Butterfly Farm on St Maarten

[vikingfans]

Has anyone ever done this excursion?

I think this sounds interesting, and I'm looking for some info!

Thanks

 

[CM_Mom]

We did the excursion in May

Here's what I posted on our trip report

The Island and Butterfly farm tour was interesting. You meet in Rocking Bar D and are given a character sticker specific to your tour group. Then you follow the CM with the Character paddle off the ship and to the bus area right by the dock. Board the bus and away you go. FYI, bus was a large airconditioned touring bus. This proved to be interesting on some of the roads. The tour went around the island and stopped for shopping before going on to the butterfly farm. Several stops were made at "picturesque" locations to enable picture taking. I bought a necklace and a hat at the bazaar like shopping area. Note to folks shopping on the islands. Take lots of small bills. The owners of the stalls that offer the best prices are glad to take US dollars but they'll tell you they don't have change so you can get better deals if you have exact change. Take 1's, 5's and 10's rather then 20's unless you plan to buy something expensive.

Butterfly farm was interesting and had some rare butterflies. The person giving the Butterfly Farm tour made special effort to involve the children and the kids got a special souvenir of some sort.

The guide on the bus was interesting and knew lots about the history of the island and pointed out interesting things and places.

It's a great easy excursion. We were DD-25, me and DH, 50 somethings and Mom and Aunt, 90 somethings. There were also several families with small children and as I mentioned the guide made a special effort to involve them at the Butterfly Farm.

We were back on the ship in time to have lunch.

 

[vikingfans]

Thanks CM Mom!

This will help!

 

[thegales]

We also went to Butterfly Farm, but did it on our own. By the end of the day, the cost was probably only slightly less than the Disney Excursion. What we really liked was that we were able to go on our own schedule.

We took a cab to Butterfly Farm, and arrived just after the DCL excursion folks were processed, and were told to join their group for the tour of the Farm. After the tour, sweet drinks were offered to all, then you go back in to explore some more. It seemed it was only a few more minutes when the DCL excursion folks needed to leave. We stayed for a while longer and had a great time exploring and trying to get the Butterflies to land on our fingers.

The cab was a fifteen passenger van, which we shared with a group from another cruise who who were going to Orient Beach. The cab driver dropped us off first, I can't remember the exact fare, but I think the cost was $20 for the four of us, and I gave a $5 tip. The driver told us to walk down to Orient Beach to get the cab back. I think she liked the tip, as shortly after the DCL excursion group left, one of the workers came in and told us our cab was waiting but to take our time.

When we were ready to leave, we asked her to take us to the shopping area, where we again took our time going to the various shops. At the end, we took the water taxi back to the ship.

 

[jaguar9748]

The Butterfly Farm is wonderful - a highlight for us. We were on another cruise line so can't speak for the ship tour. We also hired a cab to take us on a tour of the island ($20 per person). He took us to French side, offered to let us shop in the French town, took us to Orient Beach and waited for us at the Butterfly Farm. Then he took us back to Philipsburg so we could go shopping. He took my mother-in-law and her cousin back to the ship. It was a fabulous day!

 

[vikingfans]

thank you! I will keep this in mind!