Help requested for typical shore excursion - Royal Clipper

[GregGH]

Hello

 

I have read thru the messages - buy don't see much mentioned on what are typical shore excursion activities ( that we should or shouldn't do ) -- especially for Royal Clipper on Barbados- St Lucia - Dominica - Antigua - St Kitts - Iles des Saintes & Martinique trip

 

Any idea's and comments from past experience very much appreciated.

 

Regards

Greg & Marg

Jan 22-29 Royal Clipper

[thrpy]

Will let you know. We leave in less than 24 hours. Will hope to get back to ya in a week or so.

[clipperskipper]

Hi,

 

there will be different excursions in each port of call except of the beach stops (there you can dine and relax on the beach and snorkel or dive). Diving equipment is orffered at extra costs.

 

Depending on the islands offers, the excursion can be bus tours, jeep-tours, walkings, speed-boat tours and so on. On the cruise lines website you can download a pdf document about all the offered the shore excursions.

 

On board the cruise director will introduce the excursions for two days ahead and you can sign them in the library. The prices are moderate and the excursion we took were allover worth the money. The tours are mostly not guided by ships staff but from mostly well trained local operators. Sometimes the cruise director joins a tour for controlling measures.

 

What I can really recommend is the "Speed Boat Tour" in St. Vincent (Grenadines) if it is still offered. Board the power boat, stop at a beach and at a maginficent waterfall which you can only reach by boat (both wet landings with swimming to the beach). Also the canyoning tour in Martinique, exploring the rain forest.

 

Some excursions are not suitable for elderly or handicapped people but they will tell you before. So you see, there is a wide range offered for all people and according to the ships size you will benefit from small groups.

 

But believe that the real excursion is the ship itself under full sails!

 

If you have any further questions, pls ask. Have been on the Royal and Satr Clipper for more than 20 weeks now.

 

Best regards.

[jennib5426]

Just returned from the Star Clipper and there were very few excursions offered, 2 or 3 per port. On 2 of our ports there were no excursions but they took you to the beach for the day and all water sports from the beach were free. Kayaks, volley ball, banana boat, snorkeling if available.

 

I only did 1 exciursion last week and I usually do one every stop on a large cruise.

 

We went to St. Kitts and they offered 2 excursions an island tour and a train tour both were very boring. You can get a cab and to the same tour for around $20 pp.

 

We also got stuck in St. Kitts overnight because the weather and winds were so bad we couldn't sail. The night before we ripped a sail with 45mph winds. If you are prone to any sort of motion sickness be aware that winds can pop up any time, not just during hurricane season.

 

Regardless we had a great time.

[thrpy]

We, also, have just returned from the cruise and agree with the above. BUT, the tour to the Fortress and Bastik place are definitely worthwhile.

Have to agree, with the part about the winds. Coming out of and returning to Barbados is not smooth sailing. Some people absolutely love it, and others to different degrees had some trouble with it.

The ship and it's sails are fantastic and beautiful. The food is super. The ports are not the larger ports with multiple opportunities - as advertised, i.e. smaller less ferquented ports. Better to be a water enthusiast than aggressive shopper. Iles de Saints was probably the best shopping port, no problems with dollars and plastic vs Euros. Speaking of which, don't be surprised by you final bill on the ship - it's in Euros, do the math. Speaking of ship, wait to buy your Clipper goodies til later in the week when they are "on sale" about 20%.

[wumav]

We were just on the Star Clipper on 11/27. Although we didn't hit all of the same ports, we did stop at Dominica, Antigua, and Iles des Saintes.

 

Dominica - We did the Rainforest Tram. I would have a hard time recommending this excursion. We took a van ride of almost two hours to get the spot and then we took a tram ride through the rainforest. The tram ride was basically like taking a ski lift up and down part of the mountain. It really wasn't worth the difficulty of getting there.

 

The interesting part about Dominica is that the ship pulls into port on the northern end of the island and then sails (several hours) to the southern part of the island to pick up everyone that took shore excursions. We were originally scheduled to do the whale/dolphin watching excursion from Dominica, but that was cancelled because of the boat owner decided that he didn't want to go back out that afternoon. I guess that's just part of island life.

 

 

Antigua - This was our beach stop for the week. Their may have been shore excursions scheduled, but I we were perfectly happy just going ashore to the beach. The crew served lunch on the beach, they brought in a steel band, and the water sports team brought all of the equipment ashore so people could do sea kayaking, sunfish sailing, waterskiing/wakeboarding, and beach sports. This was a fantastic day.

 

 

Iles des Saintes - We didn't do a shore excursion here either, but we had a great time at this port. This is a very, very small island that is part of Guadeloupe (only 14 miles away). We had fun just walking around the small town. This is truly one of the few unspoiled ports in the Caribbean. I think that the Star Clipper and the Windjammer ships are the only ones that stop here.