Caribbean must do excursions?

[jlslaw1]

Any suggestions for excursions for a fairly young and active couple in any of the following ports: St. Barts, St. Kitts, Virgin Gorda, St. John's, Tortola, Samana and Grand Turk?

[joedebnh]

It sounds like you might also be on the 1/2/2007 Regatta cruise. We are going to look at both Oceania excursions as well as "do it ourselves" excursions. We have been on over 20 cruises all over the Caribbean and probably taken 2 or 3 cruise ship excursions. All the others have been on our own, usually with good success. A couple of the stops on the 1/2 cruise are new to us and we will need to research those islands a little more carefully.

[timbo89]

I would suggest you go to the ports of call board and research there. We rarely (if ever) take a ship excursion in the Caribbean, and we cruise there once or twice every year. I have used a lot of tips from that board.

[hondorner]

We'll be touching each of those, except Grand Turk, on the 11/25/06 Miami/Amazon itenerary. I don't have any advance knowledge of any of them except Samana.

25 years ago, on our very first cruise on the Carnivale, the first port at which we docked was Samana, Dominican Republic. At that time, cruise ships docked on what I think was the North shore of the island at an enormously long, former banana loading pier. We were loaded up into decrepit, small Toyota and Nissan taxis. They stuffed us 4 adults and 4 pre-teens into a Toyota Corolla and started over the mountain to Samana. On the way up, our driver insanely roared into scenic bypasses in order to pass other taxis, dump us off and try to get another round trip. On the way down the other side, he didn't have to worry about going slow -- his brakes were shot, and he put it in neutral and coasted down to save fuel.

In town, they hustled us onto old, wooden cabin cruisers needing paint, and ferried us across to an island with a beautiful beach. The "excursion" was to spend the day at the beach. They gave us a fried chicken lunch box as we were leaving the ship.

On the beach was every ragamuffin urchin in all of the Dominican Republic, hawking native "crafts". One of the most popular was a brown ash tray which the children claimed was hand-carved mahogany. My DW Betsy, softie that she is, bought one of the ash trays for $5 and thought she got a terrific bargain.

In the meantime, my 10-year-old (at the time) son traded a fried chicken drumstick for another of the ash trays, whch he and I soon discovered was actually a glazed ceramic rather than hand-carved wood. Soon, we met up with Betsy, who proudly showed off her "bargain". You can imagine the look on her face when Adam showed her the same ash tray, which he got for a chcken leg. When she dscovered t wasn't even wood, we all chalked it up to our first real lesson in cruise ship excursions.

The reason I went into all that detail, is because I recently looked up Samana in several different internet sites to see what had changed in 25 years. The answer is, not much. I doubt whether the Oceania ships still dock at the Chiquita Banana pier, but who knows? According to the references I found, the highlight of the town is still the small island off the city and its beach. Oceania doesn't have any ship-based excursions available for the port on our cruise.

The biggest reason many people go to Samana is for the whale watching. However, the whales usually don't appear until mid-January, through March. In addition to the beach island, there is a national park and some nice waterfalls.

I don't think there is much opportunity for shopping, and I didn't find any outstanding reasons to eat ashore.

Ironically, after being our very first port 25 years ago, it will be the bery last port on our latest cruise. If we never get to go on another, then Samana will have been the first and the last.

My plan for this cruise is to go ashore and wander around a bit, just so I can say I was there again. I may see if there are any fried drumsticks available in the buffet before I go ashore...