St Maarten Shore Excursions

[debt]

Just wondering what would be a good shore excursion for St Maarten? Also, about when will rcl post available excursions? My cruise is still 6 months away, but they have already posted excursions for the other ports of call.

[kicker]

Your question is rather broad. I think you just need to take some time, read through these threads, and you'll get a good idea of what people like or don't like. It also depends on your family - kids or no kids, ages of adults. We're doing Liberty OTS next month and we've already booked the Golden Eagle Catamaran for St Maarten (one of my fav types of excursions). If you visit our Meet & Mingle thread you'll see that lots of cruisers have lots of different ideas. I think out of around ten or so people posting their plans there's about 8 different excursion ideas, many through private companies, not RCCL. And, as far as when RCCL posts excursions: they're not up already? Check another cruise from your ship with the same itinerary - will probably have the same excursions.

[cruisetmc]

WE have visited twice. The first trip we did a snorkel trip of ship wrecks. This was awesome. Second we did a tour of the island.

 

There are several beaches to go relax in for the day.

[Angelmom828]

We did the Golden Eagle Catamaren a few years ago which was great. We'll be back in St. Martin in a few weeks and are planning a day at Orient Beach.

[2onvacation]

We took the art studio tour on St. Marten. We were looking for something different than the normal "beach/water" activity. We were thrilled. Visited several studios, met & talked to the artists, saw their local work, they offered varied prices for all budgets. You did not have to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars and get a great remembrance of the island. It was comfortable and relaxing. They offered refreshments at each stop and were extremely hospitable. There were only 5 people on our tour and so we found it "the best kept secret on the tour scene". One artist, Ruby, even read us some poetry from her book. It was awesome! My only complaint was the tour driver, who went very quickly, did not give any opportunity to capture some photo moments while driving, roads were winding, narrow and bumpy. He knows the roads well and drove them in that fashion. However the tour overpowered the driver's inability to appreciate the need for tourists to snap those shots

[Koshlong]

I wanted to snorkel but K doesn't like deep water, so we decided to the the Explorer glass bottomed boat in Grand Case through HAL. Not recommended.

The driver rushed us to the pier afraid to keep the boat waiting??? Well, we waited and waited and waited at least 45 minutes. :( Then the Explorer appeared and we got on to a solid concrete-like deck. When we got to the reef we were escorted to the under deck which is glass on both sides but solid concrete on top and exactly two person wide. When the space got to me,:eek: half of the passengers had to get up and fold their seats so that I could get back to the upper deck. I was followed by several others who had not wanted to make the first move. The views were great but I sure wouldn't do it again. A little more organization as to time and a little more information about the closed in nature of the boat would have helped!

[peckfamily5]

We did the Golden Eagle Catamaren a few years ago which was great. We'll be back in St. Martin in a few weeks and are planning a day at Orient Beach.

 

We did the exact same thing. We did the Golden Eagle (loved it, highly recommend it) on our first cruise, then this past week, we did Orient Beach on our own. We took a taxi over ($7 per person) then walked up the beach to the Le String bar stand I had read about here. It was to the right of where the taxi dropped us off and just past the KonTiki section. Le String rents a lounge chair, umbrella and free drink for $9 each. Camped there for the day. Our son got his hair braided and we bought a few things from the locals that stopped by. Le String also has some food items. I got some nachos ($4) and my daughter got french fries ($3).

 

DH and I walked down the beach and did parasailing. The owner actually owned land near our home town so were talking with him for a bit. Loved the parasailing. First time and it was beautiful. Walked along the back road behind the stands instead of along the beach to get back to the taxis. Met up with a taxi van and rode back with another couple so it was only $6 per person). Be prepared when you get back to the docks. You'll need your cruise card and I had trouble finding mine. Forgot where I had put it and was frantically searching for it. Finally found it and got through to the peir just fine. Overall a great, relaxing day. - Robin

[queenbeen]

Hi Robin,

 

I was wondering if you would mind sharing how much you paid to parasail. I'm interested in doing this and am not sure if it's better to just try and do it on our own once we hit the beach or to set it up ahead of time. Thanks!

 

Sabeen

[peckfamily5]

Hi Robin,

 

I was wondering if you would mind sharing how much you paid to parasail. I'm interested in doing this and am not sure if it's better to just try and do it on our own once we hit the beach or to set it up ahead of time. Thanks!

 

Sabeen

 

It was $100 for the two of us. I think I heard them quote a higher rate for one person. It was our 25th wedding anniversary that day and we had been wanting to give a try so we splurged on ourselves. Short ride, about 7 minutes, but just beautiful.

[ksc37]

We've signed up for the Golden Eagle for our August cruise. We were looking for a half day sail / beach excursion, and this one seemed to have consistently good reviews.

 

For those of you who have done it, have you taken kids? We have a 5 and 7 year old, will they have fun? I'm also wondering how the atmosphere becomes on the way back to the ship when the drinks are free-flowing.

 

We're signed up for the 9:00 am excursion in a hope to avoid too much drinking. Also, since we're on the Liberty of the Seas in the summer, I assume we're more likely to be with at least a couple of other families on the excursion.

[peckfamily5]

ksc37 - The drinking on any of our catamaran excursions has never gotten out of hand and we were with some college kids on our first excursion. Be aware, however, that the island the Golden Eagle takes you to can have some nudity. It's some kind of special mud there that people go there to cover themselves in. The first time we pulled up there was a boy on the catamaran about 10 years old and his eyes about fell out of his head and his mother was utterly embarrassed. Your excursion info from RCCL should say something about the nudity, I know ours on Princess does now, can't recall whether it did or didn't when DH and I went when we were on NCL.

[ksc37]

ksc37 - The drinking on any of our catamaran excursions has never gotten out of hand and we were with some college kids on our first excursion. Be aware, however, that the island the Golden Eagle takes you to can have some nudity. It's some kind of special mud there that people go there to cover themselves in. The first time we pulled up there was a boy on the catamaran about 10 years old and his eyes about fell out of his head and his mother was utterly embarrassed. Your excursion info from RCCL should say something about the nudity, I know ours on Princess does now, can't recall whether it did or didn't when DH and I went when we were on NCL.

 

Thanks for the info... I was aware that the island may have some nudists, so we are trying to talk about it with our kids so that they are prepared. I sort of figure that almost anywhere we'd go on St. Martin would have some toplessness and/or nudity, so it will just be part of the "cultural" experience of the island. I'm assuming that there is enough room to spread out on the beach that we can distance ourselves from the naked folks if there is too much "culture"? ;)

[MJL]

. We're doing Liberty OTS next month and we've already booked the Golden Eagle Catamaran for St Maarten (one of my fav types of excursions).

 

Kicker, how did you like the Golden Eagle. We are looking to do this in December. Did you book through RCI?

 

Thanks,

Mike