Serenade - Southern Caribbean ?'s

[Dave08]

My wife and I are planning on taking the Southern Caribbean cruise out of San Juan on the Serenade of the Seas from April 9-16. My wife has been on 2 previous cruises with Carnival and this will be my first ever. Seeing as how this is my first experience, I did have a few questions.

1 - What is the best way to get the most bang for your buck on purchasing alcohol? (daily drink specials, packages, etc.) My wife prefers wine and I prefer beer.

2- The ports we are visiting are Tortola, St. Marteen, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Kitts. We would like to do a couple of beach days, maybe one touristy day in a city/town, snorkeling one day, and then an adventure tour (zip lining, tubing, etc) on another day. Can anyone recommend which island would be best for the above activities? My thoughts so far are Tortola and St. Marteen for the beach days, Dominica for the adventure day, Barbados for snorkeling, and St. Kitts for the city/town tour day. Thoughts?

3 - Any other pertinent information that we should be aware of traveling on the Serenade of the Seas? I think we are going to do the My Time Dining, book an oceanview room, and probably try to do most of the excursions on our own. I have read several reviews on here already in regards to tour operators on the islands and there has been a lot of wonderful information.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

[cb at sea]

RCI only has wine or soda packages...nothing special for beer. Wine,IMO, is way overpriced, but if you only drink wine, then a package will make more financial sense.

 

You really should either buy a guidebook or get one at a library....that way, you may find you don't even need a private tour guide...many, many things (especially beach days) are quite easy to do on your own.

[kahliasmom]

The Baths are gorgeous when you go to Tortola. You might want to consider going there. I think St. Kitts is a good idea for a tourist day. Went to St. Kitts two years ago and went on a tour of the island with one of the local taxi drivers. We just hooked up with a few others from the ship and went in on it. He took us all around the island and seemed to know everyone. Went to Caribelle Batik and enjoyed it. Hope that helps.

[Worn out mailman]

My wife and I are planning on taking the Southern Caribbean cruise out of San Juan on the Serenade of the Seas from April 9-16. My wife has been on 2 previous cruises with Carnival and this will be my first ever. Seeing as how this is my first experience, I did have a few questions.

1 - What is the best way to get the most bang for your buck on purchasing alcohol? (daily drink specials, packages, etc.) My wife prefers wine and I prefer beer.

2- The ports we are visiting are Tortola, St. Marteen, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Kitts. We would like to do a couple of beach days, maybe one touristy day in a city/town, snorkeling one day, and then an adventure tour (zip lining, tubing, etc) on another day. Can anyone recommend which island would be best for the above activities? My thoughts so far are Tortola and St. Marteen for the beach days, Dominica for the adventure day, Barbados for snorkeling, and St. Kitts for the city/town tour day. Thoughts?

3 - Any other pertinent information that we should be aware of traveling on the Serenade of the Seas? I think we are going to do the My Time Dining, book an oceanview room, and probably try to do most of the excursions on our own. I have read several reviews on here already in regards to tour operators on the islands and there has been a lot of wonderful information.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Here's an excursions website:

 

www.shoretrips.com

 

I know there are some nice beaches very close to port in St Maarten...You don't need to go to Orient Beach and look at naked people who you wish had left a bathing suit on, or deal with the crowds. Take the water taxi to the beach strip which you can see from the ship, walk the strip...as you get farther from the ships it's less like being at a port and more like a really nice beach, even though it doesn't look that way from the ship.

 

We'll be in Dominica in March. I plan on doing the rain forest tram..it looks really nice.

 

Don't get sucked into a sea turtle snorkeling thing in Barbados unless you find out it's kind of far off shore. I remember going on a small boat which spent lots of time going resort to resort picking people up, then stopped about 300 yards off shore alongside about 4 other boats doing the same thing. The snorkeling wasn't that great, then, when the solitary sea turtle we saw swam up, there were about 50 snorkelers chasing after him to see him closely. I felt sorry for the poor thing.

 

Anyway, it looks like you've done some research. Good luck.

