St. Martin Sensation Beach Break Excursion

[Giorgi-one]

I usually don't book ships excursions since they tend to be disappointing compared to private excursions and usually cost much more. However, I took a chance and booked the St. Martin Sensation Beach Break excursion last week. Excursion is advertised as 6 hours and goes to Marigot and Orient Beach. Promises welcome drink, bach chair and delicious barbaque lunch. I suggest Celebrity revise description as follows:

 

"Welcome to beautiful St Martin. This 6 hour excrusion will take you to both Marigot and Orient Beach. There are so many things to do in Marigot - sightseeing, shopping, flea market, French pastries, new upscale mall, climb the 122 steps to the old fort for great views and photos. Unfortunately, we will only be in Marigot for 45 minutes so you better hurry if you want to do a anything. And make sure you get back to the bus on time.

 

Next stop is Orient Beach. Immediately upon leaving the bus, you will be served a delicious welcome drink right in the parking lot consisting of some unknown kind of fruit juice in a 6 ounce plastic cup with some ice. If you want, the guy with the bottle of cheap rum will pour some in your plastic cup. You will be entitled to a beach chair but will have to pay an additional $4 for a beach umbrella. A sumptous barbaque lunch is included consisting of precooked, overcooked, chewy chicken with some barbaque sauce smeared on top and french fires. Cokes are available for an additional $3 each. Don't worry we will have you back in less than 5-1/2 hours since you do not want to spend too much time on beautiful St. Martin."

 

I attempted to complain to Celebrity Shore Excursions but they were not interested. Not asking for much. Just keep the excursion to advertised 6 hours. Spend 2-1/2 hours at Orient Beach which allows for almost 2 hours in Marigot. Let passengers order their welcome drink and lunch from the menu. Is that realy too much to ask? Is this Celebrity or Carnival?

 

By the way, my wife and I were both sick for the next 24 hours which I know was due to the lunch. It looked and tasted bad. We left most of it but should have left it all.

[zeeke42]

I think a good rule of thumb is to only book ship excursions for things you can't easily do yourself. We did an excursion in st thomas because we wanted to go to st john for the day. The ship excursion was a chartered tour boat that left directly from the cruise port. Doing it on our own would've reequired an extra cab ride to the ferry and sweating the ferry schedule to make it back.

 

Anywhere on St martin is a 5-10 dollar per person taxi ride and there are plenty of chair and food/drink vendors to choose from on orient beach on either the nude or clothed side.

 

We were actually some of the only ones from our ship to make the bacardi tour. We got in late, and our taxi driver just barely got us there and watched the two tour buses from the ship get turned away.

 

Sent from my PG06100 using Tapatalk

[uktog]

As your ship had the Noro outbreak, I hope you reported your sickness to the medical authorities on board and took the necessary isolation precautions. It may be you have identified the source of the on board problem

[hcat]

We took a ship's Beach excursion to Orient beach-- we had a great guide who stayed with us , chairs & umbrella at a nice beach Club, free drink & a great lunch--all included Could not have asked for a better day!

 

Guess it depends....but sorry you had a bad one!

[l1lgreekprincess]

When did you go on this excursion? I will be in St Martin in two weeks on the solstice and was thinking about doing this excursion. I usually don't use the ship's excursions but have read that its hard to get a tender ticket before noon if you are not on an excursion.

[Dr. Pam]

If anyone would like to have a beach day in St. Maarten, my advice is to phone or e-mail to the Westin Dawn Beach at St. Maarten. Get them to quote a day rate (our was 119.00 plus tax for a family or 4), and if it is acceptable, reserve it. When you depart the ship head over to the taxi stand. It is approximately $15.00 one way to the resort. You may check in at 9:00AM and will be assigned a room that does not have a view....but it is clean and you can shower here before you leave. You have use of the pool, facilities, beach loungers (you must pay for umbrellas), and best of all you can charge everything to your room. This proved to be an amazing day. :)

[vickykay]

Check out the port of calls board. We love St. Martin and usually just take a cab from the pier to Orient Beach - last year by La String restaurant - rented chairs, umbrella, had a great lunch. Took a cab back to town, some shopping, then the water taxi back to the pier. Very easy to do. Orient Beach is beautiful. Enjoy.

