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Pointe A Pitre, Guadeloupe


jcool
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Can someone tell me about Pointe A Pitre, Guadeloupe I have never been their. What is it like? What is their to do? If you have pictures please put it in if you can.

 

Good luck! I have been trying for over a year to figure out something to do there, and I haven't had any luck. We decided to do a Royal excursion. Anything I find online is in super expensive and doesn't give much for details.

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  • 2 months later...

We are in the same boat...LOL...I think we are just going to St Anne Beach...a 30 minute taxi ride, $10 pp, with snorkeling in front of the Club Med building. So many reports of rude treatment if you do not speak French. Does not sound too welcoming! There is a Pigeon Island Underwater Park too, but I am not finding many details...I think I saw references to one tour guide. The language barrier sounds very difficult to overcome!

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Hi!

It's been awhile since visiting Guadeloupe, it was 2008 so some of my info might not be so updated.

This is among the top island on all my cruises that I happen to visit. The beauty and non tourist feel like some of the islands is what I loved the most.

However I will say that both the island and cruiseline don't make the true effort to highlight how wonderful this island is.

Like many of you, I went online to find info. It's limited and very little in English. I did use my translation program to send request from some of the vendors I did come across. Only one made the effort to send info on a water tour

I did use shoretrips for my tour. It was expensive, but I will rate it among my top two non ship tour.

My ship didn't offer but one tour and that was during the sailing. People who took the tour stated it was ok.

Now at the port area, there was a taxi stand with local tours offered. The guy at the stand spoke English and had a listing of places. Many of the drivers had limited or no English. The trips had different reactions. Some people stated despite the language barrier, they had a good time, others did not.

There was a tourist booth set up in the pier area, but none of the info was in English. It was in French and German.

The ATM was down in the pier area. I mention this because Guadeloupe is a department of France, they are on the Euro. Even the vendors set up in the pier area pricing was in Euro. Since the dollar and Euro are close to equal now, the rate should be better for your upcoming trip than mind.

But to the good things!

Buy the local rum!!! It was the best and I regret only buying two bottles!

The coffee is excellent!

The people are polite and reserved. My efforts to speak French and a smile got me a long way.

The tour I took was under 8 people and I was the only cruiser.

We went to unnamed beaches where you had to be a local (went across a cow pasture!), visiting sugarcane fields, a local waterfall where people had picnics and enjoying themselves.

The two highlight was standing in the middle of a sugarcane field with the mountains in the backdrop, the breeze and the sun. The other was having lunch in a local home with local grown food.

I want to visit Guadeloupe again, but the tourist board and the cruiselines need to offer more for people to enjoy.

I have a few pictures for you to enjoy!

On the unnamed beach with a young lady on my tour

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Local waterfall, we had to climb down to reach.

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At the local home, we had fruit punch from passion fruit and mango that grew in her garden and local passion fruit rum!

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From one of the small fishing villages we stopped at

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Sugarcane field

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I hope that this help a little

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  • 3 weeks later...

Airlink Diva, thank you so much for the info. It has been frustrating trying to find our info on this port. I have looked up Shoretirps and they don't seem to operate out of Gaudaloupe anymore. It would be nice to find someone to offer the type of tour you did. We would love to get the local feel for the island as you did.Hopefully someone who has been there recently will post.

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We had been in contact with Shoretrips regarding an excursion they were offering. The last email I received from them was they were pulling out of Guadeloupe due to lack luster service, and difficulty finding reliable, friendly services that consistently spoke English. I'm starting to think we will be forced to do a ship trip, not really my idea of a good time!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

We stopped in Guadeloupe last year. Our early morning walking tour on our own in Pointe-a-Pitre: Vegetable and fruit market, next door to fish market, through the park to the flower market in front of a church whose iron interior was desigend by Eiffel and from there to the spice market.

 

In the port, a group of dancers and musicians welcomed us, young people in orange (?) polo shirts handed out maps of the city. They were also present at various spots in the city to help cruise passengers. Downtown is in walking distance to the cruise port building. Many cruise passengers looked downright frightened although there was no reason.

 

Point-a-Pitre is a busy city, full with local shoppers who are not interested in cruise ship passengers. I love being in a 'normal' city instead of one geared towards cruise passengers. However, this is not a very pretty city because of earthquakes in the past. Only a few truly historic buildings remain.

 

The closest beach is in St. Anne. That's were the hotels are. We stayed there about 30 years ago for a week, so I have no up to date information.

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We'll be in Guadaloupe twice, on a b2b 12/1 and 12/8 on Brilliance. I think we will go to the St Anne area the first time, and stroll around. I found fairly good information on tripadvisor (look specifically for St. Anne). Yes, lots of reviews in French, but google will translate for you! :D The St. Anne area has a lovely beach and what sounds like a vibrant street market scene. Should be a fun day. And my experience with the language is that if you even make a small good-faith effort, you'll be rewarded. Learn a few French phrases -- ce n'est pas difficile! (And besides, they can't be any worse than the Parisians...:eek::D)

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Snappleman I am trying and practicing but my husband and I will probably only need a few sentences. Deux bières, s'il vous plait. Un autre pour la table, s'il vous plait. Combien coûte ? Merci. As long as he gets an ice cold island beer he will be happy.

