Caribbean excursions - suggestions, please

[marazul]

We enjoy going to the Caribbean to a resort and staying by the beach. Just chill and not much else. However, we are joining friends on a Caribbean cruise (SB, of course) and we have a lot of OBC to spend and will be taking a few excursions. 

Could you tell me about excursions you liked or disliked in the following ports? (Or any other suggestions for those ports.)

 

• Rodney Bay, St Lucia
• St Georges, Grenada
• Charlotteville, Tobago
• Curaçao
• Aruba 

 

Many thanks for your comments!

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by marazul

[marazul]

As I suspected not many people take excursions in the Caribbean.  I may have to sacrifice and use up the OBC in the spa and premium wines.  But if anyone has any excursion reccomendations, I am listening. 😉

[cruiseej]

On 11/3/2023 at 10:22 AM, marazul said:

As I suspected not many people take excursions in the Caribbean.

 

That's not been our experience; lots of people take excursions in the Caribbean.  (I just didn't initially remember which excursions we've done in which port to offer you specific advice.) It also depends what sorts of activities you're looking for — zip line, off-road ATV, sightseeing, rum distillery, snorkeling, etc. It seems some variation of these activities is available on most islands! 

 

In some places, you can just walk around the port, or you can book things privately; in other places that's not as easy to do. For instance, we've been to Rodney Bay twice; one time the tenders went to the park where there's nothing to do but walk around park and climb the hill to the fort unless you were on an excursion, and the other time the tenders went to the marina for excursions, but most third-party tour companies operate out of Castries rather than this little marina. In several of the ports, you may be able to simple get a cab to a nice beach for a few hours. (It worries me a bit about making arrangements to get picked up to get back to the ship on time, which is shy we'd take a ship excursion to a beach when offered, even thought the cost is higher than doing it ourselves.)

 

For Rodney Bay, we enjoyed the the Aerial Tram Adventure.  

In Curacao, I think we did the Hato Caves & Willemstad Sights — pretty low key, but we felt we got a taste of the country. 

In Aruba, I don't see the one we did listed, which was a scenic drive and a sail out to the Mantilla shipwreck.

In Grenada, I don't remember our excursion.

We haven't been to Tobago.

 

 

 

[marazul]

@cruiseej We are not the zipline type, but we are good with everything else you recommend.  We were in Aruba years ago, so that could also be a beach say. The ship leaves at 11 pm, so we have plenty of time to figure out how to get back.  Thanks for your input.

Did you take any excursions in Barbados?  We will be there ahead of time and I am just beginning to look at private tours. (I guess we have always been in the northern part of the Caribbean.)

Thanks again.

.

[cruiseej]

55 minutes ago, marazul said:

@cruiseej We are not the zipline type, but we are good with everything else you recommend.  We were in Aruba years ago, so that could also be a beach say. The ship leaves at 11 pm, so we have plenty of time to figure out how to get back.  Thanks for your input.

Did you take any excursions in Barbados?  We will be there ahead of time and I am just beginning to look at private tours. (I guess we have always been in the northern part of the Caribbean.)

Thanks again.

.

 

We've been there twice in recent years. Harrison's Cave is pretty interesting; we went there one morning before going to our cruise. There are several botanical gardens in the central and northern part of the island which I remember looking into, but we never went to one. Each time we disembarked in Barbados, we took a Seabourn sightseeing trip around the island ending at the airport. They drive up the more developed west coast and point outwhere Rihanna lived and a few of the fancy hotels, but there's not much to see from a bus. There are a few nice views as you come around to the east (Atlantic) side, and a couple small places to eat/have a drink with a view. I'm sure you could book a tour, or just hire a cab, to take you around the island and give you the history and culture. 

 

Where are you staying in Barbados?

Edited November 6, 2023 by cruiseej

[marazul]

1 minute ago, cruiseej said:

 

We've been there twice in recent years. Harrison's Cave is pretty interesting; we went there one morning before going to our cruise. There are several botanical gardens in the central and northern part of the island which I remember looking into, but we never went to one. Each time we disembarked in Barbados, we took a Seabourn sightseeing trip around the island ending at the airport. They drive up the more developed west coast and point outwhere Rihanna lived and a few of the fancy hotels, but there's not much to see from a bus. There are a few nice views as you come around to the east (Atlantic) side, and a couple small places to eat/have a drink with a view. I'm sure you could book a tour, or just hire a cab, to take you around the island and give you the history and culture. 

 

Where are you staying in Barbados?

At the Hilton closest to town.

I guess we will just hire a taxi one day.

Thanks.

[BeNice ToEveryone]

Last December we visited some of those same ports. Unfortunately, as it was Boxing Day when we were in Aruba, many (most?) of the shops and restaurants were closed. We did do the excursion which included a scenic drive to a natural bridge and then a visit to the Butterfly garden. It was fine. The town itself looked cute and easy to wander, so we probably would opt for that on a not-holiday visit.

Curacao we did a morning e-bike tour and then really enjoyed wandering around the town. It’s very walkable with lots of shops, bars and restaurants on the bit across the bridge. Be sure to be on deck at night for the sailaway as the bridge there is lit up and gorgeous.

For Tobago, we were the first ship to stop there since COVID, so it seemed the entire island’s worth of entertainment was there to welcome us to shore! We had a wonderful (if very curvy and hilly) drive to the waterfall area, where we hiked and Mr. BeNice ventured into the swimmin’ holes.

Enjoy your cruise!

[markandjie]

I would highly recommend searching trip advisor for activities on each island to get an idea of what might be special to that location. We did that a few years ago when in the Caribbean on Celebrity (Seabourn itinerary timing didn't work, unfortunately!) and found some great options. Was able to take my son on a discovery scuba dive on one island, for example. 

[kjbacon]

We have enjoyed all the snorkeling excursions that we’ve done in Aruba and curaçao because the water is so warm. Both islands are also very safe for walking around and exploring on your own. Curaçao has a fantastic floating bridge that is definitely worth checking out and is a reasonable walking distance from the port.

 

Grenada has a nice clear bottom kayak tour but otherwise, we don’t get off the ship in Grenada. We don’t feel as safe as we do on other islands.