[Lsimon]

I love orient beach but would never bother with a ships excursion to get there.

 

Just grab a taxi.

 

In fact we've never taken a share excursion for any beach day, have always done them on our own.

 

We're not against ship excursions. We've done quite a few nice ones in the Caribbean - usually for a day sail or snorkeling by boat if the ship's excursions look better, or have better timing than private trips of this type. We do whichever looks best to us.

[robtulipe]

When did you go on this excursion? I will be in St Martin in two weeks on the solstice and was thinking about doing this excursion. I usually don't use the ship's excursions but have read that its hard to get a tender ticket before noon if you are not on an excursion.

St. Martin isn't a tender port. Ships dock at the A.C.Wathey pier on the east side of Great Bay about 1 mile from the edge of town. Philipsburg is at the top or north end of that bay

[longbranch]

I think a good rule of thumb is to only book ship excursions for things you can't easily do yourself. We did an excursion in st thomas because we wanted to go to st john for the day. The ship excursion was a chartered tour boat that left directly from the cruise port. Doing it on our own would've reequired an extra cab ride to the ferry and sweating the ferry schedule to make it back.

 

We are sailing on March 5th and booked our shore excursion in St. Martin with JoJunie Tours. However, we are thinking along the same lines for getting to St John's for the day. I was wondering if you or anyone else did one of the 6.5hr "Destination St John Tours" offered by the ship? Thanks!

[l1lgreekprincess]

St. Martin isn't a tender port. Ships dock at the A.C.Wathey pier on the east side of Great Bay about 1 mile from the edge of town. Philipsburg is at the top or north end of that bay

 

According to the Celebrity website, we are tendering. I read on here it is because we are the last of 7 ships to come in that day.

[Illinisue]

We were on Solstice, sailing 29 January and we did tender in St. Maarten.

 

From my review:

Because there were eight ships at St Maarten, and we were going to be tendering, we went with a Celebrity excursion. We took the beach break to Orient Beach, knowing that we’d be guaranteed to get there and back on the ship with no problem. It was a disaster. After everyone was off the ship, the tour operators who met us took us up a side street to wait for the bus. It took 25 minutes (and standing in the direct sun) for the driver to find us and load the bus They could not get him on his cell phone and there was a misunderstanding about the meeting place The bus was not the motorcoach we expected…it was a old 45 passenger bus with a leaky roof. When we got to the beach they pointed out where “our” section was and everyone got settled. She then came back and said that we were on the wrong beach and we had to get back on the bus. Ten minutes later, she came back on the bus and said we were at the right beach, but would need to go to a separate section. What a disaster. Lots of apologies. We took the same tour two years ago and it was a completely different experience. Not sure what we’ll decide next time we’re in St Maarten, but I would really rethink the Celebrity excursion.

 

I hope your experience is different, but be warned!

 

Susan

[dodger1964]

We are also on solstice feb 26 cruise. We hope it changes, but everything I've read says we are tendering. We don't get there until 10am.

 

Do celebrity elite passengers get priority tender access??

[Trainer]

I think you are confused: St Martin is not near St. John. St. John is a ferry ride from St. Thomas.

Plus, most of the time Celebrity ships dock out by the commercial pier and you can take a water taxi into town. Sometimes, as this sailing on March 11, there is not enough space at that pier and tendering is used. The good part is that with tendering you come right into the center of town and don't need to take the water taxi or a cab. The ship excursions will meet on or near the dock where the tenders come in.

I've done it both ways.

[dodger1964]

... The good part is that with tendering you come right into the center of town and don't need to take the water taxi or a cab. The ship excursions will meet on or near the dock where the tenders come in.

I've done it both ways.

 

 

Unless you have booked a rental car which is at the rental agency at the "regular ship pier"!!:mad::)

 

I hope something changes and we get a spot at the pier!

[Redtravel]

Orient Beach is beautiful. I just spent 10 days there...at a villa on Orient Beach. Sat on Orient beach most days. The water is rough. I didn't go swimming. On a cruise, if you want to get there, take a taxi. For $20-25 you can get 2 chaises and an umbrella. When I cruise to St. Martin, I like to take the quick ferry to Pburg. The boardwalk in Pburg has lots of nice places that rent chairs. the usual is $20 for 2 chaises and umbrella and 6 beers. Often, it is less. The water is crystal clear...no waves...great for swimming. It's very nice.

