St. Kitts and St. Maarten Shore Excursions

My husband and I are going on our first cruise in April, on the Celebrity Eclipse. I've been looking over the various excursions, and wanted to find out what the top 2 or 3 for St. Maarten and St. Kitts would be. We are interested more in the beach and/or boating. May be interested in a tour, if the beach is included at some point. Any recommendations for can't miss excursions? Thanks!

I'd suggest you post your question on the Caribbean forum of the shore excursions forum. Or use the search function on that forum.

We are doing the catamaran in St. Kitts - snorkelling and bbq on a private beach -

We are still up in the air regarding St. Maarten - may do a guided tour over to Marigot and then either shop in Phillipsburg in the afternoon or go to the beach - all the beaches are public and from what I've been reading on the boards, you can rent a beach chair cheap and beer is cheap as well.

Definately looking forward to the catamaran, we did this in Mexico and was great fun. I don't snorkel, but my hubby loves it. I don't care to actually "see the fishies", they kinda creep me out - but I will go for a swim.

My husband and I are going on our first cruise in April, on the Celebrity Eclipse. I've been looking over the various excursions, and wanted to find out what the top 2 or 3 for St. Maarten and St. Kitts would be. We are interested more in the beach and/or boating. May be interested in a tour, if the beach is included at some point. Any recommendations for can't miss excursions? Thanks!

St Kitts...take a walk around town first..get out of the shopping area and go downtown. It is a short walk off the pier. Brasseterres is a cute little town...nice shops..nice restaurants and don't miss photo ops with Little Ben in the center of town. After that, grab a cab from downtown to Cockleshell beach. It is about $25 EACH way. Arrange for your driver to pick you up at a designated time for your return to the ship. Look for monkeys on the way out to the beach. Once at the beach, you can rent chairs for something like $5 for the day. Take a walk down the beach to see Wilbur the Pig. He is a HUGE sleepy pig....famous for being so big. Views of Nevis from the beach are quite stunning too. Have a great day!

My husband and I are going on our first cruise in April, on the Celebrity Eclipse. I've been looking over the various excursions, and wanted to find out what the top 2 or 3 for St. Maarten and St. Kitts would be. We are interested more in the beach and/or boating. May be interested in a tour, if the beach is included at some point. Any recommendations for can't miss excursions? Thanks!

DW and I visited both islands on B2B on RCI Serenade OTS in Jan 2010. We enjoy using ship excursions but also enjoy doing island tours using local guides and also doing things on our own if we feel comfortable on the island.

From reading some CC posts we found that many posters enjoyed Thenford Grey's Island Tour on St. Kitts (see his web site for info).

He shows you all the highlights of the island in his A/C (yay!) van including Brimstone Hill Fortress, Romney Manor, Sir Timothy's Hill (where the Atlantic is on the left and the Caribbean is on the right, truly amazing) and Cockleshell Beach. All at a very resonable price. Thenford is a very erudite guy. You will learn a lot from him.

On St. Maarten we took a quiet day and headed to the Divi Little Bay Beach Resort. It's a fixed $4 p/p each way taxi ride from the pier.

As was mentioned all beaches son St. Maarten are public so they have to allow you accesss to their property to get to the beach. It's a nice quiet

family friendly beach where you will not have to worry about unwanted anatomical scenery a la Orient Beach. Beach chairs and umbrellas available

for a fee. DW like that rest rooms were available. Food shack available. Depending on the time bar may be open.

Some people like to head to Maho Beach in the afternoon to watch the international arrival planes landing. I live 10 miles from an airport so it's no big deal to me.

Enjoy your cruise.

We loved tours with Royston in St. Kitts and Joyce Prince in St. Martin. Both will include your interests.

Happy Sails to You

OOOEEE :D:D Bob and Phyl

We used Bernard's tours in St. Maarten. It was an excellent excursion and well worth the money. The cost is $40 pp and includes your transportation and free rum punch, local beers and soda and water. You will stop at Maho beach where you see the huge planes land right over your head and stop for some shopping and a couple of photo ops and 2 hours beach time at Orient beach, which is one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever been to.

http://www.bernardstours.com/interest.htm

We've done Bernard's tours twice in St. Martin. Great day for a reasonable price. For $50 per person you can do a private tour with him for the day and customize your plans for the day.

We used Bernard's tours in St. Maarten. It was an excellent excursion and well worth the money. The cost is $40 pp and includes your transportation and free rum punch, local beers and soda and water. You will stop at Maho beach where you see the huge planes land right over your head and stop for some shopping and a couple of photo ops and 2 hours beach time at Orient beach, which is one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever been to.