 

Cruise Critic should have the Like button! :D

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I've never taken French lessons and have been to France 20 times ... learn the basics, don't forget to greet everyone every time and you'll be fine. Always say Goodbye as well. Don't expect big welcoming smiles, the French are not like Americans! I have never had a French person treat me rudely in all my trips, it's a myth supported by Americans who can't be bothered to behave properly in France.

 

I roll out my couple of sentences in fractured French and they love the fact that I try. Did I say remember to greet everyone every time? Very important! I'll be ivisiting Guadaloupe in two weeks and will report back.

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Have you learned your French Yet?:eek:;)

 

Oui and No!:)

I would love to visit Guadeloupe again either by cruise or land.

However, my old job phased the operations out and while I was blessed to gain a job with the new company, I took a huge paycut with no vacation time :mad:. I don't when will I see either a ship or a vacation anytime soon!

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  • 2 weeks later...

First, please understand these people would speak English to you if they could - they probably have no opportunity to learn English. They are not being cold when they don't understand, just probably trying to figure out on the fly what they could possibly say, lacking your language. Here is my quick fix for communicating in French (I live in Canada, so I got this down). Forget trying to communicate in complete grammatical sentences, you don't have time to learn that. Pretty much what you will want to do is ask for what you need. So how you say this is: "Je voeux"(I want)... pronounced Shuh vuh. Then you fill in what you want, as follows:

- taxi (same as in English)

-Toilette (twa-let) - that's the potty place

- la plage (la plaj) - the beach

- restaurant (same as in English, it was actually a French word to begin with)

- La Quay (la cay) - the port, the pier

- la banque (la bonk) - the bank

- Eau pure (oh pyure) - Pure drinking water

 

Seriously, wave your hands around a bit and use a few gestures, and they'll get it. Wouldn't you, if they were speaking French to you and throwing out the odd word you recognized? Of course you would.

 

Do not in any way compare these people in Guadaloupe with people in Paris. They are as far removed from each other as you can imagine. The people of Guadaloupe desperately want to develop their tourist industry, and you are it. The people of Paris think you are fortunate to breathe the same air they do. And they would probably think the people of Guadaloupe don't even exist on the same planet they do. I'm not being judgmental - that's just the way it is.

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  • 2 months later...

Just back from our Feb 2 cruise on Brilliance, with a one-day stop at Guadeloupe. We had a fine DIY day in Pointe a Pitre, no danger, no problems, no hassles. We began by getting off the ship and picking up the map from the local tourist people almost as soon as we got off and before we even walked down the pier. The map is very accurate, and the Guadeloupe tourism folks are very helpful with info and advice, in English if you wish.

 

Since I was very interested in buying local madras fabric and spices, we first went to one of the ATMs marked clearly on the map. We chose in instructions for the ATM "in English" and were able to easily withdraw Euros in the amount we wanted. I looked carefully at the ATM to see if there were any suspicious hardware add-ons, but it looked just fine. The withdrawal process prompted us to shield our password. We have received no notifications of bogus charges afterward, so it's safe to do this in Guadeloupe.

 

Pointe a Pitre is easy to figure out as you walk along with the map. We easily found the market and had a good time looking at the produce and spices, with no harassment from vendors. That produce market then opens out to the fish market, where we had a good time watching the pelicans clustering around for leftovers. Within sight was a big square, with huge ancient trees and some history. Right near that (within sight) is the church designed by Eiffel, and that was certainly worth a look inside, although it's a working church, with people praying and going to confession, so we didn't barge around talking loudly.

 

From the church we were a little confused about which direction to go, so just headed generally back toward where the ship was and within a block or so found ourselves in another handsome square, with the spice/art market arranged in the middle under canvas awnings. But first, we sank into chairs under umbrellas in one of the cafes on the edge of the square to order ice-cold Cokes that came in the can, and use the restaurant's very clean toilet. This was my hubby's Waterloo, as two doors down was a fabric store, which I dragged him into. Here we were surrounded by many local sewing women matching their fabric swatches to zippers, threads, and trims, with narrow aisles between many bolts and rolls of fabrics. I was bewitched by the gorgeous madras plaids in rainbows of colours - plus my dilemma - what would I make from the fabric if I bought some of it? No problem, a saleswoman suggested I could easily make a tablecloth and helped me pick out a handsome plaid! Sold.

 

Back out on the square in the spice market, we found a big handful of vanilla beans in their pods, local curry, and really nice little variety packs of spices. Bought a whole buncha souvenir n gift spices for 20 Euros, and had just enough energy to walk back to the ship. Still had $45 Euros left, so made a deal with a vendor to buy three of those gorgeous big beach wraps that look like nothing I've ever seen in the Caribbean anywhere else.

 

The negative reports about Guadeloupe and Pointe a Pitre are false, and have attained an unfortunate urban legend status on CC. This port is clean, very civilized, very polite and very interesting. At no time were we unsafe or harassed in Pointe a Pitre. We had no problems with language. Many vendors posted prices in US$ and Euros.

 

I would go back to Pointe a Pitre in a minute. It was my favorite and most memorable port on this cruise. At our dinner table that evening I was so saddened to learn that one couple cancelled their scheduled excursion because they were afraid to even get off the ship. This is just wrong.

Edited by wassup4565
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