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Jewelry-ST Martin or St Thomas


sea_breaze

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Okay all of you shopaholics, I've just been informed I'm going to be dropping some money on a diamond ring on our upcoming trip.

 

Question is where would a cheapscate get his best deal? St Martin or St Thomas.

 

I know St Thomas has the reputation but it seems to me that I have read that in actuality St Martin has the best deals. Guessing I will want to stick with ship sponsored jewelers.

 

Thanks for your help.

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In our experience, by all means shop in St. Maarten.

 

 

All regular SXM visitors will have their favorite jewelers. I have to recommend our favorite shop; Shiva’s/Trident on Front Street, (and also in Aruba), who have the distinction of being one of only two Caribbean members of the Leading Jewelers of the World organization.

 

There is one member in St. Thomas, Magnum Jewelers, and then the Alwani Family's Shiva's/Trident stores in St. Maarten and Aruba.

 

We've been visiting St. Maarten since 1981, and dealing with the Alwani family, which owns both Shiva's and Trident, across from each other on Front Street, for well over 15 years. We really appreciate their attention, the selection and the great prices. They specialize in upscale pieces and larger diamonds, but have a great overall selection, especially in nice loose stones.

 

Your best tool is education. Learn about diamonds and other jewels for what makes a quality stone or setting. Learn about the ‘Four C’s’. Run down to your local jeweler before you leave and look at the items that you may be interested in buying. Learn all that you can about the pieces. Check what their price is when they have their “50% off” and the "we pay the sales tax" sales. Remember, no sales tax down island -- that by itself would save well over $100 on a $1500 purchase here in California.

 

When you get to SXM, visit the shops and price the items you checked out at home. Compare prices along Front Street, the service from the various shops, and how comfortable you feel with the sales staff. Also check out how cold their free beers are.

 

For us this means buying from Shiva's. If you go, be sure to ask for Gary and Mary Ann's special discount. Work with any of their crew, but ask if Ajay or Varkha are available for special treatment.

 

As for shopping at the 'ship sponsored' jewelers, consider this. Shops buy their way into the brochures, maps and recommendations. They pay a flat fee to be included, and then a percentage against sales. My understanding is that these fees can amount to well over $100,000 a year for a jeweler. Someone is paying for that.

 

p.s. Check out the Leading Jewelers website, linked above, or A Diamond is Forever, for a LOT of diamond information.

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We bought jewelry at Kay right off the pier. No relation to the Kay Jewelers in the malls.

 

Beautiful store - very good prices.

 

I would choose St. Maartin over St. Thomas for Jewelry any day.

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The short answer is 'probably'.

 

If you just want to upgrade the diamond in an existing piece, they will probably give you an allowance towards the new stone. This allowance may not be as high as you might hope, so consider having your old stone set into a new pendant or something.

 

If you're wanting to replace the existing piece, your setting probably isn't worth much to them, so they may or may not give you an allowance for it. Consider having them set a semi-precious stone in your existing setting.

 

That sounds like you might end up with three new pieces of jewelry.

 

Now if the original piece had been purchased from them, then your entire purchase price would be applied to your new piece.

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gtaylor, Are there any other stores that you trust??? How do you know that you are getting what you paid for??? Quality diamond, ect.?? Great tip on visiting other stores, we will do this? This will be my first diamond from DH so we don't want to make a mistake (25th wedding anniversary)!! Thanks for all your info!!

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Shiva’s is the only store where we’ve made any significant purchases for a long, long time. Of course, any time we’re shopping for anything pricey, we will check a number of other stores along Front Street, but we always end up back at Shiva’s. I guess we know that we’ve been getting what we paid for by the insurance appraisals that we have done when we get home, authenticating that what we have is what we thought we purchased. Actually, Shiva’s has a procedure for their higher end items that you can take the piece home and have it appraised before you commit to buying it. If you’re not comfortable with the appraisal, you can send it back. They’re the only shop on St. Maarten that offers that, as far as I know.

