Pinel Island... Is it worth it?

[hokiecruisers]

We are thinking about going to Pinel Island next month when we stop in St. Maarten. Has anyone been there? Is it worth the drive over to the other side of the island? Are there nicer beaches? We would like to snorkel some, but also want to have a nice beach. Thanks for your comments!

[pghsteelerfan]

We are thinking about going to Pinel Island next month when we stop in St. Maarten. Has anyone been there? Is it worth the drive over to the other side of the island? Are there nicer beaches? We would like to snorkel some, but also want to have a nice beach. Thanks for your comments!

 

We were in St. Maarten on a cruise this past May on Carnival Valor and spent our day in Pinel Island. We were also there on our first cruise in 1992 on a booked snorkeling/beach excursion that we booked through Carnival. In 1992, there was nothing on Pinel Island except what nature provided, water, beach, palm trees and we laid our towels in the sand. I just remember the scenery was beautiful and we decided to go back this time to spend more time there. There are now two restaurants, loungers, a small gift shop, restrooms (nothing fancy) and walking trails to the top of Pinel Island and down to the other side with great views. I could go into great detail in my response but I'll just "cheat" a little. :) I wrote a review about our trip and the link for it is in my signature. The St. Maarten portion of the review starts on page 16 and goes through page 19. I've included details and also a lot of pictures. We went through a private tour company for assurance of getting back to the ship timely since Carnival no longer offered any excursions that go to Pinel Island. It's very easy to get a cab to take you to Cul-de-Sac, where a 10 minute ferry ride will take you to Pinel Island but since it's not one of the more popular destinations of cruise passengers, there may not be cabs waiting in Cul-de-Sac to take you back to the ship. I have read other comments where others have made arrangements with a cab driver to meet at a certain time but we didn't want to take that chance. Others also recommend renting a car (car rental is just outside the cruise ship terminal) but we decided to just go with the private tour company since their excursion included the snorkeling, use of loungers, and cost of transportation for what we thought was a very reasonable price. We had to pay for the round trip cost for the ferry ($7.00 per person) and there is a small Marine Reserve Fee to visit Pinel Island. I think (???) it was $2.00 per person, $4.00 for both of us. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We just love Pinel Island and would recommend it to anyone. Hope this helps.

[Karysa]

We are thinking about going to Pinel Island next month when we stop in St. Maarten. Has anyone been there? Is it worth the drive over to the other side of the island? Are there nicer beaches? We would like to snorkel some, but also want to have a nice beach. Thanks for your comments!

 

Pinel Island is a very nice place to spend a day while in St. Martin. My suggestion is to rent a car and leave it at the parking lot in the Cul De Sac area where the Ferry departs from. Like the other poster I would be afraid of being stranded there with no way back to the ship. Some posters have had good luck and taxi drivers have returned for them and other posters have been stranded and claim to have been very lucky to have gotten back to the ship in time.

[Birdnutty]

What private company did you use for this excursion? I'm having trouble finding one.

[pghsteelerfan]

What private company did you use for this excursion? I'm having trouble finding one.

 

We used SXM Deals (attaching link) http://sxmdeals.com/. They are great and very easy and pleasant to deal with. They offer many other tours in addition to Pinel Island. We did the Pinel Beach Break that included the snorkeling for $74.00 per person. We thought the price was well worth it considering that the cost included the transportation to and from, use of loungers and unlimited snorkeling.