St. Kitts & St. Thomas: Opinions on shore excursions

[weliketocruise2017]

When on vacation, we like beaches, snorkeling, swimming and sun!  I don't enjoy sitting in a tour bus, touring islands, etc; coming from a cold weather state with snow, give us the outdoors and allow us to bask in the warm rays of sunshine!  While we enjoy the casual snorkel, we don't want to spend hours and hours in the water chasing Nemo and Dory. We enjoy it, and then, would like to spend time with our toes in the sand. 

 

If we were to book the Catamaran Fan-Ta-Sea to Nevis with snorkel, when we visit St Kitts AND we book the Caribbean Sail to Christmas & Honeymoon Coves, when we are in St. Thomas, does this allow us enough on the beaches?  We don't want to spend both days on smaller boats, with only minimal time on the beach and wading in shallow waters. 

 

I also had my eyes on St Kitts Catamaran Sail & Nevis Beach Getaway when we visit St. Kitts and the St. John Trunk Bay Beach & Snorkel when we are in St. Thomas - but those are both sold out at the time - but I am hopeful perhaps they'll open up before we said in April. Am I right in assuming those two would offer less time on a smaller boat, and more time on the beaches? 
 

Any insight would be appreciated!!   

[princeton123211]

On 2/29/2020 at 9:58 AM, weliketocruise2017 said:

If we were to book the Catamaran Fan-Ta-Sea to Nevis with snorkel, when we visit St Kitts AND we book the Caribbean Sail to Christmas & Honeymoon Coves, when we are in St. Thomas, does this allow us enough on the beaches?  We don't want to spend both days on smaller boats, with only minimal time on the beach and wading in shallow waters.

If the goal is to end up on the beach why book a catamaran tour at all? It might not be as good as snorkeling off a boat but you can easily do it off of a beach and be in control of your own schedule. Both the Marriott and Park Hyatt offer nice day passes with pool and beach access on St Kitts. At least not to two tours on different islands and spend one of those days at the beach. 

 

Given the short call during the day at St Kitts it might not be worth your time to shuttle back and forth to Nevis at all. 

[bigrednole]

We may have to switch cruises with this same itinerary. I have been looking at videos for snorkeling. It looks like a lot of reefs have been devastated by storms. It mostly looks like grey dead coral rocks now. I hope it is just bad videos or bad places they snorkel. If I switch to this itinerary, I want a tour in St Thomas that has nice coral formations, fish and turtles. I had never seen better snorkeling before than our trip in 1985 or 6 to St John's camping in Cinnamon Bay.

[TTEllis]

On 3/3/2020 at 1:24 PM, princeton123211 said:

If the goal is to end up on the beach why book a catamaran tour at all? It might not be as good as snorkeling off a boat but you can easily do it off of a beach and be in control of your own schedule. Both the Marriott and Park Hyatt offer nice day passes with pool and beach access on St Kitts. At least not to two tours on different islands and spend one of those days at the beach. 

 

Given the short call during the day at St Kitts it might not be worth your time to shuttle back and forth to Nevis at all. 

To the OP I would take this excellent  advice, myself personally  never have and never will snagged up on a shore excursion on either one of these islands. Too many  nice beaches to go to on my own.