Family friendly beaches??

[elainabelle]

We are going on an eastern with our 4 and 6 year old. What beaches/or excursions would you suggest for St. Thomas and St. Marteen. I've been to St. John's Trunk Bay and St. Marteen's Orient Beach without kids and would definately like to go to other beaches or excursions that are age appropriate for my kids.

I'd appreciate your experiences and suggestions for both excursions and beaches on these Islands as well as activites/excursions on Castaway Caye.
Thank you!!

 

[Disney with Triplets]

We go to Megan's Bay on St. Thomas and love it, love it, love it! It is family friendly. It is an easy taxi ride away and has nicer facilities and accomodations. You can also stop by town either on the way to or from the beach.

I'm not sure about St. Martin.

There was a discussion about this topic last week and I, along with some others, pointed out that you will find topless females scattered throughout the Caribbean - even at beaches that are "family friendly". The only beach that I've encountered full frontal nudity was Orient Beach. Sadly, the it's always the ones who would look better with some clothes on were the ones taking advantage of the "clothing optional policy".

 

[musicgirl]

We went to Dawn Beach in St. Martin. We took a taxi, $42 roundtrip for 3. Taxi prices are posted. It was suppose to be $18 each way so I don't know why it was not $36. We arranged to have them pick up us at a specific time. If you do this, please tell them again when they pick you up exactly where you want to go. I think the reason for the price difference was that he drove us into the middle of town instead of back to the port. When the driver stopped, we told him this was not where we wanted to go. We never had mentioned being dropped off in town.

The beach was beautiful. There were a few ladies buying things, but they didn't bug us after the first time. There is a fresh water shower near where we waited to get picked up, but since fresh water is hard to come by, we basically just rinsed off, especially our feet.

We arrived early and rented a chair/umbrella for $10. The water was very calm when we got in and snorkeled for awhile. It did start to get a bit wavy around noon, but nothing very strong.

Whatever beach you go to, take water. Of course to drink, but we like to fill empty bottles on board so that we have something to rinse off hands and specially for the eyes. They really sting with the salt water.

 

[TheWog]

We did Great Bay beach in St. Maarten. Right where the water taxi drops you off. Rented two chairs and an umbrella. Returned to the ship for shower, change and have lunch and did some shopping later in the day. Very close and not very expensive. $5 all day water taxi for adults, kids ride free and $10 for two chairs and umbrella.

 

[ljql_5969]

Good info. Thanks!

 

[SweetSpot]

We've been to Magens Bay once and to Coki Beach twice. I loved both and as an adult I preferred Magens Bay. My kids loved Coki Beach more. Magens Bay is a bay, no waves and great for little kids to play in the water. Coki Beach is great for kids to try snorkling. There are so many fish right up to the beach. There's also a spot of coral that makes it more fun to snokle. Both beaches are very easy to get to. Both are beautiful with chairs to rent, shade from trees and food available for purchase. Try to plan to get to either beach early because it gets really hot as the day goes on. It also makes it easier to get back to the ship because schools let out around 3 and there's always a lot of traffic getting back to the ship.

Also, at Coki my daughter had her hair braided both years by the same woman. They start with $2.00 a braid but that would have been too much and we said no. She brought it down to $50. for the whole head of very long hair. Both years the braids lasted over 2 weeks. We were very happy with them.