Carnival Liberty Caribbean Help!

My fiance and I will be going on the Carnival Liberty for a 7 day cruise out of San Juan on June 21. We are in our mid-late twenties and have cruised once on Carnival to the Eastern Caribbean. We will be going to St Thomas, St Kitts (apparently it will be Antigua or Dominica now), St Lucia, St Martin and Barbados. We love the beach and relaxing with drinks. We loved Half Moon Cay and Grand Turk. We would also love to go on one or two must do tours. We want to avoid taking ferries to other islands for sake of time. We are looking for suggestions for these islands! We are open to anything. Has anyone been to these islands and can recommend great beaches/bars/tours/etc? We will be at each place 8 am to 5 pm. Thanks so much!

At St Martin

Hop off the ship and head to the taxi stand. $8 per to Orient Beach.

Enjoy

You should be going to St Kitts. They are starting to go this coming week. They made arrangements for tug boats. Look up all the ports of call. You will get ideas for each place there.

Great! Thanks so much! I am researching those ports now! I will look into Orient Beach!

On St. Maarten I'd head to Maho Beach...but that's just me.

We will be on the same cruise! We are also having a hard time deciding what to do, hope to get some ideas here too.

I suggest you also take a look at the ports of call board under Caribbean, you will find each island listed there and many many recommendations for tours, beaches, restaurants, bars etc from cruisers from all cruise lines. So you will find a multitude of suggestions and recommendations there. Have a great cruise:)

We did this itinerary back in January. I'll just list what we did.

St. Thomas - AM: Taxi to Magens Bay Beach, PM: Stop at Mountain Top and walking/shopping Main Street and Havensight.

Barbados - beach day at The Boatyard

St. Lucia - Aanansi ATV excursion

St. Kitts - beach day at Carambola Beach Club.

St. Marteen - walking/water-taxi and shopping.

St. Marteen we loved Coki Beach. We had been to Megans Bay Beach 3 times and it was time for a change and I am glad we did. the snorkeling is awesome.

Having just done this cruise, you can hop off the ship and get a taxi to take you to any beach no problem. Most (all of ours did) will ask you for a pick up time. We even had one that didn't take payment until we were back at the ship.

I would also highly recommend Maho beach in St Maarten.

St Thomas - quick cab to Morningside Marriott, lounger & umbrella rents for $25.

Barbados - snorkel with turtles

St Lucia - snorkel under the Pitons or go volcano @ Souffriere

St Kitts - Carambola or Friars Beach; or catamaran to Nevis

St Maarten - Orient Beach.

Check out the Port of Call Boards!

Here's a link to a fabulous review (still-in-progress) ~ http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2195716

Got some great ideas from this review! Enjoy and post some pics when you get back for those of us with dreadful countdowns :D

Yeah, check out my review! The previous poster is talking about mine :)

In all seriousness, my husband and I just did this cruise a few weeks ago. We are 26 and 28 and sound like we enjoy the same things.

To sum it up for us:

Sapphire Beach in St Thomas

Calabaza Catamaran tour (snorkel with turtles) in Barbados

Spencer Ambrose's Land, Sea and Beach tour in St Lucia

We had to go to Dominica, but we were booked with Thenford Grey in St Kitts (Brimstone fortress, Batik, tour of island, few hours at the beach)

Orient Beach in St Maarten

Yeah, check out my review! The previous poster is talking about mine :)

 

In all seriousness, my husband and I just did this cruise a few weeks ago. We are 26 and 28 and sound like we enjoy the same things.

 

To sum it up for us:

 

Sapphire Beach in St Thomas

Calabaza Catamaran tour (snorkel with turtles) in Barbados

Spencer Ambrose's Land, Sea and Beach tour in St Lucia

We had to go to Dominica, but we were booked with Thenford Grey in St Kitts (Brimstone fortress, Batik, tour of island, few hours at the beach)

Orient Beach in St Maarten

That is a great review, good job. Somehow I missed it the first time but a lot of info on the ports with some really good pics.

Thank you everyone for your help!! I was definitely interested in swimming with turtles somewhere - maybe Barbados is that place! Are there little snack shops/places to grab drinks at the beaches listed above - Sapphire, Maho, etc?

Try Bernard's tours in St. Maarten, great tour that takes you to Orient and Maho beaches with drinks included. In St. Kitts take a tour with Royston.

Thank you everyone for feedback! We will look into all of the options. Any major difference between Maho and Orient beach? Coki and Sapphire?

I just answered a very similar question for someone else. :) We did this same itinerary out of San Juan two years ago on Carnival Valor and it is, by far, our favorite and am looking forward to the say that we can do it again.

To answer your question where there are places where drinks are available at Sapphire Beach in St. Thomas - yes. There are even bar waiters who walk the beach. We've never been to Coki Beach, only Sapphire, so I can't compare the two for you. We chose Sapphire since I'd read that Coki tends to get crowded. There were others at Sapphire but it never felt crowded. Easy to get a cab back to the ship as well. Swimming with the turtles, definitely Barbados.

