Review of self-guided tour to Jardin de Balata

[jamesboat]

There is so little information on this board, I thought I'd help by adding some!

 

I was on the Anthem of the Seas which stopped in Martinique in January.

 

Exiting the ship was different than most Caribbean ports. They had some local music, and a few small souvenir huts, but don't expect any of the American chains (Diamonds International etc)

 

On most Caribbean islands, there are dozens of people ready to take you on tours - $25 for island tour, $10 for beach, $30 for private taxi, etc etc. You can pick and choose what you want.

 

Not in Martinique. We exited the ship and were not approached by anyone. We walked around a bit looking for taxis. Nope. There was a parking lot with several vans, and numbers, aka, fixed routes...Route 11, Route 31 etc. Great if you're a local, but we wanted to get to Jardin de Balata! Very different from Barbados where you can't walk 2 feet without being asked if you want a taxi.

 

We asked a couple of people (they spoke zero English) and they pointed us to a van. We stopped by the van and a gentleman approached us. He didn't speak English, so he walked us to a shop where the woman helped translate.

 

He charged us $6 per person for the trip to the Jardin de Balata. There were 4 other folks in the van, Two locals, and another cruise couple who wanted to go further (the volcano I think?). He waited around 5 minutes before departing.

 

The drive up to the Jardin was around 20 minutes in a mixture of city and island traffic. Traffic is much more organized than most islands. he dropped us off and continued with the other passengers.

 

At the Jardin, we were able to purchase our entrance tickets + audio tours with a credit card (Mastercard). The audio tours were available in English, Spanish, French and German. All signage was in French.

 

Audio tour was a good value. Very informative and expertly translated - audio was by a couple of British folks.

 

We had a very good time at the Jardin. Very beautiful. Excellent scenery, the aerial bridges were fun, and the audio tour was informative. I recommend it.

 

At the end we stopped by the gift shop. Purchased some souvenirs and some light snacks. Again paid with credit card. There is a restaurant as well, and clean bathrooms.

 

So now we want to go back! We walked around the parking lot looking for taxis. Packed with tour buses and vans, but no taxis!

 

We asked for help and were told where the bus stops. Problem is, nobody knew how much the bus cost or if they took USD!

 

We looked for other Anthem passengers but couldn't find any. The other ship in port was Costa, and all the tourists at the Jardin were either French or Italian. I guess Americans aren't big on botanical gardens?

 

Sprint offers free cell service in the Caribbean but the service at the Jardin was not good. I tried to load Uber to see if it existed and information on buses but neither would load.

 

Fortunately, the lady at the gift shop was nice enough to call up a taxi for us. She then told us to wait in some seats in the shade. I was a bit worried we were about to be hit by a 100+ taxi bill.

 

About 15 minutes later a taxi arrived and took us back to the ship. There was already 17 euro on the meter, I guess they charge for pickup service.

 

I was nervous about the cost, but the total ended up being 35 euro. As we neared the ship I asked if he took dollars. He didn't seem too pleased but I gave him $40 and asked if that was ok. At first he said no, then looked at the meter (34.50) and then said yes, yes this good! If he had said no I would have asked him to take us to an ATM. At this point I had cell internet and was able to look up the translation for ATM.

 

I was ok with the cost of this "tour" overall.

 

We dropped off items at the ship and then went on a self-guided walking tour of the city. We stopped by the library, the cathedral, and a park. Easy walk, and interesting architecture.

 

We also stopped by an indoor mall and a pedestrian mall. Shops were a mix of low-cost and European chains. Ie, there was a United Colors of Benetton shop, a shop selling high end French makeup, and a shop selling 3 bras for 10 euro! (Word of advice for the ladies, the French use a different sizing system, so look it up beforehand).

 

Overall we had a good time. I do not know how the other couple from the van made it back to the ship.

 

Advice: Have Euros with you!

Advice 2: Pre-download the Google Translate app with the French language package

[cruiseapril]

Thanks for the review. We went to the Balata Gardens and some other sites and thought our bus tour was well worth the cost. We signed up with the ship's tour.