How to pick which ports to book an excursion at

[Beaches57]

Hi, this is my very first forum post. I hope I know what I'm doing here. We are two couples going on a 11 day southern Caribbean Holland America cruise in February. There are 7 ports within 8 days. We have decided on 3 excursions, 1 at Philipsburg, 1 at St Kitts and one at St Thomas . We really don't want to be super busy every day. Just trying to figure out which of the remaining ports are the best for just winging it and doing a little bit of shopping and finding a great beach. Looking for advice on what the ports are like and which beach to go to for St Lucia, Bridgetown, Fort de France and Half Moon Cay.
Thanks so much for any suggestions.
General question - what is post a poll all about?

[OCruisers]

You absolutely won't need to book anything in Half Moon Cay!
The beach and everything is right there for you to enjoy! :)

[SilvertoGold]

[quote name='Beaches57']Hi, this is my very first forum post. I hope I know what I'm doing here. We are two couples going on a 11 day southern Caribbean Holland America cruise in February. There are 7 ports within 8 days. We have decided on 3 excursions, 1 at Philipsburg, 1 at St Kitts and one at St Thomas . We really don't want to be super busy every day. Just trying to figure out which of the remaining ports are the best for just winging it and doing a little bit of shopping and finding a great beach. Looking for advice on what the ports are like and which beach to go to for St Lucia, Bridgetown, Fort de France and Half Moon Cay.
Thanks so much for any suggestions.
General question - what is post a poll all about?[/QUOTE]


Welcome to posting!

We like walking into Bridgetown, a very scenic and pleasant town. Not sure about beaches, but someone will come along and let you know.

Hope you have a wonderful cruise!!

[Fouremco]

Welcome to Cruise Critic! Lots of advice will be coming your way, so I'll limit my comments for now.

First, head over to the Ports of Call board for the Caribbean and read up on the various ports. You might change your plans and add an excursion or two. :)
[url]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587[/url]

Second,join your roll call. If you look at the tool bar above, you'll find the Roll Call Tool which will help you find the Roll Call for your cruise.

My thoughts on the other ports of call:

St. Lucia: You can walk around Castries, but it isn't a great location. On the other hand, St. Lucia is a beautiful island and I would definitely recommend that you take an excursion here. Lots of variety, but I'd recommend a tour by Spencer Ambrose, including the Jalousie Beach Break if you want to take it easy while still seeing some of the island.

Barbados: if you want a beach day, there is a number of options just a short taxi ride away.

Martinique: Not my favourite island, but you can stroll around Fort de France. Google "walking tour fort de france". Or take a public bus or taxi out to the Jardin de Balata.

HMC: Enjoy one of the nicest beaches in the entire Caribbean.

Those are all great stops, and you can't go wrong. Just remember that you have sea days and HMC to rest up, so do try to get out as much as you can. There are lots of excursions of varying length and cost, but don't limit yourself to those offered by HAL.

Enjoy your cruise!

Edited to add that you should do a search here on "Canadian" if you'd like or need information/suggestions on a variety of issues on the Loonie, exchange rates, CAD credit cards and purchasing OBC. Edited December 4, 2015 by Fouremco

[rkacruiser]

Welcome to our Cruise Critic Community!

Two suggestions: (And this assumes that the tours are available for your cruise:)

Martinique: The tour that goes North from the port to St. Pierre and then inland through the mountains and rain forest, returning to Fort de France is one I enjoyed in 1975 and once again in 2014. I enjoyed seeing the changes that had taken place, i.e concrete barriers along the sides of the mountain roads; none were there in 1975.

St. Lucia is my favorite Caribbean island. A tour from Castries to Soufriere will show you the beauty (as well as a bit of the poverty) of the island. Once, after the tour was over, we took a catamaran back up the coast from Soufriere, stopping at a bay for those who wanted to swim/snorkel, and then back to Castries to re-join the ship.

Half Moon Cay: As a previous poster has said, no excursions/cabanas are needed; enjoy the beach, the facilities (music, Pina Coladas, etc.), the beauty of the sea as viewed from the island, and a nice picnic style lunch.

In my opinion, deciding what is most imporant to [B]you[B][/B][/B] and your traveling companions in choosing what you do at these ports will probably provide you with the best sightseeing experience possible.

Best wishes for a great cruise on a very good itinerary! Edited December 4, 2015 by rkacruiser

[Krazy Kruizers]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=5]Welcome to Cruise Critic.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=5][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=5]Definitely join your Roll Call and check out the Port section of this site.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[StartrainDD]

Ditto everything the others have said, although some of these islands I've not been to in years.

Try to determine how many ships are in port when you are in St. Thomas. There are some lovely beaches there and if you are really into spending quality beach time, you may want to look at those, especially if it is not an extremely busy ship day!

In Philipsburg, if you are [I]at all[/I] into "Star Wars," do not miss visiting the "Yoda Guy." The storefront doesn't look like much but we had a great time touring his museum (only need 30 minutes) and talking with him. He's quite an artist and we purchased a print. Google 'Yoda Guy st maarten.' Top rated on tripadvisor.

I find a lot of the enjoyment of a cruise is doing some research and planning our port calls. Hope you have a terrific cruise!

[catl331]

check the ships in with you at your ports: [url]www.cruisetimetables.com[/url].