 

http://www.bernardstours.com/interest.htm

 

 

 

Nice shots..

what beach is shown in the second (middle) picture? We went to Orient beach this yr on a nice excursion--lunch included...but it was very windy & the water was way too rough to enjoy...

as our ship sailed away from St Maarten , we passed some beaches & the area by the airport--seems to be nice beaches around that side.. is that where Divi is? is the water calm for swimming? what else is on that side besides the airport?? also saw some nice sailboats , moored & maybe low rise condos??

Thanks

we lookng for something diff from the usual trips to mariogot & orient

One of my all time favorite cruise line excursions in the Fan-ta-sea Catamaran sailing in St. Kitts. We've been on this 5 times and always have fun. It includes some scenic sailing along the St. Kitt's, decent snorkeling, and a beach stop which is usually on Nevis but sometimes on St. Kitts. Usually they serve a BBQ lunch on the beach but sometimes it is on the catamaran. Lots of fun - I have pictures from each trip on our photo site: March 2004 - February 2007 - March 2007 - March 2009 March 2010

In St. Martin we almost always just hop in a taxi and head to the beach for swimming, relaxing and lunch before or after some shopping downtown. There is actually a nice looking beach downtown (you can see it from the ship) and it is a great place to hang out although we've never swam there and I hear the swimming isn't as nice as some of the other beaches. We usually go to Orient beach but there are lots of nice ones - check out the St. Martin port of call forum for more info: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=93

Just returned from these islands. Of course everyone had different interests but we had a great time on this itinerary:

Old San Juan- since the ship docks right in the old scenic downtown you can walk to shops, cathedral and El Morro fort that you will see on Port side as you enter. There is a free welcome center (free drink also) just to the left of the pier and a free trolley that goes all over and is esy to use. No need to book any tour IMO.

St. Marteen- you can walk wasily to town where there is great shopping and a beach. Beers are a buck a can from many vendors and the people are super friendly. Although we have enjoyed tours years ago this was a relaxing low cost day (except for wifes shopping)

St. Kitts- we walked around town and then booked a four hour van tour with Socrates who is a member of the Island's tour group. This was in the welcoming area right off of the ship. The cost was 20 per person (8 person AC van) and well worth it. When we initially got off the ship we were quoted more (30) so this pricing may be a function of filling up vans as needed. We were going to do the day pass at the Marriott but it was a bit cloudy and the tour (Brimstone, Romney, black rocks) was fantastic and Socrates was a wonderful host.

If you're interested in beach time , you have two real winners on your hands.

The Marriott on St Kitt's is fabulous and very cruiser friendly (see my other posts by searching for Marriott St kitts), and St Martin has one of the finest beaches in the world at Orient Bay. Both are inexpensive cab rides from the

pier and are well worth it.........A teaser from the Marriott.......free lounge

chairs and gazebo and an hour beach massage for $35....doesn't get much better.

We did a tour on St Kitts with Thenford. Nothing wrong with him or his services (he was very nice, knowledgeable, nice car) but Cockelshell beach is not a very nice beach! Lots of seaweed.. no facilities unless you pay for chairs, etc. I normally wouldn't complain of this, but we felt we didn't have a choice of where to go. Perhaps Thenford got money from the beach chair/bar company. Marriott St. Kitts would be a better choice next time. The water is rough there in the sea, but BEAUTIFUL! So SO SO much closer to the ship.

Re: St. Maarten. We enjoyed our time in Marigot when we did Bernard's tour (nice guy) but we felt we could have spent the day at Maho Beach (yes, the DAY, it's gorgeous and highly entertaining) or gone to the Beach in town (Philipsburg). If we did that, we could have taken water taxi to Marigot all we wanted! The food at Rosemary's has been approved by Anthony Bourdain and it was great!

anyone done the train ride on St. Kitts?

anyone done the train ride on St. Kitts?

Yes. It was raining, so maybe that affected our perceptions, but once you've seen one field of sugarcane in the pouring rain, you've seen them all. The bus ride to the train depot was very interesting though. The train only goes half way around the island, so you either take a short ride to the station in town, then the long ride back after the train trip, or vice versa.

Kathy

We are just back from the Solstice in February and did Thenford Grey and Barnard's tours. We were pleased with both for content and value. Both tours used A/C vans, and allowed input from the guests as to the duration of the various venues. If you are just interested in a beach break, I wouldn't do a tour, just get a taxi and go to one of the beaches mentioned above, but if you want to learn more about the island, history, culture, etc. a tour might be your cup of tea (or java).

First - we have not yet gone to St. Kitts - though from research it is again - a small island.... and about the same basic features. We have been told to take a taxi type tour and hit the main spots and then spend some time at the beach.... we were given the name of a gentleman that comes highly rated and we have corresponded with him by email and are all set. We return on April 8th and will gladly send a note thereafter if that time table would work for you.

