Breeze in December - Best Snorkeling St Maarten or St Thomas?

[hartskys]

I posted under St Thomas but thought I would get more feedback here. We will be on the Breeze in December. A group of 10-14 adults and will be going to both St Thomas and St Maarten. We want to go to at least 1 really good beach for snorkeling that we can see colorful fish. Which island and beach would be best? :confused: We also want to see the planes fly over the beach in St Maarten.

 

Thanks :)

[WeIsCruisin]

We went to Coki Beach in St Thomas last year and loved it. Nice snorkeling right off the shore. They sell dog biscuits to feed the fish and they eat it right out of your hand. I'm not sure how healthy this is for the fish though.

[hartskys]

I remember going to Coki beach a few years ago but there wasn't colorful fish. There were a lot of fish but most were just gray if I remember right.

[caribsun]

St Thomas - Sapphire, Coki or Secret Harbor Beach.

[valentinebaby1]

We snorkeled in St Thomas booked through Carnival that same morning. (we had originally planned to take a ferry to St John to snorkel at Trunk Bay, but that excursion was canceled last minute on us and we were unsure about going there on our own). The excursion we ended up booking last minute took us to Buck Island with 2 snorkel spots, the first was with turtles and we saw a couple rays. The 2nd spot had lots of colorful fish and a large barracuda. The snorkeling was good in St Thomas. I believe the tour was called Captain Nautica's Ultimate Snorkel.

 

For our stop in St Maarten, we didn't snorkel at all. We took a tour with Bernard's Tours and that included several photo op stops including a few minutes at an iguana "farm", time in Orient Beach (they took us to the far end away from the nude beach area...we still saw some nudity, but it wasn't ALL nudity). We had about 90 min there, then stopped in the town on the French side and had about 30 min to walk around and ate at Serafina's Bakery, which was to die for. Then we headed to Maho Beach and got to catch a large jet landing, several smaller planes landing and a few larger planes taking off. There wasn't an opportunity for snorkeling there and Orient and Maho beaches aren't really snorkel type beaches.

 

If I was planning it again I would snorkel in St Thomas over St Maarten.

[hartskys]

Do you happen to remember the beach names you went to in St Thomas?

[put me on a ship]

We have snorkeled both places, and St Thomas blows away St Maarten! Trunk Bay on St John's is always good, Captain Nautica's tour was good, you can snorkel with the turtles over on Buck Island.

[valentinebaby1]

Do you happen to remember the beach names you went to in St Thomas?

 

With Captain Nautica, there is no beach visit. It is strictly in the water around Buck Island. Buck Island is protected and you can't actually get on the island, so you just snorkel in and out of the boat in 2 locations around Buck Island. We did the tour around 9:30-12:30 so you might still have time to get to a beach or shop afterwards, but the excursion itself is strictly on the boat and not at all on land.

[slabeaume]

We love snorkeling on St. Thomas much better then St. Maarten. For pictures of beaches and what you can see there, I made a blog of snorkeling St. Thomas here:

http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/2014/08/beaches-and-snorkeling-on-st-thomas.html

 

My favorite is actually Cowpet bay, but it might not be as convenient to get to from a cruise ship since no one knows how great Cowpet bay is. There should be taxis running regularly to Sapphire and Coki (maybe Secret Beach), but most places (including the Elysian Resort at Cowpet ) do have an office there that can call for a taxi if you don't make arrangements for one to come back for you. Or get the taxi guys phone number and call them yourself.