Celebrity Summit - Southern Caribbean Excursions

Hi Everyone,

If you've been on any Summit Southern Caribbean excursions, can you let me know which ones you enjoyed and which ones you didn't? If you didn't go on them but heard something about them, that is still helpful.

Each location has so many options, and I'm having trouble figuring out which to pick. Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

 

 

 

If you've been on any Summit Southern Caribbean excursions, can you let me know which ones you enjoyed and which ones you didn't? If you didn't go on them but heard something about them, that is still helpful.

 

 

 

Each location has so many options, and I'm having trouble figuring out which to pick. Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

What islands are you going to? That will help.

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Just off the Summit.

If you are going to Grenada check out Cutty on the Ports of Call - Caribbean and/or Trip Advisor. He did a very comprehensive tour which everyone enjoyed.

In Barbados we used Sun Tours also recommended on the Ports of Call - Caribbean threads.

As you are new to Cruise Critic, please join the Roll Call for your sailing. You will find other passengers with a wealth of information on the ship, ports and excursions.

Enjoy the Summit and with great luck you will sail with Capt. Kate.

Hi Everyone,

 

If you've been on any Summit Southern Caribbean excursions, can you let me know which ones you enjoyed and which ones you didn't? If you didn't go on them but heard something about them, that is still helpful.

 

Each location has so many options, and I'm having trouble figuring out which to pick. Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

There are alternating itineraries so more information is needed about which ports you are visiting.

Variety in excursions is, to us, key to making a great cruise no matter where it is. We tend to do some sort of island tour one day, a boat ride another, a focus on a town walking tour and local lunch another day, a beach day....

If you click onto Celebrity excursions to find out examples of what types of trips you can do on each island in the first instance that will give you a starting point. As someone else has suggested you could join your roll call to book private tours. In some ports you can simply get in a taxi or just get off the ship and enjoy walking around the port...no excursion necessary!

Have a great cruise!

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

We will be heading to San Juan, St Thomas, Grenada, Barbados, Martinique, and Saint Kitts.

The roll call idea sounds great! And yes, it's nice to have variety for the trip as a whole, but because each location has 20 options, it's overwhelming to decide what to do for each one.

Appreciate any additional information!

We have done several cruises to southern Caribbean on the Summit. My recommendations are:

St Kitts: cruise ship excursion swimming with dolphins was experience of a lifetime

Grenada: Spice tour

Barbados: Harrison's Cave if you like sightsseing stuff or Calabazza catamaran (privately booked)

We've done several southern Caribbean cruises, and you're right, the choices for excursions are many and varied. But recommending excursions without knowing your preferences is frankly pointless and could be a waste of your time and mine.

When going to new places, the first things I do is check out what the ship is offering, and then look them up on both the Ports of Call forum and TripAdvisor. These give an excellent idea of what is particularly interesting on each island. They usually also have pretty good reviews for independent tour operators or suggestions for independent sight seeing. And then I can pick what appeals most to us.

The only time we take a ship excursion is if we can't find a similar one from an independent outfit. The ship excursions are almost always more expensive and have much larger groups.

Asking questions on your roll call is a good way to get advice, providing the roll call is an active one.

We were on the Summit in November and did Karambole in Martinique. Christelle does an excellent job, is fully fluent in English and communicates very well. I found them both on CC and on TA. I can't say enough good things! Enjoy!

Loved the Segway tour in St. Lucia, not so much the Catamaran to Nevis with bbq lunch in St. Kitts. The catamaran was ok, the staff was fantastic but it was a looooong ride to a very ugly beach.

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Thanks again for the suggestions. I think we're leaning towards the ship excursions because we're concerned with getting stuck in traffic or something and then not making it back to the ship.

In terms of things I'd like to do, I'd say 1. Checking out nice beaches 2. Animal-related snorkeling (turtles, sting rays, dolphins etc) 3. Seeing something beautiful/unique to the island (Harrison's cave, spice factory etc.) 4. Exploring the local towns.

Hopefully that gives some direction. I guess I'm just curious about which excursions are flops (i.e. you drive for 2 hours to spend 5 mins with a sting ray or something like that) and which were really great or must-do's for the locations. Also, if each stop has a dolphin tour (for example), which location has the best one etc.

Not expecting to get all of my questions answered, but so far I'm getting good advice! :)

We have done several cruises to southern Caribbean on the Summit. My recommendations are:

 

St Kitts: cruise ship excursion swimming with dolphins was experience of a lifetime

Grenada: Spice tour

Barbados: Harrison's Cave if you like sightsseing stuff or Calabazza catamaran (privately booked)

Our best tip regarding Catamarans is this: Do the private ones that limit guests to 12 or so, versus the ship sponsored ones that load 45 to 50 people on a "catamaran".

On Barbardos, Calabazza and Silver Moon are nice examples, we had an excellent time on Silver Moon and the fishlife during snorkeling was extraordinary and we got lucky with visiting Sea Turtles. Everything is easier with twelve and the food is better because the crewhands are NOT preparing large quantities. We looked across at the jammed pack larger Cats and realized we made the right choice. The private cats will cost a bit more but they are totally worth it.

Follow other posters advice and look at the Roll Calls and look at the Port descriptions for some good ideas. If you insist on doing ship sponsored excursions, we usually find that you get what you pay for, that is the higher priced cruise ship excursions are better than the lower priced ones.

St. Thomas: ship tour to St. John, then walked to Saloman and Honeymoon beach-- used tour for transportation

St.Kitts: Greg's Safaris, booked off ship, took 4 by 4 drive then an easy rainforest hike. Nice contrast to beach days

Barbados: Calabazza was the best excursion on our first cruise, we did Harrison's Cave with Glory Tours the next time but would not recommend because they cut our return to the ship a little to close for my comfort

If you ever get to St. Maarten, try Soualiga boat tours-- loved it so much we did it two years in a row