Now - St. Maarten - this one I can help on. We own a timeshare there - probably the reason we love the Caribbean so. A taxi tour here - again would be good if you circled the whole island... the Dutch side is quite different in ways from the French side. The docks on the French side and the outdoor market there are a must see. There are numerous beaches on the island - if you like more privacy- they are there. If your very open minded - on one side of the island is a stretch of beaches - one of which has a nudist colony on it and they don't stay there. Dawn Beach is beautiful if you are there in the early morning especially. We stay right on Maho Bay Beach and also like Bay Long ( maps on internet).. If you like to snorkel - Ilet Pinel... Downtown Phillipsburg is where the shopping is.. and all the cruise ships dock nearby. Hope that helps......

Was on the 1/29/2011 sailing of the Eclipse. In St. Maarten we booked the Americas' Cup Sailing Regatta and had a blast! I think you can only book this excursion through the ship. Usually a little leery of ship excursions but really enjoyed this one and the price was reasonable. Last year we went to Orient Beach on our own (got a taxi with others going there) and really enjoyed that also. Easy to get there and back on your own. In St. Kitts we went to Cockelshell Beach. Our son had been there a few weeks earlier and said you could snorkel there so that is why we chose that beach. It was ok, nothing special in our opinion. Got a cab right at the port with a group of others. We paid $20 each roundtrip. Very easy to get a cab back to port. I think the snorkeling is the draw here but there is a few beach bars and some shade if you just want a beach setting. Took about 30 minutes to get there. Kind of a long ride if you're just looking for a beach.

I have to agree on the Americas Cup Race in St. Martin... My wife and I had a blast and there was plenty of time to explore after the sail.

I'm so glad to hear the info re the America's Cup Regatta...we're booked!!

The couple we are traveling with would like to rent mo-peds and explore St Kitts that way. Has anyone heard of others doing this?

I personally like the idea of relaxing on the beach at the Marriot.:D

No matter what you choose for a trip, be sure to have a frozen coconut drink from the stand on the right walking back to the ship(birdhouses out of coconut shells hanging)....wonderful. Additionally, our first stop is Pearl Gems, a wonderful jewelry store.....always honest, no playing the pricing game....on the main street. They will keep your purchase for you until you are going back to the ship. Make sure to go to the chocolate company(can't remember the name) with the antique car(Havana like) out front on a side street...order your chocolates and they will be delivered to your room when you return to the ship.ENJOY

No matter what you choose for a trip, be sure to have a frozen coconut drink from the stand on the right walking back to the ship(birdhouses out of coconut shells hanging)....wonderful. Additionally, our first stop is Pearl Gems, a wonderful jewelry store.....always honest, no playing the pricing game....on the main street. They will keep your purchase for you until you are going back to the ship. Make sure to go to the chocolate company(can't remember the name) with the antique car(Havana like) out front on a side street...order your chocolates and they will be delivered to your room when you return to the ship.ENJOY

The only caviat I would offer is about the Belgian Chocolate Shop. We selected 32 pieces and asked them to deliver to the ship. We received someone else's 32 piece box, which contained NONE of our selections. I emailed Beatrix several times, and have never received a single response.

This is very disappointing because we have gone to the shop on every

cruise we've taken to St Martin's. I wasn't even looking for replacement,

just an apology or an explanation as to how it would happen...but it never came.

Hi there, we hired a taxi in St Martens and went to Divi Beach. You can see it from the port. There is a beach bar, and the cost to rent an umbrlla and chairs was reasonable

St. Kitts: There are van's that do 1-2 hour trips up to Brimstone Hill Fortress (north end of island) from the pier r/t - modest price, then you can hop a cab to one of the recommended beachs on the south end; S. Friars is good as is Cockleshell.

St. Marten: There are cars to rent on the cheap at the pier (or cabs) and a lot of water excursions available online. Phillipsburg has good shopping along it's nice waterfront beach, even better beaches are elswhere (Orient, Maho, etc.) - and French Marigot is interesting too. I am generally cautious about recommending self-drive but this island is really tiny (you can't get lost) and the roads well maintained. Cabs are easy too. The main pier has a short water taxi across the harbor to Phillipsburg proper.

Both these islands are very easy to handle any which way. They are both very well liked by tourists (generally friendly locals) and are great first cruise destinations. Enjoy!:)

It surprises me that the mistake happened, and, more so, that you never got a response. I know that she opened another shop(can't remember on which island...i want to say St. Thomas....have you had the coconut drink....there is always the "other beach" to go to!!!