Camera shopping in the Caribbean

[rybrns]

I'll be travelling to St Vincent, Grenada, St Lucia, Martinique,and St Thomas, and will be shopping for a Nikon digital SLR camera. I'd appreciate any advice/recommendations from anyone who's had experience buying this type of product. Is it wise? I know about gray market items and the US warranty issues.

 

Are there any particular islands/shops that are best? Thanks in advance.

[Boo's Mom]

I would recommend that you purchase your camera @ home.

What if...something isn't quite right and you need to return it?

 

Buy @ home. Practice with it @ home. Take it on your cruise...and take great pictures of your trip. ;)

[RichardK]

No, I do not believe it to be a wise decision. However, if you're dead set on doing it, St. Thomas would be the place to purchase one, given your choices of ports-of-call.

 

Good luck.

[Keith1010]

I agree with the other posters. I would recommend purchasing your camera at home but if you decide to purchase it on the cruise, given the ports that you are visiting I would look at St. Thomas.

 

From my perspective, pricing on items such as Digital Cameras have gotten so competitive that I think you can do very well purchasing it in the United States say over the Internet vs. taking the risk of purchasing it in the Caribbean and having problems with no real course of action to get them taken care of. If you choose to go that route, do your homework in advance so you know precisely what camera and model you want and what the price is. I can't tell you how often that we've looked a items in the Caribbean found that they were more expensive than the States. So, as the others have told you, be careful as it might not be the best decision.

 

Keith

[Krazy Kruizers]

Definitely buy your camera at home.

 

If something goes wrong with the camera most US dealers will not honor the warrenties. The you have to deal with contacting the shop you bought it from and may even have to send the camera back to that shop.

[flamomo]

If you are considering buying online, look at newegg.com. My very computer savvy grandson steered me there,;they had good prices and prompt shipping.

[LonW]

If you are considering buying on line you might also like this site. It has great reviews and links to some good sites for camera equipment.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html

[ferm01]

I got a great deal on my regular 35mm SLR camera in St Martin. I bought it several years back, and I've had no problems at all with it. My advice is to do as much research here and know exactly what you want before you get there. When you are there you just need to weigh the risks aginst how much money you will save. If I recall correctly, I saved almost half of what it would have cost in the US at the time. I don't know what the pricing is currently however. Good Luck. I am just starting to research a digital camera myself.

[Travelinval]

I agree, do the bookwork before you go and you will most likely get a good deal, my sister bought a great Fuji digital in St Thomas, they added extras and she really did well. and has had no problems.

Good Luck, I will be in the market for a dvd camera and am cruising to Mexico, Gr, Bahamas and Belize, any thoughts?

Thanks

[JoanieBlon]

Also, if you bring very expensive, new camera equipment with you, bring your receipts in the event that you're challeged at U.S. Customs about where the item was purchased. That way you can prove you bought it in the U.S. and don't have to pay import duty on it.

 

My husband and I bring quite a bit of high end camera equipment with us, so we went to the local Customs Office with all the equipment and filled out a form listing each piece and the serial number. We always carry the form along with our Passports.

[cusyl]

We have bought cameras at the Royal Caribbean shop in St. Thomas with good results. Having said that, know before you go, shop for model #s and prices online first. Sometimes they don't have the same models there and it's hard to really compare if it's a good price or not.

[MikeT718]

Last spring while in St. Thomas I bought my ditial camera..what happend was I did a lot of research on what I wanted..when I got there I was told the the camera I wanted was out of date already:( ..the sales person showed me something else which did exactly what I wanted it to do they threw in some extras..:D When I got home I checked out the prices for all that I got and found that I saved about $150.00 on the entire package..

 

I hope this helps I think you need to hear both good stories as well as bad ones to make an informed decision:)

[mutual]

I agree with other posters who recommend buying the camera before you leave home. We bought a camera before leaving home and had a problem with one of the memory cards. After we got back home we used the warranty to get the card replaced at no charge. I doubt we could have accomplished the same thing if the purchase was made on the cruise.