We did an Eastern Caribbean on the Magic last year, and here's some info from our trip report (saw some people asking about Trunk Bay, so here's our two cents...)
On St. Maarten, we did "our own thing" and after some research on a good beach, decided to go check out Dawn Beach.
The trip from the port to the beach was fairly quick - once there, we were greeted by "The Guy", who quickly mentioned he would be happy to rent us lounge chairs and an umbrella - but we politely said "thanks, but no thanks" and headed a bit further down the beach and found a nice spot to throw down our towels. The water was, just as you see in some pictures/postcards, crystal clear blue - and very warm (St. Maarten had the warmest water out of all three of our Port days). We all spent a lot of time swimming, playing on the beach, and snorkeling - I think we were there at Dawn Beach until about 2 in the afternoon. Saw lots of fish and coral right off the beach - it was definitely a great spot for snorkeling. There were some other folks on the beach, but it never felt "crowded" and we had plenty of space to ourselves. Once everyone felt like they had had enough sun (being our first day off the ship, we knew we didn't want to start off the trip with any sunburns), we grabbed a taxi back to the port.
At St. Thomas, we booked the Trunk Bay excursion...
This was perhaps the only disappointing thing about our whole cruise - even though we were prepared and knew about it in advance, we hadn't appreciated the travel time to and from Trunk Bay, and the amount of our "ashore" time it was going to eat up. It took just about an hour (each way) for the boat to get us from St. Thomas to St. John, and then some waiting around to get on the buses, and then another ~15 minutes to reach the bay. So we only had just over an hour and a half to actually snorkel. The water, while just as clear and beautiful as St. Maarten, was a bit colder, and Gillian toughed it out as long as she could, but eventually needed to take a break from being in the water. So while she and Kayleigh played on the beach, Ginger and I got some more snorkeling in. One of the things we had heard about in Trunk Bay was the "snorkel trail", which really wasn't all it was made out to be - some underwater plaques that talked about the various fish in the area, but I'd have a hard time calling it a "trail". But we still did enjoy our (brief) amount of swimming/snorkeling - it was just over too quickly, and we were rushed back on the buses to get back on the boat to St. Thomas.
For the second day in a row, it did rain a bit - although much heavier than the day before in St. Maarten. Luckily it waited until we were done swimming, but we had to wait to board our boat due to them unloading another set of travellers - so while some people were able to take shelter under the covered portions of the line, there were a lot of other folks standing in the rain getting soaked. Luckily, once on board, just about everyone was able to seek shelter in the portions of the boat that weren't open to the rain.
We got back to St. Thomas in time to spend a few minutes walking through the various tourist trap stores, but pretty soon we had to go get in line so we weren't left behind!
So I think in the future, we would for sure hit Dawn Beach again, but we'll find something else to do in St. Thomas...
We were very excited about this excursion when signing up. Overall it was okay, but the entire operation had a bit more of a sketchy feel. The excursion starts off a bit poorly, but finishes better.
We found this excursion to be just okay. It isn't terrible, but certainly not a must do.
Does anyone have any experiences travelling St Maarten (via taxi or otherwise) to visit both the Dutch and French sides? First on our list of things to do is a visit to Princess Juliana Airport (fingers crossed we see some big planes land and take off!) then we'd love to see more of the island, maybe grab a nice French croissant somewhere We're not really big beach people (a day at Castaway Cay will be our beach fix) so are more looking at shopping and exploring the scenery of the island. TIA!
We did the screaming eagle in St Thomas as a family (ages 13, 14, 33, and 35) and we had a blast. There were younger and older on board and it was a blast!!! You get "SOAKED"!!!
Next time we go, we will definately do this one again
Does anyone have any experiences travelling St Maarten (via taxi or otherwise) to visit both the Dutch and French sides? First on our list of things to do is a visit to Princess Juliana Airport (fingers crossed we see some big planes land and take off!) then we'd love to see more of the island, maybe grab a nice French croissant somewhere We're not really big beach people (a day at Castaway Cay will be our beach fix) so are more looking at shopping and exploring the scenery of the island. TIA!
Us too...I was just going to ask this. We kind of just want to "check things out", wondered if we could walk around and still see things? Not so interested in beaches, as we will be satisfied with beach at CC. We've already taken one beach vacation this summer, so we would rather see the islands. None of the excursions seem to interest us. Is this possible?
Anybody do the Random Wind on St. Maarten? It's not a Disney Excursion.
Us too...I was just going to ask this. We kind of just want to "check things out", wondered if we could walk around and still see things? Not so interested in beaches, as we will be satisfied with beach at CC. We've already taken one beach vacation this summer, so we would rather see the islands. None of the excursions seem to interest us. Is this possible?
When we went to St. Maarten a couple of years ago, we explored the French side/Marigot on our own. We got off the ship and took a water taxi over to downtown Phillipsburg (just a few minutes ride). We then walked along Front Street and then went back a couple of blocks to Back Street. It's not as touristy back there, but we found a city bus. Now keep in mind that their city bus is not the same as yours or mine...it is a small bus, no a/c, and no seatbelts (my girls couldn't believe that they didn't have to buckle up!). The busses are marked with their destination in the window. We grabbed one that said "Marigot". I think it was $2/person each way. It drove all through the island and let us off in Marigot. We met a store owner on the bus who was from the US and he told us some different places to go, etc. We walked around Marigot for a few hours, ate lunch, shopped the spice market, and hopped a bus back to Phillipsburg. If I remember correctly, the bus ride back was longer because we took a different route. We had the best time...one of our most memorable times in St. Maarten. Kind of lived like locals for the day
We also did the St. John Island Tour. This was a narrated, open air bus tour. He took us to some amazing places to take pictures. I would highly recommend this for those who dont want to spend the day at the beach. We were able to spend about 45 minutes in the shops near the return boat dock and had some desserts at a small café in St. John.
We enjoyed a scenic boat ride along St. Thomas coastline towards St. John. On the way over, we sat on the top deck of the boat. Since it was morning and spring time, the sun really wasnt too hot and we really enjoyed it. On the way back I would suggest trying to get on the lower deck on the side benches. This will let you enjoy the outdoors and see everything on one side of the boat, but have the shade from the boat.
This tour allowed us to see the entire island. Next time we are going back to Trunk Bay because it looked absolutely beautiful on our tour.