excursions - southern caribbean

[torqueathletics]

I am taking the Enchantment of the Seas 12 day cruise in April with stops in Labadee, San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. John's and Tortola. I've been most of these ports at some point in the past but really am having a tough time figuring out what to do. My wife hasn't been to any of these places and her only cruise being a short 4 day Bahamas cruise on the Majesty. We did a snorkeling trip and it was far from what I was hoping the experience could have been, fun but not as much wow factor as I've experienced in the past.

being her second cruise and our honeymoon I want it to be as memorable as possible. She has mentioned the zip line, a boat cruise/beach/snorkel trip, ATV excursion, hike....most ports seem to have most of these if anyone has a recommendation that would be great.

[cruiseguy4567]

Just got off Enchantment and did the ship based excursions.

San Juan- did the bus tour. Pretty boring and uninformative. Pretty much what we heard from anyone who did it. Only redeeming part of it was seeing the fort, but had only 40 minutes to see it.

Labadee- did the water park/roller coaster - not worth it. Also did the jet skis which was a blast. The zip line they have looks amazing. Very long and ends by going over the water. People who did it loved it.

St. Thomas - snorkeling on Castaway Girl. Excellent. Took us to a reef with a shipwreck and spent at least a half hour snorkeling. Crew was fun and very safe. Don't know why your previous snorkeling experience wasn't what you expected, but they took us on a 15 minute trip to the reef on a catamaran and gave us a quick talk, snorkeled and saw some great stuff, and took a slow ride back. Decent music and awesome sights, was a good excursion. Only drawback was we were to get free rum punch. They just forgot to add the rum.....

Hope this helps a little.

[Pomperaugrr]

I highly recommend Pinel Island while you are in St. Marteen. It was beautiful. Take a taxi to the ferry landing and arrange to have them pick you back up at a pre-arranged time. The ferries (12-18 passenger open boats) run at 30 minute intervals.

Eric

[smacksgirl11]

San Juan - Not sure about any tours but have just done on our own and checked out the forts and town of Old San Juan.

St Thomas - Love Magans Bay! Very pretty beach

St Maarten - Check out Bernards Tours, you can see the entire island. Including Orient Beach, Marigot, Maho Beach, Phillipsburg. A lot of fun

St Johns - Trunk Bay

Labadee - The zip line is fun, it will last about an hour and half. Honestly we have done zipling in other ports that was much better. But the one in Labadee was fun to do once

Tortola - Virgin Gorda Baths

Have a great cruise

[sr4mjc]

Tortola - Virgin Gorda baths. Nothing more memorable.

I posted two pics here

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1797317

[OCruisers]

In addition to the good information above you would probably also enjoy going to the Ports of Call section here on CC and checking under each of your port stops.
There you'll find lots of good information from others and what they enjoyed.

LuLu
~~~

[torqueathletics]

thank you! you guys are awesome!

[Galaxa]

In San Juan the best thing to do is the fort and the castle ( El Morro and San Cristobal) they are close to each other and a walking distance from the pier.

In St Thomas we always enjoy the ride to Paradise Point (the view and Baileys Bushwacker are amazing).
The other fun thing to do is Coral World, but don't take a ship excursion as you do not stay long enough. We took a cab.

In St Maarten we rent a car and drive around, there is the butterfly farm and lots of nice beaches and Marigot on the French side is a nice little town with a nice market.

Hope this helps.

[Sequim88]

St. Maarten - can't recommend Maho Beach highly enough. Fence riding behind a 767 is a blast. Easy cab ride except chances of traffic jam on the hill so allow plenty of time to get back to the ship. There's a daily KLM 747 around 2-3pm that makes for great pictures of it landing.

The Baths at Virgin Gorda are awesome.

San Juan - Old San Juan can easily be toured on own by foot for both forts and the rest of that part of town. Plenty to do without paying for excursion. Surprise find for us - Capilla del Cristo - an interesting little chapel and adjacent Parque de las Palomas (Pigeon Park). Video

[blonde1981]

I like both Magen's Beach and Sapphire Beach in St. Thomas.

San Juan - toured the rainforest. It was ok but disappointing as there isn't much wildlife in the forest to look for.

St. Maarten - we did the tour that took us to a resort with a beach. Included food (sandwiches) and hot beer (or rum punch - too sweet). Beach was nice but I didn't find it to be worth the money we paid.

[erniesband]

I'm assuming that St Johns is St John Antigua where I'll recommend any of the tours offered by Adventure Antigua. www.adventureantigua.com
The daysail on Ocean Nomad would be prefect for a honeymoon, they only take six people, sailing from Jolly Harbor to Carlisle Bay, snorkeling time, a great lunch on board and sailing back to Jolly Harbor.