Im wondering when you cruise out of San Juan

[gladimhere]

You leave much later so when are cabins ready?I cant seem to find anything saying its diiferent but wanted to double check.I also would love any suggestions on Carnival shore excursions for Barbado St, Lucia St, Maarten St Kitts St Thomas.I only do shore excursion thru ship because Im afraid to be back too late.Have no idea in St Kitts,Thanks sooooooo much!! Im very excited and I think the Valor Looks nice!

[KenMo]

The cabins are ready about the same time as the rest of the ships. They start debark in the morning.

 

They leave late because it takes people longer to get to San Juan than ports on the mainland.

 

I can't help you with excursions since you want to only do them through the ship.

 

My suggestion is to go to the ports of call boards. I'm sure you get good info there.

[itsrikkig]

You leave much later so when are cabins ready?I cant seem to find anything saying its diiferent but wanted to double check.I also would love any suggestions on Carnival shore excursions for Barbado St, Lucia St, Maarten St Kitts St Thomas.I only do shore excursion thru ship because Im afraid to be back too late.Have no idea in St Kitts,Thanks sooooooo much!! Im very excited and I think the Valor Looks nice!

 

for barbados we did fun in the sun

st lucia we did not book thru carnival. we booked thru a local guide. (very highly recommend) http://herodstours.com/saintlucia.html

st maarten Adventure Snuba & Snorkel: "Wrecks 'N Reefs"

 

 

st kitts stayed on the ship

 

st thomas

Snuba Adventure at Coral World Ocean Park

[Tithonus]

Our cabin was ready as soon as we boarded. You leave late because it's so short a trip to your first stop. We love that evening sail.

[Jettalinc]

You leave much later so when are cabins ready?I cant seem to find anything saying its diiferent but wanted to double check.I also would love any suggestions on Carnival shore excursions for Barbado St, Lucia St, Maarten St Kitts St Thomas.I only do shore excursion thru ship because Im afraid to be back too late.Have no idea in St Kitts,Thanks sooooooo much!! Im very excited and I think the Valor Looks nice!

 

We did this one on the Victory in 2010 when Dominica was included in the itinerary. absolutely loved it! In St Thomas we did the Ultimate Island Experience, which was amazing, and Magen's Bay was beautiful and had a great time at Blackbeard's Castle. In St Lucia we went on the Pirate Ship to Pelican Island, it was fantastic! Wish we had gone to one of the caves in Barbados, sad that we didn't...St Kitts I'm not quite sure. We went Scuba Diving which I didn't care for. And St Maarten we did a beach tour which was pretty good. I recommend staying an extra couple of days in San Juan. Old San Juan was gorgeous and there is so much to see and do there.

We stayed at the Casablanca on South Fortaleza Street and loved it the price was great for the area. Also stayed a night at the El Convento, which was beautiful but came with a very large price tag. 400 for one night...

What ever you plan on doing you should have an amazing time! :)

[marshalltp]

You leave much later so when are cabins ready?I cant seem to find anything saying its diiferent but wanted to double check.I also would love any suggestions on Carnival shore excursions for Barbado St, Lucia St, Maarten St Kitts St Thomas.I only do shore excursion thru ship because Im afraid to be back too late.Have no idea in St Kitts,Thanks sooooooo much!! Im very excited and I think the Valor Looks nice!

 

They commence boarding between 11am and noon typically. Often you can get on board, have some lunch, drop your stuff in your cabin by 1pm, and then go explore some more of OSJ. You have to be back on board no later than 8:30 PM for a 9PM Muster drill and 10PM sailaway. TIP: If you plan on bringing alcohol on board make sue you bring a second bottle of wine each when returning (no problems), or they are very lienient with bringing a bottle of the hard stuff in San Juan upon reboarding. They might ask you to check it at a table setup, but don't really make sure you do so.

 

We are going to:

 

St. Thomas - Fury Catamaran.....3rd time.....love it

Barbados - going to The Boatyard

St. Lucia - Spencer's Land and Sea tour

St. Kitts - Palm Court Gardens

St. Maarten - Lord Sheffield Pirate

[marshalltp]

They commence boarding between 11am and noon typically. Often you can get on board, have some lunch, drop your stuff in your cabin by 1pm, and then go explore some more of OSJ. You have to be back on board no later than 8:30 PM for a 9PM Muster drill and 10PM sailaway. TIP: If you plan on bringing alcohol on board make sue you bring a second bottle of wine each when returning (no problems), or they are very lienient with bringing a bottle of the hard stuff in San Juan upon reboarding. They might ask you to check it at a table setup, but don't really make sure you do so.

 

We are going to:

 

St. Thomas - Fury Catamaran.....3rd time.....love it

Barbados - going to The Boatyard

St. Lucia - Spencer's Land and Sea tour

St. Kitts - Palm Court Gardens

St. Maarten - Lord Sheffield Pirate

 

PS Note:

 

We have almost always done independant tours and have never been pressed for time.....these operators would quickly lose their reputation if they did that. Please note that often the ship tours use the same companies, only the ship marks it up for their profit.....but I understand your desire to have piece of mind.

