How to Visit both St.Maarten and St.Martin from Phillipsburg on own or by tour

[Onelove24]

 

Hi. I will be getting on a cruise that visits Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. I saw a neat tour own viator that would take us to both St. Maarten and St. Martin. Is it safe and easy to replicate this tour on our own explore by grabbing a taxi from the port/cruise terminal? My main interests are visiting the beach in a leisurely way and also taking in some of the city/island highlights. Most tours have very little time at beach so I would rather do an island tour /visit main attractions and visit the beach before or after. Any tours or tour operators you recommend? Which beach do you recommend?

Edited February 18 by Onelove24

[PORT ROYAL]

2 hours ago, Onelove24 said:

 

Hi. I will be getting on a cruise that visits Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. I saw a neat tour own viator that would take us to both St. Maarten and St. Martin. Is it safe and easy to replicate this tour on our own explore by grabbing a taxi from the port/cruise terminal? My main interests are visiting the beach in a leisurely way and also taking in some of the city/island highlights. Most tours have very little time at beach so I would rather do an island tour /visit main attractions and visit the beach before or after. Any tours or tour operators you recommend? Which beach do you recommend?

Cab will take one on a short tour, then drop at beach, being happy to return for a timed return to ship.  Recommend COCO Beach - http://cocobeach.restaurant

 

[Onelove24]

Thanks a lot!

[spammie]

Highly recommend Bernard Tours.  Best island tour we have been on.  We went all over the island and also had beach time at Orient Beach.  They will customize a tour for your needs.  

 

https://bernardstours.com/

Edited February 19 by spammie

[Onelove24]

Thank you so much!

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

I'm booked with Bernards for a tour in the next two weeks so can also report back if needed.

[disneydave]

Agree on Bernards have booked with them several times; now we just wing it but if I had a group who had not been to the island I'd be booking Bernards again.  

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

We took the tour with Bernard's last week.  Our driver was called "Sexy" and was very friendly and informative.  The tour is a loop of the island so after a quick tour of Philipsburg we headed out into the French side, stopped to the Iguanas and a couple of photo stops before we had a nice break on Grand Anse beach.

 

From there, we drove into Marigot where we stopped for about 45 minutes and then onto Maho Beach where we arrived in time to see several large aircraft landing.

 

Talking to people who took the cruise line tours, it seems like we saw more, had longer to enjoy places and it was much better value.

[sebas030]

We had 12 hours in port when we went last month.

 

I used Bernard's tour 2 times in the past but this time we went on our own

 

We got a taxi as soon as we exited the port to go to Marigot. It was a shared taxi, we paid $9 each for 1 way. We had breakfast at "Chez Fernand" ( delicious ) walked a bit, went to the straw market and took a taxi back to Mullet Bay Beach. Spent 2 hours there ( AMAZING beach ). Walked ( 15 minutes ) to Maho. Got blasted by 2 airplanes departing and had a dozen go just over our head to land. We stayed about 90 minutes there.

 

Taxi back to the ship was $7 per passenger. The port area has plenty of shops.

 

We loved our day !!!