[zeeke42]

I think you are confused: St Martin is not near St. John. St. John is a ferry ride from St. Thomas.

 

longbranch brought that up because I mentioned it in my post, talking about excursions in general.

 

We are sailing on March 5th and booked our shore excursion in St. Martin with JoJunie Tours. However, we are thinking along the same lines for getting to St John's for the day. I was wondering if you or anyone else did one of the 6.5hr "Destination St John Tours" offered by the ship? Thanks!

 

Yes, that's exactly what we did, and we loved it. We booked Destination St. John: Coastal Cruise of National Park Beaches (STL2).

 

We got on a chartered tour boat at the cruise dock. (The one minor annoyance was we walked the length of the pier to get to ours, passing the people from the Carnival ship walking the length of the pier to get to theirs.) We shared the tour boat with all of the Destination St. John tours. It was a 30-40 minute ride across, narrated by the captain of the boat. He lived in USVI for 30+ years, so he regaled us with all kinds of stories, and pointed out various properties. Then we docked at St. John and the people with the other tours got off. We then cruised around for about 45 minutes with the captain talking about the history of St John and pointing out the various beaches. Then we docked again and we had 3+ hours on our own. We took a taxi to Trunk Bay and enjoyed the beautiful beach for a few hours and then taxi'd back with just enough time to grab a beer at St. John Brewers a 5 minute walk from the dock. The tour boat took us back to St. Thomas with plenty of free rum punch on the way, which was surprisingly good.

 

This excursion was only $10-15 more per person than taxi+ferry to get across and we thought it was more than worth it to go direct, enjoy the narrated journey, and the quick cruise around St. John.

[longbranch]

longbranch brought that up because I mentioned it in my post, talking about excursions in general.

 

Yes, that's exactly what we did, and we loved it. We booked Destination St. John: Coastal Cruise of National Park Beaches (STL2).

 

zeek42,

 

That's the tour we were thinking about so your info is very helpful...thanks for your reply!

[kampinguru]

We also booked the Orient Beach Afternoon break with Celebrity when we were on the Eclipse on Jan 28th. The trip in the bus from the ship was not bad but the bus died for about 5-10 minutes at the side of the road. They got it started again and we continued. We were led to a section of beach loungers with pads on them. There was sand all over the chairs and the chairs were packed together so tightly that we could not even see the ocean from 5 rows back. It was difficult to even walk between the rows of chairs. They charge you an extra $3.00 if you want the umbrella. During our entire stay, locals were constantly passing by asking you if you wanted to buy the stuff they were selling. It got quite annoying. They took us to Wahkiki resort which looked like a bit of a dump as far as resorts go. I would definitely not take a ship excursion to Orient Beach again. I will research and book my own.

[Retired civil servant]

We have just come back from a cruise on the Constellation and took that Beach Excursion to Orient Beach that included lunch.

 

I wouldn't do it again, the lunch was rubbish - three small pork ribs, one baked / jacket potato and tiny bit of salad, plus a drink ( soft or beer) of your choice. The whole trip was over priced and poor value for money. the sanitation arrangements at the bar were primative.

 

Orient beach has nice white sand but is packed tight with sun beds in front of rear beach bars. The sea was warm but rough and plagued with strolling vendors selling all sorts of tourist tat.

 

What is more the tour guide on the bus used the opportunity to inform everybody of her new business opportunity she was setting up e.g. bed & Breakfast hotel. We didn't appreciate her sales pitch on holiday.

 

It was the one and only time we had used a Celebrity excursion on the whole cruise and were not impressed. Be independent and do your own thing, its so easy and much cheaper - go for it.

[Giorgi-one]

Thanks for all the advice on how to get to Orient Beach. I have been to St. Martin about 10 times and have taken cabs to Orient beach. I did the Sensation Beach Break because it went to BOTH Marigot and Orient Beach. I was expecting to spend a little more than 40 minutes in Marigot, did not expect my welcome drink in the parking lot and expected something edible for lunch. I realize these are very high expectations. My BAD!