[mario007]

We were on this cruise in September, amazing! We stayed overnight in San Juan and went to the terminal around 11. Folks were still coming off the ship. We checked in (no line) and waited until noon to board the ship. We had lunch walked around and dropped our stuff off around 1:30. We only do Carnival excursions, St Thomas we went to St Johns trunk Bay. Barbados- snorkel ing with sea turtles, St lucia- segways, St Kitt-beach break, St Maarten- poweboat but it was cancelled very late and we did not have time to rebook. We ended up tsking ferry to Phillipsburg (very easy) and went shopping. There is amazing shopping in Phillipsburg. We enjoyed all our excursions but our favorite was the segways.

[gladimhere]

after a long hard DAY!

[kg4pit]

My husband is planning this cruise for my 50th birthday October 2014!! :cool:

[jwalk03]

In St. Lucia, I would strongly recommend Spencer Ambrose's Beach Break excursion. It is MUCH better and cheaper than the same ship excursion! You will get back with plenty of time! We had at least an hour and a half at the end of the tour to have some drinks and shop in the port area.

 

I cant recommend any other excursions, as we just went out on our own in all of the other ports, but depending on what you like to do in port this is really really easy to do on all of these islands (other than St. Lucia) to find a beach and enjoy the day. Here is what we did if you are interested, if you want anymore info let me know.

 

San Juan- after checking in we went to Senor Frogs (across the street from the pier), and then took the free trolley to the forts to explore for a while. Def visit the forts! The views are stunning!!

 

St. Thomas- Took a taxi to Meaghan's Bay

 

Barbados- Taxi to the Boatyard

 

St. Lucia- Spencer Ambrose Beach Break tour to the Pitons (VERY COOL!)

 

St. Kitts- Day Pass at the Marriott Resort at Frigate Bay

 

St. Maarten- Taxi to Maho Beach, then lots of shopping time!

[snorkelgirlca]

I too would recommend Spenser Ambrose in st Lucia.

 

I also enjoyed the spice tours in Grenada but was disappointed with the turtle snorkeling in Barbados. You can't go wrong with a st jojn's tour in st Thomas and that was the only tour I would book through the cruise ship cause the ferry is sometimes late.

 

And because the ship leaves so late from San Juan I too would recommend checking in and then getting back off to explore. The forts close at 5 pm so you need to go there first if you decide to explore.

 

Marsha

[jwalk03]

O, I forgot about the Turtle Snorkeling! We did go to the Boatyard, and then for $20 pp we went Snorkeling with Neville. We got to swim with the turtles, and we snorkeled a shipwreck, and had a couple of rum punches on the way back to the beach. It was awesome! $20 is a heck of a lot cheaper than anything you can do through the ship, it was a very small group (only 6 people total) so it was easy to enjoy snorkeling with the turtles without a ton of other people ruinning it, it was about an hour and a half to 2 hours, which was the perfect amount of time so we could enjoy the wonderful beach and facilities at the boatyard for the rest of the day.

[Fouremco]

You leave much later so when are cabins ready?I cant seem to find anything saying its diiferent but wanted to double check.I also would love any suggestions on Carnival shore excursions for Barbado St, Lucia St, Maarten St Kitts St Thomas.I only do shore excursion thru ship because Im afraid to be back too late.Have no idea in St Kitts,Thanks sooooooo much!! Im very excited and I think the Valor Looks nice!

While I appreciate and share you concern about returning to the ship on time, I have never booked a cruise line tour. Instead, I do thorough research and find excursions that interest me offered by tour companies with a solid reputation. Most of them depend upon the cruise industry for their livelihood and are well aware of the need to return passengers to the ship on time. I've experienced a flat tire on one tour van and a serious traffic jam caused by a car accident, but in both cases the drivers have dealt with the issue and returned us with time to spare.

 

An alternative is to use one of the online booking companies that can arrange all of your tours. They charge for their services, so it would cost more that if you booked the excursions directly, but they do charge less than the cruise lines. One of them (there may be more?) offers a guarantee that you won't miss the ship's departure or they will "arrange and pay for your accommodations, meals, and transportation to the next port of call, and we will pay you an additional $500 per customer for the inconvenience."

 

Of course, the tour companies they deal with are the same ones that you can book on your own for less, and if they have a level of confidence in these sufficient to offer such a generous guarantee, I feel pretty confident booking directly with these companies.

 

 

[Stinger-pr]

The cabins are ready about the same time as the rest of the ships. They start debark in the morning.

 

They leave late because it takes people longer to get to San Juan than ports on the mainland.

 

I can't help you with excursions since you want to only do them through the ship.

 

My suggestion is to go to the ports of call boards. I'm sure you get good info there.

Actually, they leave so late because the first stop is St. Thomas which is just a few hours cruise away. If they left at the normal 5pm time most other ships leave, they'd be arriving in St. Thomas in the middle of the night.

[PortMaster]

You leave much later so when are cabins ready?I cant seem to find anything saying its diiferent but wanted to double check.I also would love any suggestions on Carnival shore excursions for Barbado St, Lucia St, Maarten St Kitts St Thomas.I only do shore excursion thru ship because Im afraid to be back too late.Have no idea in St Kitts,Thanks sooooooo much!! Im very excited and I think the Valor Looks nice!

 

 

St Kitts....the Zip Lining, it's the best one we have done out of all the places we have Zip Lined.

 

The Location AND the operators are the best.

[jgoulart1978]

I was looking at booking the Beach Break tour with spencer ambrose. Can you tell me if there were enough lounge chairs to use at the beach when you were there, since you have to use them from the resort?