[Miss Vickie]

My wife and I are planning on taking the Southern Caribbean cruise out of San Juan on the Serenade of the Seas from April 9-16. My wife has been on 2 previous cruises with Carnival and this will be my first ever. Seeing as how this is my first experience, I did have a few questions.

1 - What is the best way to get the most bang for your buck on purchasing alcohol? (daily drink specials, packages, etc.) My wife prefers wine and I prefer beer.

2- The ports we are visiting are Tortola, St. Marteen, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Kitts. We would like to do a couple of beach days, maybe one touristy day in a city/town, snorkeling one day, and then an adventure tour (zip lining, tubing, etc) on another day. Can anyone recommend which island would be best for the above activities? My thoughts so far are Tortola and St. Marteen for the beach days, Dominica for the adventure day, Barbados for snorkeling, and St. Kitts for the city/town tour day. Thoughts?

3 - Any other pertinent information that we should be aware of traveling on the Serenade of the Seas? I think we are going to do the My Time Dining, book an oceanview room, and probably try to do most of the excursions on our own. I have read several reviews on here already in regards to tour operators on the islands and there has been a lot of wonderful information.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

We're 5 times Serenade vets (with sailing #6 on Serenade in just 3 weeks, with experience on all of the islands you're visiting. She's our favorite ship, and the Southern itineraries can't be beat.

 

I can't really address the alcohol question, as our bar tabs are always remarkably low (we don't drink much).

 

I'd recommend Tortola for snorkeling, St. Maarten and Barbados for the beach days (Orient Beach on St. Maarten and Crane Beach or Accra on Barbados). Dominica is definitely the adventure day, and St. Kitts is a good touristy day - a visit to Brimstone Fort is a must do.

 

All the islands are easy to do on your own. The ports of call boards have lots of info and recommendations, if you haven't been to them yet. We've used Patouche for snorkeling on Tortola - they did a great job. On St. Maarten, grab a cab over to the beach. It's also a great place for shopping in Phillipsburg, and it's easily doable to do both in the time you're there. For Dominica we like Levi Baron with Bumpiing Tours. We've used him in the past and will be doing so again in January. We're booked with Thenford Gray for a rainforest hike in St. Kitts.

 

She's a great ship, with a great crew - have a good time!

[subtchr]

We absolutely loved our Serenade cruise a few weeks ago. I wrote a long review with tons of pics HERE, if you are interested.

 

We went to different ports other than Dominica, but I totally agree about that stop for your "adventure" day. We went on a tour to Middleham Falls, Ti Tou Gorge, and Trafalgar Falls with Donaldson of Nature Isle Explorers. It was great! My review and photos from that day start with post #107 in my review, if you are interested.

 

The Serenade is beautiful! Be sure to find time to stop in the Seaview Cafe for a sandwich and onion rings sometime, and the sauna and steamroom in the locker room are very nice (and free!).

 

Let me know if you have any other questions - you will love it!

 

Sue

[cruiseguy1016]

One HUGE thing to know about Serenade is the boarding and time. Your cruise docs will tell you not to arrive at the pier before (I think) 5:30 for your 8:30 departure. While it is true that the ship will not leave until 8:30, you should get to the pier by 11:00am. Unless there was an issue with customs from the previous sailing, the ship will start boarding some time between 11:00 and 11:30. If you wait until 5:30 to show up at the pier you will encounter long lines and miss half a day on the ship.

[Dave08]

Thank you everyone for the wonderful advice. I am really looking forward to this trip. My wife and I went to Jamaica in September for our Honeymoon and were taking a chance and hoping that the weather would hold out for us. Well it didn't and it rained for more then half of our entire trip. This cruise is going to be our make up Honeymoon.

 

- jlmolner - you said that you had used Patouche in Tortola. I had looked at them as well since that had such good reviews. Do you have any idea of what his pricing is like? I found another company (Tortola Charters) and I think they were around $55 pp for a trip to the Baths.

