A bit of a disappointment

[royandjenn]

We were in Martinique at the end of January. We really like visiting islands that aren't visited as much, such as Dominica... We loved Dominica. It was incredible! It seemed that Martinique would be another not popular place. Not too many ships visit there anymore, and there is not too much information available for it. We had booked a catamaran tour. It was quite nice. We visited a bat cave, and went snorkelling. We found the ocean/beach was quite dirty, but still enjoyed ourselves. When we arrived back at our ship, we decided to walk to Fort De France. We were suprised that there really wasn't anything great there. A handful of souvinir shops, and the rest was dress stores, shoe stores, some restaurants that didn't look too great. We still ate at one, that didn't speak a word of english, thank God I knew how to say 3 and chicken in french, or we would have starved! We really weren't impressed with the city. We should have just stuck close to the ship. Our inlaws took a tour to St Pierre. They were disappointed because the tour guide just drove them by St Pierre, then let the walk thru a botanical garden which they said was disappointing, and then back to the ship. They said it was a waste of money. Taxi's were even offering tours of their cement factories. Kinda weird. All in all, we were very disappointed with Martinque. On our cruise, we didn't hear one positive thing about Martinique. It's good to see that some people on cruise critic enjoyed the island.

[Koshlong]

I think ships should post a "French is very helpful" warning about Martinique. I wonder if I felt more comfortable because Canadians are used to dealing with French? (I think we all feel guilty if we aren't bilingual)

[twinkletoes4445]

Martinique was the one island that I was the most unsure about...and it came as a total surprise to us that we enjoyed it about the most. I did take along a sheet with French phrases, and this helped a lot. I also took Euros and this helped a lot. Once I started "trying" to talk to the people in their language, everything changed. They laughed, they called their friends over to look at my list...I got a couple of hugs, and I even got a gift from a shop owner, so for us, it was a fun day. They all seemed very pleased that we were making an effort to speak French, even though I spent most of the time butchering their language, they didn't care...the fact that I tried seemed to be the most important thing. I agree with Koshlong and I think that a "Knowing some French is very helpful" warning would be very beneficial to cruisers. You just don't know what to expect on some of these islands as far as how much English is spoken.

 

We also had a son who spent a summer interning in Paris. He went to France knowing no French, but came home knowing a lot of French. He (and us) were very hesitant about him spending the summer there, but he said once you break the ice, you're their friends for life. So I had this added help prior to our cruise. But not everyone has an experience like this to fall back on like we did.

[royandjenn]

Yeah, thats why we brought euro's, and made sure we knew basic french. Our oldest daughter know's french pretty good. Being Canadian, its part of our education system. We didn't really have to use our french much, because there was really no where we were interested in visiting. We spent a few hours in town walking around, but we weren't interested in clothing, or shoes... My mother in law would have liked it though, but she was tired on stayed on the ship. We did get some very good rum in Martinique though... Our catamaran tour was nice, I think the beach we went to was Anse ?? something like that, but it was very dirty. Will have to look thru our photo's and see the name of the beach...

[twinkletoes4445]

We did a tour with HAL, and most of our time was spent driving around part of the island. We did stop at a church, a botanical garden, and a museum. I would have liked to shop more, but there wasn't much time, but I did find a few things to buy. The botanical garden wasn't very big, but what I really enjoyed was watching the birds near the feeders they have near the entrance. I love bird-watching, so I spent most of my time watching the hummingbirds and bananaquits. We walked around, but we didn't have much time to look at anything since we'd spent so much time bird-watching.

 

It's too bad the beach you visited was dirty. You have to wonder why they'd even take you there? Surely they could find a better one to visit...or you'd think that one would be cleaned. We kept hearing over and over how tourism is down, so you'd think they'd want to take you to places that make you want to return.

 

We did not see any rum anywhere we visited on the island. I wished we would have, but when you do island tours, you usually don't have a lot of time to look around in any one place.

 

We've not visited Dominica, but hope it's on our itinerary soon.

 

With Euros and knowing French, there's not much more you could have done. I would have been very unhappy had we been deposited at a dirty beach. We had no time to walk around the city, but it sounds like we didn't miss much. We debated between the "Walking Tour of the City" and the one we did. I am glad we chose the one we did. It doesn't sound like walking around the city would have been all that great.

 

We had a wonderful tour guide in Martinique, and from our experiences, that can make or break a tour. We had one in St. Thomas once that was horrible. He about baked us in his van (he wouldn't turn on the air-but rode with his window open)...he refused to stop at any of the places we were supposed to stop at...we did drive by's..and he didn't tell us much of anything about the island. What a waste of time. But he did tell us to try a Bushwacker, which we did...and it was awesome! lol But that was it...the tour was horrid, but the booze was great.

 

From what I've read, I think many more people have had the same type of experience that you did, rather than our experience. We were lucky. I hear people talk about how much fun they had in St. Thomas, but I can't say that. Our time there was not fun, so maybe next time.

 

I almost forgot...they were touring a cement factory? Yeah, sounds like fun! lol Just what I want to do when I am in the Caribbean....

 

You have a positive attitude and you made the best of a not so good situation. Thank you for taking the time to share this with us. I keep notes of others experiences and when the time comes to return to these islands, I use those notes to help me figure out what we're going to do on the islands. This was one island that I really couldn't find much information about prior to our sailing.

 

Happy cruising! :)

[Palmetto Lady]

Dress stores and Shoes!!! How bad can that be!!!!

[sceptic]

When we were there we rented a car (excellent roads) and drove to St. Pierre, then over to Gorge de la Falaise, which was amazing, then down the trace road to botanical gardens, then back to the ship. It was a great day, and friendly people. I think the issue with Martinique is that they think tourists are fine and dandy, but they don't live for tourism - at least Americans. It's like being plopped down in Montreal or whatever (odd analogy, I know) in that there are certainly touristy things to do but it's not exactly a locale that lives and breathes tourism. but it IS gorgeous.