Best beaches in St Maartens, St. Croix and Barbados

[legalgirl]

Sailing to St Maartens, St. Croix and Barbados in February.  Any suggestions on the best beaches on those islands?  Would appreciate comments on vendors, services and facilities.  Should we take a ship's tour or venture out on our own.

[1025cruise]

Please visit the ports of call boards for your ports.

[navybankerteacher]

2 hours ago, legalgirl said:

Sailing to St Maartens, St. Croix and Barbados in February.  Any suggestions on the best beaches on those islands?  Would appreciate comments on vendors, services and facilities.  Should we take a ship's tour or venture out on our own.

Definitely do research and go out on your own.  Best idea is to share a car rental so you can see a bit of the island NOT in a bus with dozens of newbies. Try Baie Rouge on French side just south of Marogot - for a beautiful uncrowded beach after checking out Marigot.

 

If you do not want to rent a car, take a shared taxi to Dawn Beach - looking across to St. Barth's (several restaurants - one at Oyster Bay Beach Resort) for lunch.  Tours will steer you to Orient Beach - decent beach but more crowded - with less island character.

[evandbob]

In doing the research, it may be important to gauge if any beaches on these isles are being affected by the growing seaweed sargassum problem as well as the usual points of interest.

[George C]

We love the prude side of orient beach in St Maarten, loads of restaurants ( some nudity) great beach.

[evandbob]

4 hours ago, George C said:

We love the prude side of orient beach in St Maarten, loads of restaurants ( some nudity) great beach.

All great points, but lately (last few years) this section of beach has been subject to sargassum buildup.  Not always, but more often here than elsewhere on the isle.  Shame.

[lenquixote66]

Best beach in entire Caribbean:Orient

[Hlitner]

One persons great beach is another's lousy place.  Cruisers tend to go to beaches popular with cruise tours and cruisers.  Folks who live/vacation on the same island may avoid places just because they are overrun with cruisers.  Take Orient Beach, which is on the French side of St Maarten (St Martin).  It is an overly commercial beach often packed with cruisers and quite a few vacationers on the island.  But when we rent a condo and stay on St Martin (we used to rent in Grand Case) we completely avoid Orient except, perhaps, on a weekend when there are no ships in the port.  We might choose to go to a more remote place such as Happy Bay where one would seldom to never find a cruiser.  While Orient Beach might be packed with thousands, on Happy Bay we will usually have fewer than a dozen souls.  But we would not "dare" suggest cruisers avoid Orient and we have sometimes gone to that beach on a port day, simply because it was easy to get transportation.  When we stay on the island we always have our own car and that is a game changer.

 

As to Barbados there are many choices including some beaches that are relatively close to the port to better beaches on the West Coast (such as on Paynes Bay).  Keep in mind that some cruisers prefer commercial beaches with multiple restaurants, beach vendors, and easy access.  Others want to go to less crowded/commercial places.

 

So I will tell you a crazy secret.  DW and I have been beach lovers all of our lives, spend our winters in a condo located right on a popular Mexican beach, and a fair number of other days of the year on various excellent beaches around the USA and the world.  And yet, when on a recent Caribbean cruise (last week) we did not even bother getting off our ship at most of the ports even though we do have favorite beaches in every port.  Instead, we stayed aboard on a near empty ship where the ship was likely the best place to be with great service, few folks, etc.  When we were young, we used to wonder about the few old folks we noticed did not leave the ship...but now we do understand the wisdom of such behavior :).

 

Hank