Kayak in St Thomas or St Marteen?

[sunsetdawny]

Hi I am doing a RCCL cruise over christmas and would like to do a kayak tour - can anyone recommend whether it is best to look for something in St Thomas or St Marteen.  Which ever island i do the kayak tour on the other island I plan to spend on the beach - so it may be a question of which is the best day to spend on the beach? Thank you Dawn

[etoilefj]

Hi

I can only comment on the one I've done; haven't actually made it to the beaches in St Thomas and first visit to St Maarten will be this November but we did do a kayak/snorkel/beach walk tour in St Thomas the first time we were there. Not sure if it's the same excursion you're considering but it was really great. The paddle was about a mile with a stop over a jellyfish area, went to a beach with great mangrove snorkeling and then a walk to a blow hole. It was a really great excursion. Just don't pick up the giant land hermit crabs!

[MandiesPharm]

There is a great kayak place in Simpson Bay - Tri Sport - that you can rent from without doing an excursion through the ship.  You can see all of the mega yachts, the lagoon and head out to the ocean side.  Rentals start at $15 per hour or $25 for 4 hours.  We've used them multiple times prior to Irma.  If you choose to go through the ship I'd kayak in SXM then go to the beach in St Thomas.  We prefer Sapphire Beach over Magens Bay.  The last time we were there we took a taxi to Sapphire but I have no idea how much it was. 

[mitsugirly]

For a fun day kayaking in St Maarten, I can recommend using Caribbean Paddling. They pick you up at the port and take you to the French side, where you get your kayaks, and go over to a beautiful little island called Pinel Island to spend the day however you want. There is snorkeling there and a snorkel trail if you want to go (extra for the trail). There's 2 restaurants with beach chairs to rent if needed. There's also a small little island along the way to Pinel that you can kayak over to as well.

 

I have a full review listed HERE with tons of pictures if you are interested. That is my website and it also has links to all of the places we have been in St Maarten and also St Thomas. There's plenty of beaches to go to. Have a look around and see if any interest you. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

St Maarten also has a place that you can do a Rhino Rider tour and it's a lot of fun!!! You can find that tour and pictures on my St Maarten portion of the website too. :)

[crossfitmama]

We did this one in St Thomas a couple years ago and it was great http://stthomascruiseexcursions.com/KayakSnorkelingEco.htm

 

We did Rhino Riders in St Maarten too, I assume its the same tour?

[wvdeedee]

On 4/14/2019 at 11:17 AM, sunsetdawny said:

Hi I am doing a RCCL cruise over christmas and would like to do a kayak tour - can anyone recommend whether it is best to look for something in St Thomas or St Marteen.  Which ever island i do the kayak tour on the other island I plan to spend on the beach - so it may be a question of which is the best day to spend on the beach? Thank you Dawn

I can highly recommend the kayak/hike/snorkel tour on St. Thomas. We did this several years ago and it was my husband's favorite excursion ever. So much so, that we have booked it again (FYI, ship excursion) for our RCCL cruise over Christmas. The guides were awesome. We kayaked/snorkeled in St. Maarten shortly after the hurricanes and it was the worst experience. Partly due to the cloudiness of the water after the storms but also it was more of an open water kayak, rather than thru a mangrove area. If you choose to do a beach in St. Thomas, we like the beach over on Water Island. Catch the water taxi ($10 pp round trip) at Tickles Bar and Restaurant to the island.  There are 2 beach bars/restaurants on the beach but we always go the far end, Dinghy's. Chairs and umbrellas are free with the purchase of food or drink. Hope this is some help.

Denise