ATV Adventure in St. Martin

[cruisefrk]

We just experienced the ATV Adventure through Princess in St. Martin. It was a pretty good tour. We were not pleased when the bus they put us on was not air-conditioned - fortunately, it is only about a 10-15 minute bus ride to the start of the tour.

 

The ATV's are small models (150cc) and only hold one person. But they sure do go fast!! You have to wear closed toed shoes. Most people wore sneakers but some had simple water shoes. The vibration was pretty strong through the sneakers. Many people brought backpacks - and the guide has you put them in the back of the jeep that follows the ATV's.

 

The tour was on main roads about 95% of the time. I was a bit disappointed about that. I thought we would go off road- you can see some trails near where we started and they looked like fun. Only one time we left the paved road to drive by a very pretty beach - but they didnt even stop to let us take photos. It was really off roading on sandy beach road - kicking up a lot of dust.

 

The beach they took us to was Orient Beach. We were there for an hour. Most people enjoyed the beautiful water - if you decide you want a lounge chair to sit on at the beach you have to pay the locals $10 for it. We went to a wonderfully shaded bar area that is right there. Unique little huts - some for 2, some for 4 and larger tables. One of the table areas was an old row boat they put a table in the middle of and covered - really unique. The view of the beach was spectacular and it was very relaxing.

 

The ride back was much shorter to our pink bus that took us to the ship. The tour was just over 3 hours (it's advertised as longer). We met the guide on the pier at 8:30am and we were back on the ship a little before noon. We had to wait about 20 minutes for them to get all the ATV's going (there were 26 people on the tour). We had plenty of time for lunch once back on the ship and time to take the water taxi/ferry to the beach that is next to the ship for a few hours.

 

The guides took very good care of us to make sure we were safe on the roads. There was no interaction with them except for their friendly hello, safety lesson and their goodbye asking for a tip. They did provide us with water and soda at one stop they did make half way through at a look out point.

 

I would say it's a great way to see some of the island and in a "fun" way. Since we were on the main roads most of the time it felt more like we were on a jeep tour. I wish it had some off road trails through the woods like the ships description of the tour made it sound. It was a GREAT way to experience Orient beach (the non-nude side so don't worry).

 

I would say only do the tour in the morning. I can not imagine how hot it would be in the afternoon.