Freedom Family Excursions

[4familycruise]

Trying to figure out the best excursions for almost 5 and7 yr old. Going on Freedom in June 2013 and would like to book with RCI to keep it easy. Ports are CocoCay, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. Thinking about beach day in CocoCay, Turtle encounter in St. Thomas.. Any suggestions?? Thank you for any help:)

[cb at sea]

Coco Cay IS a beach day...it's RCI's private island....

As far as your other stops, hit the library and check out a guidebook on those ports. That will give you a great idea of what there is to do in each place....then you can start deciding HOW to do the things that interest you! Most things don't require a paid excursion at all!

[Sunshine101]

Trying to figure out the best excursions for almost 5 and7 yr old. Going on Freedom in June 2013 and would like to book with RCI to keep it easy. Ports are CocoCay, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. Thinking about beach day in CocoCay, Turtle encounter in St. Thomas.. Any suggestions?? Thank you for any help:)

 

Our kids were almost the same age when we went on the Freedom with them. We hung out on the beach with them in CocoCay (bring some sand toys with you!), and in St Thomas we took them to Coral World which they loved! We booked our tickets online through CW before we left and the price was much better than through the ship. Right beside Coral World is Coki Beach, so after we were done at Coral World we walked next door to the beach and did some snorkeling and fed the fish in the water. Kids loved it! We found a cab right at the port that took us to Coral World and arranged a pick up time in front of Coki Beach in the afternoon. The cab driver even kept the kids carseats for us in her trunk, it worked out great!

 

In St Maarten, the kids chose to stay on the ship while in port - they loved Adventure Ocean. Hubby and I went off and did a little bit of shopping, then we spent the afternoon in the (uncrowded) pool on the ship.

 

Have a wonderful holiday!

[sschaefer]

We were on Carnival last year, and will be on the Freedom this year, but we had the same ports in St Thomas ans St Maarten, and our girls were close to the same age too. We also did Coral World and Coki Beach in St Thomas, and had a great time. We booked Coral World online before we went, and did a sealion encounter while there. The girls were too small to do a swim with the sealion or dolphin, so we did the encounter, and got to interact with a huge sealion out of the water.

 

In St Maarten we took a cab to the butterfly place, and then walked the block or so to a nearby beach that was a quiet family beach and the cab came back and picked us up there.

[crusinmama06]

I really don't recommend doing excursions with the ships. Wayyyyy back when we started cruising we did that but now it's just a waste of money. The same excursions are available right off the ship.

 

When we were on Epic last month we went to the same ports as you are discussing. I knew we wanted to go to Orient Beach - the ship was charging $68pp. I kept arguing with myself - should I pull the trigger? Should I just book it through the ship? I argued with myself up until the morning we arrived in St. Martin. Then we just stepped off the ship and guess what - FOUR kiosks right off the ship - $7pp to Orient Beach with a list of every other excursion.

 

In Nassau - it poured. So I would have kicked myself if I would have paid for Atlantis like I was going to.

 

Do you research! The ships make a lot of money off of your excursion!

[ltzol]

My advice is to check out the ports of call boards here. I live on those things when I am deciding on shore excursions. That said, when we went to those ports my children were 5 and 9. On St. Martin we took a tour with Bernard (more info on port of call board) he was great, we had a wonderful time, learned all about the island, stopped at Maho (so cool) a few other places and ended up at a beautiful beach (Orient, but he will also take you to Galion which is more child friendly). On St. Thomas we swam with the sea turtles. My nine year old (who is now 12) till talks about that excursion. We saw tons of sea turtles - it was amazing. Unfortunately, even after all our practice in the swimming pool :), my 5 year old freaked at getting in the water (he is still not a fan of snorkeling at 8) the saving grace for him was that it was a "pirate" ship and the crew was wonderful with him.

 

We have since gone back to both ports (last year) - on St Thomas we took a cat to St. John (not great weather, disappointing) and on St. Martin we went to Galion on our own and had a beautiful day on a very unspoiled, uncrowded beach.

[4familycruise]

Thanks to all of you for all the information! :)

[cruiseformel]

4familycruise....we're also going on the Freedom in June. June 30 departure and are bringing our 5 year old with us. Can't wait!