Eastern Excursions

[lbullard]

What did you sign up for, what is good and bad? I know it is just folks opinion but I am really wondering what is worth the money. We are booking through Disney this time, first timers.

lynn

 

[CraftyMouse]

I know you say you are booking with DCL, but on St. Maarten you might want to look into www.norushtours.com They provide you with a car, driver, and cold drinks (beer, soda & water) for the day. They will take you wherever you want to go or you can leave it up to them. The prices are VERY reasonable and they have gotten good reviews on this board and others. They will meet you at the dock and return you there after your tour.

We have signed up for this tour on our upcoming December cruise. We've never been to St. Maarten before and thought this would be a great way to see the island. It is $40 for each of us, so $160 for the four of us for the day. They will pick us up at 9:00 and have us back to the ship at 5:00. Beau (the owner) was very, very easy to work with and responded to my emails very quickly.

 

[Joel110]

I know you say you are booking with DCL, but on St. Maarten you might want to look into www.norushtours.com

If you have some aviation buffs in your family, have the driver take you over to Sunset / Maho Beach around 1:30pm, which is on approach for St. Maarten (SXM) approach. The runway is one of the shortest that allows 747 landings/takeoffs, so the 747's from Europe come in low and slow over the beach dwellers...pretty cool. Make sure the driver watches the time for you to allow time to get back to the ship. Here are my videos from our Disney trip in 2005, but there are other's out on youtube if you look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLMMLmfVa-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d21sIjCg-M


Ok...I didn't shoot this video, but saw it as one of the related videos. Just crazy how close they get to the beach. Probably the high winds that day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo

 

[tfc3rid]

We did the DCL Excrusion 'St. John/Trunk Bay Snorkel'... St. John is one of the most beautiful places you will ever go in your life!!!!

Nice excursion, very safe and the snorkeling is terrific!

 

[MinnesotaMouseketeers]

What did you sign up for, what is good and bad? I know it is just folks opinion but I am really wondering what is worth the money. We are booking through Disney this time, first timers.

lynn

We just got back on the 20th of October from the eastern cruise. There was me, DW, DS (15yrs), and DS's buddy (15yrs). We did the 12 meter regatta on St. Maarten, and the Dabloon Sail and Snorkel on St. Thomas and it is on both of the excursions. We each wanted to be a part of the crew, my DW was a winch wench and us other three were primary grinders.

Just a word of warning, beinging a primary grinder is a lot of work. If you don't want to do any work they also had an ice berg watcher, bar tender, time keeper, team captain and jobs in between.

For the snorkeling we saw green sea turtles, spotted sting ray, and a lot of fish that swam all around you. It was a blast.

Good luck deciding.

 

[JoiseyMom]

I know you say you are booking with DCL, but on St. Maarten you might want to look into www.norushtours.com They provide you with a car, driver, and cold drinks (beer, soda & water) for the day. They will take you wherever you want to go or you can leave it up to them. The prices are VERY reasonable and they have gotten good reviews on this board and others. They will meet you at the dock and return you there after your tour.

We have signed up for this tour on our upcoming December cruise. We've never been to St. Maarten before and thought this would be a great way to see the island. It is $40 for each of us, so $160 for the four of us for the day. They will pick us up at 9:00 and have us back to the ship at 5:00. Beau (the owner) was very, very easy to work with and responded to my emails very quickly.

Wow, thanks for the great advice. We are going on the Dec. 8 Eastern, I am going to look into this, becuase we had no idea where to go or what to do.

 

[CraftyMouse]

If you have some aviation buffs in your family, have the driver take you over to Sunset / Maho Beach around 1:30pm, which is on approach for St. Maarten (SXM) approach. The runway is one of the shortest that allows 747 landings/takeoffs, so the 747's from Europe come in low and slow over the beach dwellers...pretty cool. Make sure the driver watches the time for you to allow time to get back to the ship. Here are my videos from our Disney trip in 2005, but there are other's out on youtube if you look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLMMLmfVa-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d21sIjCg-M


Ok...I didn't shoot this video, but saw it as one of the related videos. Just crazy how close they get to the beach. Probably the high winds that day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo

Wow! Thanks! We were alread planning to go to Sunset Beach in the afternoon but we will make sure we're here around 1:30. Can't wait!

 

[Joel110]

Wow! Thanks! We were alread planning to go to Sunset Beach in the afternoon but we will make sure we're here around 1:30. Can't wait!

Based on Air France website, the December schedule shows the Airbus 340 (large plane) from Paris due into SXM around 2:35pm, but a few jets from the U.S. in the Boeing 757 size arrive between 1 and 2:30. There's a flight table on the SXM airport website, but it has the fall schedule. The fall schedule shows no big planes on Tuesdays, but it looks like Air France does have flights resuming in December for the holidays. We ate lunch at the Sunset Beach bar right there by the approach and grabbed some drinks.

You probably won't be able to see the Air France takeoff because it's at 4:55pm and cutting close to making it back to the Magic ontime for the 7pm all aboard (plus you indicated you wanted to be back onboard around 5pm anyway), but you can probably catch some of the US planes heading out. The U.S. pilots we saw got a kick out of the spectators and were waving.

http://www.pjiae.com/pdfs/timetable.pdf

 

[CraftyMouse]

Based on Air France website, the December schedule shows the Airbus 340 (large plane) from Paris due into SXM around 2:35pm, but a few jets from the U.S. in the Boeing 757 size arrive between 1 and 2:30. There's a flight table on the SXM airport website, but it has the fall schedule. The fall schedule shows no big planes on Tuesdays, but it looks like Air France does have flights resuming in December for the holidays. We ate lunch at the Sunset Beach bar right there by the approach and grabbed some drinks.

You probably won't be able to see the Air France takeoff because it's at 4:55pm and cutting close to making it back to the Magic ontime for the 7pm all aboard (plus you indicated you wanted to be back onboard around 5pm anyway), but you can probably catch some of the US planes heading out. The U.S. pilots we saw got a kick out of the spectators and were waving.

http://www.pjiae.com/pdfs/timetable.pdf

As my DD15 would say... So. Very. Cool. Thanks so much!

 

[Wavegirl]

we did a fab trip in St Maarten, the French Connection Catamaran, LOVED IT

We booked it with St Maarten Cruise Excursion wonderful tour

 

[tvguy]

We did the 12 meter regatta on St. Maarten, .

One of the best excurisions we have ever done. Only issue is if you have kids, they have to be 12 or older. DS (16 at the time) and I were grinders, yes, lots of work. DD (12 at the time) was a timer, DW was the Captain.