Also determine how many passengers are on these ships. If one of the two RC behemoths are there the port will be a madhouse.....St Thomas especially. We look at ports of call and read what CCers report. We like to do a easy bus tour of islands we have not been to or a hop on/hop off tour. I believe it is smart to read up on these islands before you go. Some have great photo ops and others may have places to avoid. Bring lots of suntan lotion!!

[cb at sea]

A guidebook on your ports will be VERY helpful! Tells you everything there is in each place. I'd advise reading up on where you're going before you start booking things! Many, many things require NO excursion at all, if you know something about where you're going!

[RMLincoln]

[B]St Kitts [/B]has lovely un-crowded beaches just a short taxi away. We made arrangement with our driver for a time to pick us up. Turned out that he got a full day fare after dropping us off and made arrangement with a co-worker to get us - they were very conscientious and concerned to take good care of us. The beach was very nice and not far.

[B]St Lucia [/B]- Spectacular island! We've enjoyed the day with Spencer Ambrose - a great day! He met us at the ship pier, also took excellent care of us. He took us through Soufriere to the base of the Pitons, snorkeling, provided a tasty beach lunch and then onto his power boat back to the ship (otherwise if you bus both ways it is quite a long day sitting in the bus - I don't recommend it and it would probably take longer than your port time.) He stopped his boat at points of interest and served us refreshments on the boat including his potent rum punch. I was very impressed with how they took such good care of us and he knows everybody on the island and has good communication in case there is a back-plan needed. No need to be worried about getting back to the ship with Spencer.

Did a nice ship excursion one time by bus to a view of the pitons but it was a long day in the bus and not enough wow factor or us, so we hired with Spencer the next time and had the best day.

[B]St Thomas [/B]is a very busy port. If you want beautiful beaches go to St John's to Trunk Bay beach, best to do it by ship excursion as the ferry can be difficult to get to, hard to time the scheduling, but by ship tour it's very easy. Trunk Bay is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Coki Beach has both good snorkeling and Coral World which is an aquarium type place that has a huge pexiglass-type tube that goes vertically into the water and you walk down into it to see the fish - very nice for people who don't like to snorkel.

Of course Megans beach is most popular but I'm not been so other's will fill you in on that one.

[B]Barbados[/B] has very picturesque shores on the north/Atlantic side and you'd need a tour. Maybe could do it cheaply enough with 4 in a taxi and have more freedom than a ship tour.

Plus everything said above on this thread! Enjoy, m--

[JimnKaren]

I am guessing that you will be Oosterdam. If that is the case, then keep in mind that your stop in Martinique is on a Sunday. Most stores will be closed. Not much going on throughout the island even though there will be your ship in port. There are limited excursions, either through HAL or independent providers on shore.

The craft shops near the pier will be open, but not much going on in the city itself.

Have fun.

Jim

[cruiseapril]

We enjoyed going to Carlisle Bay in Barbados. It is not very far from the pier and there are several resorts where one can get a day pass.

We did guided excursions in St. Lucia and Martinique and are glad we did as these are not ports where we would fell comfortable going on our own excursion.

In St. Lucia we went along the East coast on a 3 hour tour. We had a good driver- the roads are narrow and winding.

In Martinique we took a bus tour to St. Pierre to Balata Gardens- very interesting gardens. Some cruises offer a walking tour of Fort-de-France.

[DWhit]

St. Lucia is definitely worth an excursion due to the number of things to see. But you have to travel by powerboat to get around to see everything, since there is so much to see. Travel by car on the winding roads is too difficult.

We did a tour with King Nigel and had an absolute blast. Snorkeling, volcano mud, warm-water waterfalls, seeing Oprah's condo, along with George Forman's condo (albeit from a distance). Resort Beaches that were visited by Brad Pitt and the "Bachelor". Authentic St. Lucia lunch, along with an ample supply of rum punch. Tons of fun! Edited December 5, 2015 by DWhit

[slabeaume]

We love southern caribbean cruises! We are beach people, so usually look for a beach with good snorkeling.
Barbados has a great beach on a beautiful walkway at Folkestown Marine Park. There are a few beaches that are a little closer to the port and have bars right by them, but we wanted snorkeling, too, so have actually gone here twice by taxi. He dropped us off and came back when we requested him to be back. If you want to see some beautiful scenery, do the photo excursion on Barbados! The Scotland district and Bethsheba area are beautiful.
Martinique has a beach relatively close---not good for snorkeling, but pretty and lots of bars around it, but you have to take a ferry to it. Depending on which dock you're at, the ferry could be about 1.5 miles away or you could be docked right by the ferry. It does run on Sunday, but is more limited then on other days. Once across the bay, you may have to walk to the beach (supposedly the ferry will take you to the beach, but when we did it, we got off at the marina where it went first and walked about a mile to the beach). Not many stores are open in Martinique on a Sunday. We also did an island tour with a private taxi once and although the views were nice, he mostly spoke in French to one of the couples there, so we didn't know what we were looking at. Plus Martinique is expensive, even for private taxis and they won't drop you off at a beach and come back for you.
St. Lucia---we took a taxi to Pigeon Island where you can swim in the Caribbean, walk up to an old Fort, walk through ruins, and even sit by the Atlantic. Snorkeling was very good in the Caribbean side of it. The taxi driver dropped us off and came back for us.
I have lots of pictures of those ports as well as the others you're going to in my blog. Here are 3 southern Caribbean cruises: [url]http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/search/label/Barbados[/url]
click on the labels to the right for other ports that aren't in these ones.