St. Maarten: Bernard's Tours?

[lowroller]

Currently St Maarten and Eastern time are the same.

 

 

Now I am really confused. LOL I emailed Bernard as well he said "That correct we are one hour ahead of ship time to better understand the meeting time. We will be meeting you half hour after your ship docks so you wont have any problem with ship time and island time." Forgot to mention that we cruise this Saturday!!!

[Fouremco]

Now I am really confused. LOL I emailed Bernard as well he said "That correct we are one hour ahead of ship time to better understand the meeting time. We will be meeting you half hour after your ship docks so you wont have any problem with ship time and island time." Forgot to mention that we cruise this Saturday!!!

That's the only part that you need to worry about. :)

[bigque]

I am another to highly recommend Bernard Tours! Outstanding tour guides and they will tailor the tour for you if lets say you want to stay at Orient beach for longer than the planned two hours. What makes it better than renting a car and driving is........All the Rum Punch and Beer you can drink during the entire tour and the Rum Punch packs a Punch! They will have you back to the ship in plenty of time or you can have them drop you in town to shop at the end and you make your way back to the ship on your own (which is what we did). :cool:

[frank808]

Another recommendation for bernards. Have used them twice by booking ahead. Another time we weren't planning on doing anything in st maarteen but we decided to just walk to the tent where you check in for his tours. He found us space on a tour that was leaving and off we went. Cant say enough good thinga about bernards. Also hope you get junior as he is a great guide with a great sense of humour.

 

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[Pennyscandy]

We liked Benard's Tours so much we are booked for this cruise too.

[WetToes]

Bernard's is the best tour company on the island. Ask for tour guide "Mailman"....:cool:

 

 

 

We had him too. Very likeable guy. Not sure that you can ask for him though.

[weliketocruise2017]

Thanks everyone! I heard back and understand today ship time is the same as island time!! So I'm all set thank you all for your positive responses! We are looking forward to it!

 

 

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[Kissmya63]

Thank you!! I am actually really paranoid about that very fact!! The email says to meet at 8:50 am in theparking lot - that obviously is 8:50 am ISLAND time - what time will that be on the ship? I feel dumb even asking that - but i want to be sure I dont miss it!

 

We've only went on a couple cruises and never even thought about island vs ship time. Bernard's Tours is the best and you won't regret it and you definitely get your money's worth! We didn't ask about time difference, but with all the talk on CC about it, I think I will always double check to make sure in the future!

 

Mailman with Bernard's was fantastic!! He was so informative and very funny! He seems to really enjoy showing tourists around the island!

[SheehanDJ]

Jumping on the Bernard's Tours bandwagon.

 

As long as everyone in the group agrees they will tailor the tour to your liking. The group we went with were all in agreement to shorten all the stops and make up the time at Maho. They won't, however, completely skip a stop. No one wanted to do the Iguana farm but our driver said he had to stop, I think we were there a total of 5 minutes though. The rum punch isn't punch, it's RUM.

[TigerCruzin]

Totally worth it! One of our best days ever in the Caribbean.

 

 

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[mollyeilis]

Sadly my son and I were the outliers who didn't like the tour. :(

 

The guide yelled into the microphone the whole day, which was awful. The iguana farm was a schoolbus at the side of the road. There had just been rain so that day the iguanas were in the foliage, not eating the lettuce on the ground, which disappointed the people running it but I liked it. You go, iguanas.

 

There was a stop where a guy tortured urchins and a couple other sea creatures so we could touch them.

 

The ONLY part of the day we liked was Orient. And that was over too fast.

 

The French bakery wasn't very good and didn't give us everything we ordered for but I didn't realize it until too late. My son liked his treat but I can get better locally.

 

We were on a shuttle with most people from a different ship who had a later embarkation and the guide kept forgetting about us. So I got to be the nervous nelly saying "no, we have to back before x time" over and over when he tried to extend the time for each stop.

 

I had read a million good reviews of them (over on the Sint Maarten port forum, where this should be), and was incredibly disappointed that we ended up disappointed!

 

 

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[poncho1973]

I like Bernard's.

 

Ask for the Mailman! He's our favorite guide.

[zdad59]

We did Bernard's Tour 1 when we were there in February. It was a good tour...not the best of our trip, but worth the price.

 

If you do the tour, you MUST stop a Seraphina's in Marigot for a croissant. SOOOO wonderful, and inexpensive.

[weliketocruise2017]

Sadly my son and I were the outliers who didn't like the tour. :(

 

I had read a million good reviews of them (over on the Sint Maarten port forum, where this should be), and was incredibly disappointed that we ended up disappointed

 

]

 

 

Not to be rude, but that's pretty bold. Didn't realize there were forum police. People need to relax. This is an Internet forum; don't like it? Don't read it. Move on. [emoji849] Thanks for your words of wisdom though. Definitely appreciate your snark.