[GaryNFla]

Hello Dave... We are on the same sailing as you. Not sure if you have made it to our link. It is linked to my signature.. Join us..

[Miss Vickie]

Thank you everyone for the wonderful advice. I am really looking forward to this trip. My wife and I went to Jamaica in September for our Honeymoon and were taking a chance and hoping that the weather would hold out for us. Well it didn't and it rained for more then half of our entire trip. This cruise is going to be our make up Honeymoon.

 

- jlmolner - you said that you had used Patouche in Tortola. I had looked at them as well since that had such good reviews. Do you have any idea of what his pricing is like? I found another company (Tortola Charters) and I think they were around $55 pp for a trip to the Baths.

 

I'm going to retract my recommendation on Patouche. We really did have a good experience with them, but my husband, who has been reading the recent Ports of Call boards far more carefully than I have, says that there are lots of rumors floating around about whether they're still operating. I'd read the ports of call boards carefully, if I were you. The Tortola Charters price you mentioned is good. We paid a little more than that last year - $60/pp. You can also take a ferry to the Baths. We're doing Smith's Ferry this year, $36/pp, inlcuding taxis.

[Miss Vickie]

One other thing, if you're dead set on seeing the Baths. Going with one of the charters you have to be flexible. The charters will go where it's safe to sail, and if it's red-flagged at The Baths (as it was when we were there last January), you may end up going somewhere else. We had great sailing, and great snorkeling, but did not go to The Baths. It was more fun on a catamaran than I had ever had, because the winds really had us moving.

 

Folks that took the ferry went to The Baths, because they weren't affected by the red flag situation affecting the sail boats. We had a great day, and I don't regret having gone out on the cat even though we weren't able to make The Baths. We snorkeled and went to Salt Island (really interesting) instead, but if you really are set on seeing the Baths, this may not be the choice for you.

[Dave08]

In regards to Patouche, I am not dead set on going to The Baths. From what I have read that just seems like where most people head to. All of the pictures that I have seen of Tortola look beautiful and I think that the Catamaran experience would be a perfect way to see the scenery and do some snorkeling, regardless of the location. The Jost Van Dyke beach looks amazing as well.

[Saysell64]

We were in Dominica during the Dec. 11 Serenade sailing and we did river tubing and the Emeral Pool waterfall. It was awesome. The river tubing is in the middle of the rain forest and you have great views of green mountains and rainforest surrounding you. The whole excursion was just great from start to finish and I would recommend it. When we were in Barbados last year we took a catamaran to a little bay and they stopped roughly 500 feet from the shore (not an actual measurement just my guess) to see the turtles. There was no major reef so the other fish and snorkeling in the area wasn't great but there at leat 30-35 turtles of all different sizes and some other little fish swimming around, including a small stingray on the bottom.

[Miss Vickie]

In regards to Patouche, I am not dead set on going to The Baths. From what I have read that just seems like where most people head to. All of the pictures that I have seen of Tortola look beautiful and I think that the Catamaran experience would be a perfect way to see the scenery and do some snorkeling, regardless of the location. The Jost Van Dyke beach looks amazing as well.

 

That's the attitude we had, too. The sailing was great, the snorkeling was wonderful, and exploring Salt Island was fun and interesting. Salt Island isn't something many cruisers get to see. And nothing was crowded, unlike The Baths.

[Dave08]

Saysell64 - Who did you do that tour with in Dominica? That sounds like it would be a lot of fun.

[Saysell64]

It was just from the Ship's excursions. I don't remember the tour company name, I don't think they ever told us. I can't say whether or not going private or through the ship would be best for this but we found the ship tour to be great. We did see a group of people just starting their tubing at a spot about 15 minutes after we had entered the water and one guy I talked to said they booked through the other cruise ship that was in port with us (P & O). It looked to us as though the Royal tour gave us more time on the river based on where we entered the water but I can't say 100 % if this is true. I believe we paid $70 per person so if you wanted to look into a private tour and compare prices, our tour was 4 and 1/2 hours long.