E. Caribbean cruise- St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Nass

[cransplash]

We are going on an E. Caribbean cruise in Nov with stops in Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. We don’t plan on doing a tour in Nassau (maybe go to Junkanoo Beach), and have scheduled a tour with Sunny Liston Tours (St. Thomas).

We are thinking of doing Bernard’s Tour in St. Maarten (many positive reviews on Tripadvisor), but also not sure if we should just roam on our own.

Can you tell me what you recommend doing/what you’ve done if you’ve visited any of these locations?

[Deleted]

I did Bernard's tour and highly recommend it unless you just want to go to one place all day (like the beach). It is cheap imo and you don't have to worry about getting around the entire island on your own.

[orangello]

We were in St. John (next to St. Thomas) in June. I highly recommend taking a tour over that way - seeing Trunk Bay, or if you're into snorkeling, up to Waterlemon Cay.

[carolinagirl831]

For St. Thomas, I agree with PP I love the day trip to St. johns and trunk bay- it is an amazing beach!
I also like Magen's Bay, you can easily take a taxi there yourself. Then take a taxi back to town, walk around have lunch shop before heading back.

For St, Maarten/ Martin we always spend the day at Orient Beach, nice beach with tons of restaurants, its on the French side and has good food.
We just take a taxi there

[udscoobychick]

Hit the Fish Fry in Nassau--it's a strip of restaurants that are about 1 mile from downtown...easily walkable on sidewalks and the beach. You can get all sorts of local seafood--cracked conch, conch salad (a personal favorite), Nassau-style grouper (personal favorite), conch fritters, conch burgers, and all sorts of other good stuff. Skip the first (biggest) restaurant and head for one of the smaller ones.

On your way, you also walk past a beach/park where a lot of the locals hang out--there was a food cart/truck there every day that smelled amazing and always had a line of locals, but we never did stop, which is one of my biggest regrets!!! Junkanoo Beach gets pretty crowded, and the drinks are overpriced. Walk a little further, and you'll get to the areas where the locals hang out--much less crowded!

The Fish Fry is right on a bus route (number 10, I think?), so you can do that, if you don't feel like walking.

[cransplash]

Thanks for your suggestions. I kind of wish we didn't already book with Sunny Liston since many people have recommended us to visit St John. We already paid for our excursions though. I know his tour has great reviews on tripadvisor too, so trying to not dwell on not being able to visit St John.

Thanks for the Nassau and St Maarten rec!

[basilosaurus]

Hit up cruisecritic. They're a much broader source that us here on what to do in those locations.

I'm not one for tours, so I can't really help you, but if you go to your ship's roll call, you can get suggestions and maybe join other people to help make the cost of a private tour more affordable. I did that for a cruise in Italy and had a great time. We ended up traveling/socializing with one of the couples for much of the rest of the trip, including after we got off the ship and stayed in the port city.

[summerkutie]

When we stopped in St. Thomas on a cruise (in November actually) we did a 1/2 Day Champagne Catamaran Sail over to St. John which I highly recommend. It's still one of our favorite excursions we've done to date on all of our cruises.

Great crew, and plentiful snacks and unlimited drinks on the trip back to St. Thomas. They pick you up at the cruise port and you ride this trolley type train over to the marina where the catamarans are (so much fun!) and then you sail over to St. John and they dock near Honeymoon Beach and everyone jumps off the boat to snorkel and beach comb. On the way back, the party starts. They serve snacks, rum punch, and champagne and even let everyone take turns driving the boat. There are pictures of me doing the "Elaine little kicks" dance (if you've ever watched Seinfeld you'll know why this would take a few cups of rum punch to do lol).

Even if you don't do this excursion, I highly recommend going to St. John while in St. Thomas, it's so much prettier there and more private/quiet than the hustle bustle of the port in St. Thomas.

[Deleted]

Aug 28, 2012 9:27:12 GMT -5 summerkutie said:

When we stopped in St. Thomas on a cruise (in November actually) we did a 1/2 Day Champagne Catamaran Sail over to St. John which I highly recommend. It's still one of our favorite excursions we've done to date on all of our cruises.

Great crew, and plentiful snacks and unlimited drinks on the trip back to St. Thomas. They pick you up at the cruise port and you ride this trolley type train over to the marina where the catamarans are (so much fun!) and then you sail over to St. John and they dock near Honeymoon Beach and everyone jumps off the boat to snorkel and beach comb. On the way back, the party starts. They serve snacks, rum punch, and champagne and even let everyone take turns driving the boat. There are pictures of me doing the "Elaine little kicks" dance (if you've ever watched Seinfeld you'll know why this would take a few cups of rum punch to do lol).

Even if you don't do this excursion, I highly recommend going to St. John while in St. Thomas, it's so much prettier there and more private/quiet than the hustle bustle of the port in St. Thomas.

We did this excursion too. The captain and crewmen were totally hot! lol

[summerkutie]

Aug 28, 2012 9:52:38 GMT -5 @missy1 said:

Aug 28, 2012 9:27:12 GMT -5 summerkutie said:

When we stopped in St. Thomas on a cruise (in November actually) we did a 1/2 Day Champagne Catamaran Sail over to St. John which I highly recommend. It's still one of our favorite excursions we've done to date on all of our cruises.

Great crew, and plentiful snacks and unlimited drinks on the trip back to St. Thomas. They pick you up at the cruise port and you ride this trolley type train over to the marina where the catamarans are (so much fun!) and then you sail over to St. John and they dock near Honeymoon Beach and everyone jumps off the boat to snorkel and beach comb. On the way back, the party starts. They serve snacks, rum punch, and champagne and even let everyone take turns driving the boat. There are pictures of me doing the "Elaine little kicks" dance (if you've ever watched Seinfeld you'll know why this would take a few cups of rum punch to do lol).

Even if you don't do this excursion, I highly recommend going to St. John while in St. Thomas, it's so much prettier there and more private/quiet than the hustle bustle of the port in St. Thomas.

We did this excursion too. The captain and crewmen were totally hot! lol

Haha.. we called one of the crew guys Fabio because he looked like him

[love1999]

If there is anyway to get out of your St. Thomas tour I'd also recommend going over to Trunk Bay on St. John instead. So gorgeous!

For Nassau, if you do decide to book a tour, we really enjoyed our day on Blue Lagoon Island back in May. We walked down to the end of the island and had the beach to ourselves.

For St. Maarten, if you like to snorkel, I highly recommend booking with Random Wind. They do 2 snorkel stops and there are only 15-20 people on the sailboat. It was the best excursion we've done in St. Maarten!

[protozoa]

Sept 4, 2012 16:30:25 GMT -5 love1999 said:

For St. Maarten, if you like to snorkel, I highly recommend booking with Random Wind. They do 2 snorkel stops and there are only 15-20 people on the sailboat. It was the best excursion we've done in St. Maarten!

Yes!! Diane is such a doll.

[ondaflipside]

We roamed on our own in St. Maarten, and we hopped on a cab to Orient beach. Then the rest of the day we hung out in Philipsburg. If/when DH and I go back, we'd definitely hit up Marigot.