 

 

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[bstevenson95]

We reserved Bernard's Tours last April and it was great! Mailman was our tour guide and he was a really nice guy. He suggested a nice restaurant for lunch and was able to get our food to come out faster because he knew the cooks. When leaving Maho Beach, I was struggling to get some pictures through the window so he stopped the van, grabbed my cell phone, and hopped out to get some great pictures of a plane coming in. And the rum punch! Don't drink too much of it or you'll end up sleeping on Orient Beach! ;)

[CruisinCrow]

Not to be rude, but that's pretty bold. Didn't realize there were forum police. People need to relax. This is an Internet forum; don't like it? Don't read it. Move on. [emoji849] Thanks for your words of wisdom though. Definitely appreciate your snark.

 

 

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I didn't think she was being snarky. She just didn't have as good an experience as most. The thread asked for opinions and experiences and she gave hers. You can't expect everyone to love everything.

[WetToes]

I didn't think she was being snarky. She just didn't have as good an experience as most. The thread asked for opinions and experiences and she gave hers. You can't expect everyone to love everything.

 

 

I took the "snarky" reference as to the part where they said "where this should be". Could be wrong, but that was my first thought.

[marci22]

Not to be rude, but that's pretty bold. Didn't realize there were forum police. People need to relax. This is an Internet forum; don't like it? Don't read it. Move on. [emoji849] Thanks for your words of wisdom though. Definitely appreciate your snark.

 

Wow, you are the rule-breaker here. If everyone posted ports of call questions on this board, it would be a mess. You are just adding to the work of the mods, who must now move this thread.

 

And really, you couldn't do a simple search? There are 50k reviews of this meh tour on the POC boards.

[weliketocruise2017]

So many board Police on here [emoji849] Thanks to those who responded about the tours. As to the board police, relax. Life is too short to get exercised about a new person to this whole site not even realizing there was a section for ports of call. I'll go back to the don't like it move along. It's an internet site. It isn't the end of the world, trust me. There's a lot of other people in this world with much bigger problems than worrying about a new poster "clogging" up a section of a cruising website with the "wrong" question. [emoji3] Bon Voyage peeps! I'm off to enjoy a good time.

 

 

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[marthkat75]

My husband and I (age 40) were recommended to use Bernard's tours by my (20's) Sister and bil. They had a blast. We had a blast. Highlight of our cruise!

[Life is Good Cruising]

Wow, you are the rule-breaker here. If everyone posted ports of call questions on this board, it would be a mess. You are just adding to the work of the mods, who must now move this thread.

And really, you couldn't do a simple search? There are 50k reviews of this meh tour on the POC boards.

The OP is new to posting as you can tell by 11 posts. There are posters that do not know about the Search function or are unable to navigate where all the different forums are on CC.

 

So many board Police on here [emoji849] Thanks to those who responded about the tours. As to the board police, relax. Life is too short to get exercised about a new person to this whole site not even realizing there was a section for ports of call. I'll go back to the don't like it move along. It's an internet site. It isn't the end of the world, trust me. There's a lot of other people in this world with much bigger problems than worrying about a new poster "clogging" up a section of a cruising website with the "wrong" question. [emoji3] Bon Voyage peeps! I'm off to enjoy a good time.

 

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OP, here is the Port of Call forum

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5

[marthkat75]

Bernard's is the best tour company on the island. Ask for tour guide "Mailman"....:cool:

 

 

Yes mailman! Totally forgot his name- I was calling him by his real name the whole trip- I should have known I would forget. He was great!

[RCcruisinfamily]

We booked the SXM Island Rout II - 9 am to 2:30 pm. It says that we'll go to Iguana farm, the french and dutch border, Oyster pond over looking the island of St. Barths, Orient beach to swim and eat, Marigot to shop, Maho beach to see the planes, drive t hrough Simpson Bay Marina and to Harold Jack HIll for a view of Simpson Marina, Airport and Anguilla.

 

Has anybody done a tourn with Bernard's tours? If so, is it worth it? I put $20pp deposit down, but i just wanted to make sure not to waste a day vs $80. ;p

 

Thank you in advance!!!

Great tour. We have taken it twice. Last time we got a cab. Would rather be with Bernards tour any day!

[UCF_Cruiser]

Has anyone done Bernards tour and Tony's Taxi tour and can compare? Sonny Liston recommended Tony but i've heard great things about Bernard

[GTO-Girl]

Has anyone done Bernards tour and Tony's Taxi tour and can compare? Sonny Liston recommended Tony but i've heard great things about Bernard

 

We highly recommend Bernard’s!! Have done his tour three times now and always had a great time.

 

We were just in St Martin last week on a cruise. We did not do a tour this time, but had recommended Bernard to a fellow cruiser. Later that evening he found me just to tell me how much he appreciated the recommendation as they had had a great time!!