Shore excursion in the caribbean

[poodlewamp]

We are booked to do the "grand princess", two week caribbean cruise next month.

 

Their are so many shore excursions offered it is a little mind boggling.

 

Has anyone done this cruise, and can you recommend any outstanding excursions you have done !!!

 

Some of the ports we are interested in doing excursions are, barbados, st. Thomas, aruba, bahamas, & st. Kitts, and grenada !!

 

Thank you for any information anybody has.

 

 

B.j..

[cruz guy]

I think it would be a good idea for you to spend some time in the Ports section of these forums. Each port will have its own forum so you can get an idea of what is offered at each port and which activities most appeal to you. Then after you get an idea of different activities at each port and some of the reviews in the port section then you can go back to the excursion list from Princess and begin to narrow it down a bit.

 

One thing we have been avoiding is the island tours.

When we first started cruising, we did a few and on the whole were disappointed. Now we pick out specific activities or high points on the island that we want to see or do and concentrate on that.

[Times Prince]

We are booked to do the "grand princess", two week caribbean cruise next month.

 

Their are so many shore excursions offered it is a little mind boggling.

Has anyone done this cruise, and can you recommend any outstanding excursions you have done !!!

 

Some of the ports we are interested in doing excursions are, barbados, st. Thomas, aruba, bahamas, & st. Kitts, and grenada !!

 

Thank you for any information anybody has.

 

B.j..

B.J. - please share what you are interested in. Many of these ports are great for snorkeling, but if that's not your thing, then our advice won't be worth much.

 

St.Thomas - Snorkeling at St.John's Trunk Bay is great. It is an underwater National Park !

 

Barbados - Snorkeling with turtles was great experience which we have repeated - much bigger than at Turtle Bay in St.Thomas. They also include snorkeling at a shipwreck which is pretty good.

 

St.Kitts - been there twice, and just wandered around the town. Delightful street entertainers. Interesting building architecture.

 

One of the keys to a great cruise is to vary your port experiences and not try to do too much every day. For instance Antigua (not on your list) has the best historical site at Nelson's Dockyard. So pick the type of things you would like to do or try and, if you can, alternate active and laid back island experiences.

[croozegal2]

Not sure what you're specifically interested in, but a couple things that stand out for me - the Train Tour in St. Kitt's was a fabulous way to see the island, and in Aruba, we took a quad tour. That was booked through a company handing out brochures just outside the pier gates. A lot of fun!

[beachgal2000]

Hi. I agree with the two previous replies. You do not want to try to overdo it on the islands and research is key. My husband and I have done a 7-day and a 14-day Caribbean cruise w/ Princess. Both were fabulous, so we will be on the Grand Princess as well next month for another 14 days!

 

We have a Frommer's guide and we love using Tripadvisor.com to look up attractions on the islands that have been rated. We pick the highlight that we want to do and center our day around that for each island. The first cruise we did, we stuck to the cruise ship excursions. Last year for our 2nd extended cruise we did a mix of the cruise ship excursions and our own privately booked excursions. This year now that we are more familiar we plan to do many of our own and few booked through the cruise ship.

 

St. Thomas--has great shopping, but the excursions are great too. We've done the trip to Trunk Bay on St. John which was wonderful! We did the early morning trip and were the first people on the beach which made for nice pictures of the area! It was beautiful and has good snorkeling. Last year we booked a day sail on the Nightwind (they have a website and are on Tripadvisor). This was AMAZING! They have a full open bar as soon as you step on board, serve breakfast and lunch (great food!), and take you sailing all day on their beautiful 1950s wood sailboat with mulitple snorkeling stops. The captain and other crew member were so nice and made the trip so much fun! I think you can book up to 8 people. We just took a cab from port.

 

Barbados--swimming with sea turtles. You can do this through the cruise ship or just take a cab to a beach and find a local to take you out. The beaches and water are amazing! The first trip we had to Barbados we went to Gun Hill which was very interesting, Sunbury Plantation which was pretty, and Orchid World (I got some beautiful pictures here and was interested in the photography), but the overall excursion to these took longer than we expected and it was a little boring. The turtles and beaches here are what I recommend and the people of Barbads are very friendly!

 

St. Kitts--last year we did the sailing/snorkeling/lunch excursion to Nevis. It was wonderful. Just the scenery to and from Nevis was great and the lunch was pretty good! The beach at Nevis I'd say was just ok. The sail on the way back from Nevis was fun...the crew served rum punch or beer and had Caribbean music going and people were dancing and having a great time or just enjoying the views on the nice catamaran! This year we may stay on St. Kitts and explore the island more.

 

Grenada--Grande Anse beach is my most favorite beach of all the islands we've been to so far and I'm definitely going back this year to spend more time. Last year we only had a half day but fortunately this year we have all day so we can see a little more of the island also! I think this year we may try to make it to Annendale Falls and/or Grand Etang. If you take a water taxi to Grande Anse, you will be bombarded by locals trying to get you to eat or use their chairs for a fee, but don't let that stop you! We just kept walking down the beach until we passed the crowd and it was amazing! We just put our stuff under a grape tree and were the only two around for most of the day! The beach is wide and gorgeous and it was so calm and quiet. We had a local calypso singer pass us and stop and serenaded us (we gave him a small tip of course). He was so nice and it was just beautiful.

 

Aruba and Bahamas will be new to us. I'll stop rambling now. I could go on and on! I am very excited to go again in November!

[poodlewamp]

Really appreciate all the great info....thanks sooooo much.

 

B.J.

[caber]

 

Grenada--Grande Anse beach is my most favorite beach of all the islands we've been to so far and I'm definitely going back this year to spend more time. Last year we only had a half day but fortunately this year we have all day so we can see a little more of the island also! I think this year we may try to make it to Annendale Falls and/or Grand Etang. If you take a water taxi to Grande Anse, you will be bombarded by locals trying to get you to eat or use their chairs for a fee, but don't let that stop you! We just kept walking down the beach until we passed the crowd and it was amazing! We just put our stuff under a grape tree and were the only two around for most of the day! The beach is wide and gorgeous and it was so calm and quiet. We had a local calypso singer pass us and stop and serenaded us (we gave him a small tip of course). He was so nice and it was just beautiful.

 

May I ask you a couple of questions about this please?

When you get off the ship, where do you get the water taxi and how much did it cost?

Did you agree on a time to come back or is it easy to get a taxi or water taxi back to the port?

Both times we have been there we have wandered around the port area and are now looking for something different.

[Megsdad]

May I ask you a couple of questions about this please?

When you get off the ship, where do you get the water taxi and how much did it cost?

Did you agree on a time to come back or is it easy to get a taxi or water taxi back to the port?

Both times we have been there we have wandered around the port area and are now looking for something different.

 

I would recommend Caber Tours.;)

 

Off the ship into the terminal turn left and follow signs for water taxi.

 

I think it was about $8 return but have done water taxi out and taxi back - can't remember cost.

 

Chap with the guitar is very entertaining especially with Harry Belafonte(sp) songs - "daylight come and me wanna go home".

 

Enjoy