 

We (my wife, actually) usually know pretty much what we’re looking for before we go down, as you should attempt to do, as well, so you’re not too distracted by the thousands of variations that might be available. She also points out that my original comments were a cut and paste from a response to someone else, and is slanted towards someone who is on the island for a while and can take some time to comparison shop.

 

I hope that you’ve spent some time doing research at home and on the websites as I’ve recommended earlier in this thread. You really need to know something about diamonds, especially if you’re comparing pieces between different stores, as you must be comparing apples to apples. The carat weight is fairly simple, but not as simple as one might think. A stone just at 1.0 carats will probably be quite a bit much more expensive than a stone that is just under, like .96 carats, all other things being equal. The same thing happens at 2.0 carats. There’s usually a magical price jump at each of those levels, and at the corresponding half carat levels, as well. Carat weight .49, cheaper; weight .50, much more expensive.

 

You should know what difference it makes if a stone is a VS2 or a SI1 and if the color is claimed to be (it’s a bit subjective) an F or a G? And in the end, you have to like, no, love the stone. Does it have the flash and brilliance that you’re looking for?

 

Probably a most important idea is to have a price point and stick to it! You can approach the great values in St. Maarten as either ‘I can get a better stone than I thought’ or as ‘I don’t have to pay as much for the stone that I want’. I suggest you consider which approach you’ll take before you get there. Maybe if you have some money left over you can get some matching earrings!

 

All that said, a stone with a certificate from an accredited organization, like GIA, is probably better than one without. Any stone of significant price should come with one. Ask to see it before you buy. An appraisal from the jeweler himself might work for insuring the stone, but the certificate will tell you what the stone really is. That’s what you can compare.

Happy shopping, and enjoy St. Maarten.

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  • 1 month later...

I work for a very reputable bench jeweler in Florida and have been selling jewelry for many years and I highly recommend you think twice about the jewelry you purchase on these islands. The prices are no where near as good as people think they are and the quality often is terrible. We often have to deal with customers who are so dissappointed when there tanzanite or diamond piece has stones falling out, broken prongs, can't be sized,etc. Even when they send it back they pay shipping costs and are often left to settle for another piece of jewelry they didn't really want. I have seen such things as invisible set diamond rings that look beautiful and when the stones start falling out we have to tell the customer they were glued in!

If you do purchase on the islands try to do some price shopping at home first, it might be worth a few extra $ to be able to deal with a local merchant if you have any problems.

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I work for a very reputable bench jeweler in Florida and have been selling jewelry for many years and I highly recommend you think twice about the jewelry you purchase on these islands. The prices are no where near as good as people think they are and the quality often is terrible. We often have to deal with customers who are so dissappointed when there tanzanite or diamond piece has stones falling out, broken prongs, can't be sized,etc. Even when they send it back they pay shipping costs and are often left to settle for another piece of jewelry they didn't really want. I have seen such things as invisible set diamond rings that look beautiful and when the stones start falling out we have to tell the customer they were glued in!

If you do purchase on the islands try to do some price shopping at home first, it might be worth a few extra $ to be able to deal with a local merchant if you have any problems.

 

Have you ever shopped in any of the better jewelry stores in St. Maarten? I would suspect that the answer is 'no'.

 

gary

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I have shopped and purchased in the better jewelry stores in St. Thomas,not in St. Maarten. I made sure the piece I purchased was well made because I have the training to do so. I knew that the price I paid was a good one(not a great one)and I bought the piece because it was very pretty and I had not seen a similiar piece at home, not because it was cheap.

The customers who have brought us in their problem purchases from the islands for repairs are all fairly affluent frequent cruisers. Most of the jewelry they have purchased is expensive jewelry bought from cruise line recommended high end jewelry stores. These are not $99 diamond earrings, but slides, bracelets,earrings,rings, usually in diamonds or tanzanite, being bought at $500 and much higher price points.

All I am saying is keep in mind you cannot jump in your car and run down to the store if you have a problem with jewelry purchased so far away. And do your price homework because I did not find things to be as well priced as people think it is.