I don't really have much advice to offer since there is so much to see and do, but if I have to make a recommendation it would be to book a tour of some kind, either through Carnival, or an outside tour company, in St. Lucia. Also, if I were doing it again (and will, one of these days), I'd definitely do some island touring in St. Kitts. We just went to the beach while on our cruise but I've seen pictures in reviews from some of the island tours and am kicking myself for not doing that. There are many for a very reasonable price. Since St. Kitts is a smaller island and you're there till 6PM, there is plenty of time if you'd want and island tour and some time at the beach to do both. With the exception of St. Lucia, it's easy to grab a cab to a beach or other sites on your own. The "Ports of Call" threads are also very helpful in getting ideas of what to do in each of the ports. With this itinerary there is so much to see and do and there is something for everyone: beaches, snorkeling, island tours, historical, active tours, etc., etc.

I did a review of our Valor cruise with a ton of pictures and the link to that is in my signature if you're looking for ideas or just want to see pictures. We were also on Liberty last year on a western Caribbean cruise...beautiful ship.

This is what we did on our cruise:

St. Thomas: Sapphire Beach. Wanted to do Skyride to Paradise Point, but it was temporarily closed for a couple months, starting a week before our cruise. Grrrr... Reasons: road widening project and building was being refurbished.

Barbados: Just grabbed a cab to Barbados Hilton with others for a beach day.

St. Lucia: Spencer Ambrose's "Jalousie Beach Break"

St. Kitts: Took a cab to Cockleshell Beach

St. Martin: Spent the day in Pinel Island (off coast of Orient Beach) but used private tour company for that since it can be hard to get a cab from where you get a ferry to the island since it's not a popular destination...yet. Beautiful though.

Double post - please disregard. Tried to edit "say" in first sentence to "day".

Thank you everyone for feedback! We will look into all of the options. Any major difference between Maho and Orient beach? Coki and Sapphire?

Maho is a fairly narrow and crowded beach, best for watching the planes arrive. Orient is still one of my favorite beaches, however I think it depends on how many ships are in port with you. One end of Orient is clothing optional and there are lots of restaurants and bars along the beach. When we there the water was very calm, however my aunt was there last month and said it was so rough they couldn't go in the water.

WOW - lots of different ideas!

For nice beaches with drinks we'd choose Sapphire Beach on STT, much less crowded than Coki or Magens and lots of natural shade and gorgeous water colors and island views. Banana Cabana has an excellent mahi mahi sandwich that you can share, and th Dive In shop has the cheapest beers and rum punches. Also one of the best snorkeling beaches with nice coral and a seagrass area where you may find sea turtles and rays.

For St Maarten we'd avoid Orient Beach (stayed there and it's like being on the ship when ships are in port) and Maho (very crowded and not that nice) and taxi to Marigot for a nice lunch then hot one of the nicer beaches along the way back.

Barbados has some of the nicest beaches in the Carib. But if you're looking for more activity the cat sail with turtles is it.

St Kitts is all about beaches, while St Lucia has a great excursion with a jungle ATV tour and cat sail back.

And if you hit Antigua 2 excellent options depending on your mood - The Excellence cat is one of our favorites in the Carib (along with the Golden Eagle in SXM), and Lawrence of Antigua gives very nice island tours, either private or as a group.

Busy cruise but one of our favs - enjoy! :)

What would you say is our best bet for beach in St Kitts? We would like to have maybe a bar, place for lunch, restrooms etc as well. TIA!

What would you say is our best bet for beach in St Kitts? We would like to have maybe a bar, place for lunch, restrooms etc as well. TIA!

Reggae Beach Bar on Cockleshell Beach, Shipwreck, or Mr X's Shiggidy Shack which is the main beach bar on the strip on South Frigate Beach. The latter is world famous and there are other bars there to enjoy, this is where many of your fellow passengers will go too so consider that

mrxshiggidyshack.com

Or take the ferry or better yet the cat sail to Nevis and enjoy an excellent lunch and fun vibe at Sunshine's on Pinneys Beach, not as many fellow passengers there.

Okay, I have to disagree with blue again. St Kitts is full of history. The French and English fought over it for years. A trip to Brimstone Hill, the spectacular fort, is great fun.

And on St Lucia, a trip to the southern part of the island to see the Pitons, hike Tet Paul, go to the sulphur springs, etc. is fun.

The east coast of Barbados is wild and wooly with fascinating rock formations.

I guess I have to qualify all this by saying I am not a big sit-on-the-beach person, and prefer to see the unique features of each island...St Martin and St Thomas are more beach destinations IMHO.

My fiance and I will be going on the Carnival Liberty for a 7 day cruise out of San Juan on June 21. We are in our mid-late twenties and have cruised once on Carnival to the Eastern Caribbean. We will be going to St Thomas, St Kitts (apparently it will be Antigua or Dominica now), St Lucia, St Martin and Barbados. We love the beach and relaxing with drinks. We loved Half Moon Cay and Grand Turk. We would also love to go on one or two must do tours. We want to avoid taking ferries to other islands for sake of time. We are looking for suggestions for these islands! We are open to anything. Has anyone been to these islands and can recommend great beaches/bars/tours/etc? We will be at each place 8 am to 5 pm. Thanks so much!

Where did you hear St Kitts is canceled? I'm on the same cruise as you! :)