Is St.Kitts and Venezuela Dangerous?

[Mikellie]

My husband and I are sailing on the Royal Caribbean Exotic Caribbean Cruise in November. Two of the ports will be St. Kitts and Margarita Island, Venezuela. Someone told my husband that those two islands are very dangerous and we should not go off on our own. If we want to see the islands we should stick with a group tour.

 

Is there any truth to that?

 

Any insight will help. Thanks in advance!!!!

[barbados]

Is St.Kitts and Venezuela Dangerous?

 

 

St. Kitts is one of the safest countries in the Caribbean and it’s one of our favorites.

 

They operate a prison system that is completely self-supporting without state contribution. The prisoners build wooden furniture that is sold in stores and grow all their own vegetables. If their stuff doesn’t sell, they don’t eat.

 

There is no swearing in public (punishable by a week in jail). The school teachers double as crossing guards and if a student fails to say Good Morning to them, an assembly is held once a week and the students AND their parents must attend and the students must apologize in front of the whole school.

 

Anyway, you get the picture about St. Kitts.

 

Now, IDM…..

 

Well, the person that told your husband that IDM was unsafe was probably referring to an alleged terrorist camp that was discovered there and squelched a few years ago.

 

Other than that, I would consider it safe during the daytime. We’ve walked all around the town and back alleys many times with nary a sight of an unsavory character. IDM is where the Venezuelans go for vacation.

 

They only thing that I would consider unsafe is the fact that gasoline is only US$.50/gal and that beer is about the same. IDM consumes more alcohol than almost all of South America combined (seems unbelievable, but that’s what the locals tell us). Consequently, almost every vehicle that you see has beer or alcohol in the car, including the taxi drivers and there are no drunk driving laws! So, your biggest threat is a car accident or getting run over crossing the street.

 

Go, don’t worry and have fun! :)

[Mikellie]

Thank you for your help.

 

The person who gave my husband that info made it sound like if you go away from the group you would get jumped, attacked or robbed.

 

I feel much better now.

[Coolmama_1]

We enjoyed both St Kitts and Isla De Margarita. In St Kitts, you could walk around town, it wasnt far from the port. We felt very safe there. At Isla De Margarita, there are local vendors and a nice little beach right at the port. Our ship was only there until 12:30 and we would have liked more time there. You will enjoy both. Have a great time on your cruise.

[Senga]

is one of our favourite islands and very safe. I have copied this from our review:

"A 3 hour taxi tour around the island and to view Frigate Peninsula cost $70. This cost would have been the same for 4. We visited Romney Gardens and Caribelle Batik where fine island cotton is hand painted. The grounds were beautiful and the prices very reasonable. We visited Brimstone Hill and the view was well worth the $5. per person admission; breathtaking. Black Rocks was impressive as was Frigate Bay Peninsula. The windward beach at North Frigate Bay is battered by the Atlantic surf. On the leeward side, the beach is met by the calm Caribbean waters of Frigate Bay. Taxi tour prices are set but I would not recommend our driver, Kenneth Burnham, as he tried frequently to get us to change our route/price when we came out of Caribelle Batik. When we wouldn’t budge he lost all interest in being a guide and drove so fast we had to be very firm in telling him to stop for pictures. He finally said he would take us to view Frigate Peninsula without additional charge, we could just give him something if we wanted. As this detour only took an additional fifteen minutes I added $10. to the $60. quoted price. To be fair we did not hear any other comments on this subject so assume we just got a bad apple. We had the driver drop us at Independence Square and from there we walked to The Circus and back to the ship. The sunset was beautiful and numerous passengers agreed with us that St. Kitts reminded them of Hawaii. It is a truly awesome, naturally beautiful island and I am so glad Celebrity has it on their itinerary. The weather was perfect. We had wanted to visit Turtle Beach to see the monkeys which would be an additional $40. We decided to do that excursion next trip and were glad we didn’t go when other passengers told us there were no monkeys on the beach as a result of a dog attack on the monkeys last week which had scared them off."

and pictures are available, if you are interested, at:

http://community.webshots.com/user/sengamilne

[Zeno]

Been to both for land as well as cruising vacations:

St. Kitt's - very safe. The only area we were advised to avoid were the cane fields(mostly because it's very easy to get lost on the dirt tracks that wander through them). On St. Kitt's when we did an island tour, we used Lionel who was great - we paid for a 3 hour tour but he took his time, stopping whenever we wanted and we got a nearly 4 hour tour.

Margarita: fairly safe - we had no problems. Apparently purses snatching is an occasional problem in Porlamar.