Best Ports to....

[Liverpoollovely]

Along with going on historical excursions and excursions where you take pictures of beautiful landscapes and go the beach my family and I enjoy shopping .. I am planning ahead for island excursions but I don't want to miss out on shopping experience and neither do my family ...

 

St Thomas is our shopping heaven but since the new itinerary we are doing next year does not include St Thomas .. can anyone tell me which ports are the best for shopping, we have already been to Grand Turk and San Juan this year so we know what to expect but it's been a while since we been to St Maarten has shopping improved?

 

3/21/2016 St. Maarten, NA 9:00 AM 6:00 PM

3/22/2016 St Kitts, WI 7:00 AM 5:00 PM

3/23/2016 San Juan, Puerto Rico 7:00 AM 2:00 PM

3/24/2016 Grand Turk 9:30 AM 5:30 Pam

 

3/29/2016 Aruba 1:00 PM 10:00 PM

3/30/2016 Curacao 8:00 AM 4:00 PM

4/1/2016 Grand Turk 8:00 AM 4:00 PM

 

We tend to shop for electricals/gadgets, makeup, handbags, my sister loves sparkly jewels hehe like earrings and necklaces.

 

Any help or shopping landmark suggestions would be great so I can customise our excursion arrangements :)

 

Thank you

[Jay Sam]

A friend of mine got a Coach purse in St. Maarten. There were a lot of choices and seems she got a very good deal. The shop we went to was just off the main shopping area, maybe a block or so back from the main street on the ocean front. Not sure about other options you mentioned, but the feeling I got from what she said it was a good place for shopping. Sorry can't be more specific. I'm a guy and shopping isn't my forte.

 

Overall St. Maarten is one of my favorite ports in the Caribbean. From what I saw and from my limited expertise, the only port I found to be on the expensive side for shopping was Martinique. That would be on my least favorite port list. So, good you are not going there.

 

As far as shore excursions, I like those too. I took one in both Curacao and Aruba and enjoyed both. From what I hear there are some nice ones in St. Maarten too. My friend who I was cruising with took a shore excursion there and loved it. Included the French side of the island too.

 

Looks like you are on back to back cruises on Carnival Sunshine. Awesome. There is a very nice website that tells which ships are in ports on certain days. I will include it here. This one is for port calls.

 

http://ports.cruisett.com/

 

Another one is got ports of embarkation. Also quite good.

 

http://www.cruisetimetables.com/

 

Also you may be interested in this one. A friend told me about it a couple of years ago and I never miss an episode. Great stuff. Click on Listen to Cruise Radio.

 

http://cruiseradio.net/

 

Enjoy the cruises, and in advance welcome to the US. Always nice to have our friends from the UK visit us. Yes. I love the UK and her people.

[sykimball1498]

Along with going on historical excursions and excursions where you take pictures of beautiful landscapes and go the beach my family and I enjoy shopping .. I am planning ahead for island excursions but I don't want to miss out on shopping experience and neither do my family ...

 

St Thomas is our shopping heaven but since the new itinerary we are doing next year does not include St Thomas .. can anyone tell me which ports are the best for shopping, we have already been to Grand Turk and San Juan this year so we know what to expect but it's been a while since we been to St Maarten has shopping improved?

 

3/21/2016 St. Maarten, NA 9:00 AM 6:00 PM

3/22/2016 St Kitts, WI 7:00 AM 5:00 PM

3/23/2016 San Juan, Puerto Rico 7:00 AM 2:00 PM

3/24/2016 Grand Turk 9:30 AM 5:30 Pam

 

3/29/2016 Aruba 1:00 PM 10:00 PM

3/30/2016 Curacao 8:00 AM 4:00 PM

4/1/2016 Grand Turk 8:00 AM 4:00 PM

 

We tend to shop for electricals/gadgets, makeup, handbags, my sister loves sparkly jewels hehe like earrings and necklaces.

 

Any help or shopping landmark suggestions would be great so I can customise our excursion arrangements :)

 

Thank you

 

I usually enjoy the shopping in St. Maarten and also in Aruba. Just make sure that you don't hit Aruba on a Sunday. Most of the shops are closed on Sundays in Aruba. Curacao has some good shopping as well and I like to go a couple streets off main street to get the better deals, but they can be found in Curacao, but it is more expensive than St. Maarten and Aruba. I like to shop for clothes and also jewelry as well. I like the stone, natural and silver jewelry rather than diamonds or things like that. If you like household goodies, Aruba has many shops with windcharms, china and kitchen apparatus as well. I have never shopped for electronics so I can't comment on those items as we usually only shop for gifts for others , clothes and jewelry.

[cruiseapril]

We like shopping in St. Maarten and Curacao. Willemstad, Curacao is a great port with a walkable town and lots of shops. One can also see historic sites while walking around Curacao.

 

In Aruba, we like to go to Palm Beach as it is lovely. Also have taken tours of the island which were enjoyable. The ABC islands have desert like landscapes which we appreciate as we are in a very wooded part of Maine.

[zqvol]

Along with going on historical excursions and excursions where you take pictures of beautiful landscapes and go the beach my family and I enjoy shopping .. I am planning ahead for island excursions but I don't want to miss out on shopping experience and neither do my family ...

 

St Thomas is our shopping heaven but since the new itinerary we are doing next year does not include St Thomas .. can anyone tell me which ports are the best for shopping, we have already been to Grand Turk and San Juan this year so we know what to expect but it's been a while since we been to St Maarten has shopping improved?

 

3/21/2016 St. Maarten, NA 9:00 AM 6:00 PM

3/22/2016 St Kitts, WI 7:00 AM 5:00 PM

3/23/2016 San Juan, Puerto Rico 7:00 AM 2:00 PM

3/24/2016 Grand Turk 9:30 AM 5:30 Pam

 

3/29/2016 Aruba 1:00 PM 10:00 PM

3/30/2016 Curacao 8:00 AM 4:00 PM

4/1/2016 Grand Turk 8:00 AM 4:00 PM

 

We tend to shop for electricals/gadgets, makeup, handbags, my sister loves sparkly jewels hehe like earrings and necklaces.

 

Any help or shopping landmark suggestions would be great so I can customise our excursion arrangements :)

 

Thank you

 

St. Maarten shopping is almost as good as St. Thomas. You will also find quite a few clothing outlets and accessory outlets for handbags in Old San Juan.