Is the carnival tour "really" that bad???

I have a lot of giftcards stashed up and can and have booked additional cruises, plus my room on this cruise will already be pre-stocked with tons of goodies and I still have plenty left so I am looking into the carnival shore excursions.

On a side note, we have never been to St Lucia and we do not really mind the crowds of the cruise sponsored excursions. I have read about the independent companies and how great they are and how they supposedly get "much better views" and get "much closer" to the Pitons and other things. Then on the other hand I have read various reviews from those that took the carnival tour and there are many who were just generally mentioning things about the tour and stated how they kept on meeting up with other tour groups. So that is quite a bit of conflicting info if the carnival tour really is that "bad".

The carnival tour I am speaking of is the land and sea combo tour, which sounds very, very similar to what the highest rated independents are offering. So, all this rambling being said, how many of you have actually done BOTH an independent AND the carnival tour and how much different could both possibly be?

I'm just looking at it and from what I am reading this is no way they can really be that different other than the crowds, and since I have the carnival giftcards it would basically be "free" for the 2 of us, which of course is hard to pass up!

Has anyone out there actually done both, or have an opinion on how "bad" this carnival tour really is compared to one of the highly rated independents?

Oh, and another side note, we are the type of travelers that have a great time no matter what we do, never are in the guest services line complaining about things, enjoy life, always smiling, and pretty much happy with everything :)

Thanks!

I can't speak to your tour specifically but our first time to St. Lucia we did a Carnival excursion for Segways, land tour and beach time. It was BLAST. I'd do it again today in a heartbeat.

St. Lucia is our favorite island and we've been to a lot. I do recommend that you do something that gets you a good feel for the place. The people here are like none other.

I believe we did this tour through carnival, it was a few years ago. It was a crowded catamaran that motored, never put up sails. The beach was secluded at the bottom of the Pitons, small, yet cool. You had to swim to shore, only for a minute or two.

As always, private tours are cheaper, less crowded and better because of that, but we enjoyed ourselves. for free I would book it and not look back. It was not something I regretted and enjoyed myself.