. Expensive, between taxi, gas for the boat, the charter, tipping th captain, it was not a cheap day. But I'm ranking it as the best single vacation day of my LIFE. You can't go wrong with Big Blue, Mindy was awesome. She was great with my kids, we didn't have a particular destination in mind not having been to St. Thomas/ST. John before and she took us to some amazing places.