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I was in St. Thomas and St. Maarten during a cruise two weeks ago. My boyfriend and I were getting engaged so we decided to go to Diamonds International in St. Thomas after Carnival Cruise Line highly recommended them. We purchased an engagement ring with the matching band that came with it and it was damaged during the sizing. I spotted that the diamond was chipped when we got back on board and took it to the port shopping desk. He recommended that I go to the Diamonds International in St. Maarten which was the next day. They "upgraded" the ring to the same style but said it was a better color and charged us even more money which I agreed to. I just got an appraisal performed by a gem lab by my house today and turns out they more than doubled the price on what it is worth and after saying it was S2 diamonds, turns out they are all I2 to I3 with holes in them in numerous spots. Diamonds International will only exchange it if you spend more than double what you originally spent and even Carnival's "Shopper's Gurantee" won't help us. Please avoid this company. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do?? Thank you!

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I don't understand why Carnival's Shoppers' Guarantee doesn't apply here if you purchased from a ship recommended shop.

 

Could you provide us with any more information? Are you sure that you were at the right store?

 

There are many "Diamonds XXXXXXXXXXXXX" shops around the islands with very similar names.

 

Did the St. Maarten store acknowledge a relationship with the original store on St. Thomas?

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The one thing you can be assured of when purchasing from a "ship recommended shop" is that the cruiseline will get the kickback. You don't think a person who doesn't even work for the ship is pushing those merchants for FREE???? It's just another money making scheme.

 

That's why the merchant asks is "are you on a cruiseship"? They need to know which ship so they can keep track of the kickback $$$. You'll get a lower price if you tell them NO, I'm staying on the island at XYZ resort.

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We were definitely at the right Diamonds International both in St. Thomas and St. Maarten. The guy who was in charge of port shopping on the Carnival Valor was in the first store hanging out all day and answering questions and he was the one that circled the Diamonds International on the St. Maarten map which was only a few stores off the ship when he told us where to go to get it looked at after I saw that chip. That store agreed the ring was damaged and could not be repaired and that's when they took the more expensive one out saying it was a much better quality ring than the first one. Carnival's shoppers guarantee only works towards repairs or exchanges (which you have to spend more than double the original price in order for that to work), not getting your money back for being ripped off. It's unbelievable that they can lie about the merchandise and get away with it. We got ripped off a few thousand dollars and they have ruined what should be a happy time for us. I feel so stupid. I should never have trusted this supposidly world reknowned company and Carnival's "Guarantee".

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Try getting something fixed after you get back home. After all the song and dance they'll tell you need to send it back to the shopper's huckster ON THE SHIP! Yeah right, ever try it? You'll have more luck placing the goods in a bottle labeled with the ship's name and throw it in the ocean. :mad:

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I did a little research and discovered that many of Carnival's Recommended Shopping stores are overseen by PPI Fleet Services.

 

Contact information:

 

PPI Fleet Services

4517 N.W. 31st Avenue

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309-3403

Telephone: 1-888-774-4768

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Thanks for the information gtaylor. I really appreciate it. I'm going to try contacting them since the company that Carnival sent me to was Starboard Services in Miami. Most people are recommending I go through the credit card company since we haven't even been billed for it yet. Hopefully that works. Has anyone ever tried something like that? Thanks!

 

Susan

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I guess that I didn't 'Submit Reply' after I did my final edit and 'Preview Post', because I had added the following.

 

From their website:

 

The PPI Group currently manages Port Shopping programs for Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Sea Dream Yacht Club, Costa Cruises, Windstar Cruises and Radisson Seven Seas Cruises.

 

There's also a Customer Service Form there.

 

gary

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This is exactly the type of thing I am talking about, I hear these stories all the time. Most people don't notice things like your chip as quickly as you did,but bring the jewelry to their local jeweler to check out. We have to tell them its damaged, the setting is cracked, the stones are glued in,etc. I am sorry this happened to you and wish I knew a way to help. Once again, it is really good advice to think twice about expensive jewelry purchases on the islands!

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