capitalmom
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2010
- Messages
- 108
I really want to do the beach for St Thomas and St Maarten but worried about not going through DCL. I know it would be sooo much cheaper to just go on our own but I have major anxieties that we won't make it back to the boat or something will happen.
Hey there - welcome back! We've been to St. Thomas twice and St. Maarten once and found that both ports are easy, cheap and quite safe to do on your own (and with little kids, I like the flexibility of not being part of an organized tour). In both ports, there is a taxi service right at the dock and the taxis are actually large vans - and since you're travelling with a large extended family, chances are you'd have one all to yourself. In St. Thomas, we loved Magen's Bay beach, and were able to arrange for the same driver to come back and pick us up at a set time (but if not, it's no trouble to get a taxi for the return trip). The day we're there, there will actually be quite a few ships in port, so you'd probably want to go early anyway, and that will leave you lots of time to get back to the ship. In St. Maarten, they do say traffic can be slow getting back to the ship, so you'll want to leave enough time, but the last time we were there, we spent part of the morning at the market in the French capital of Marigot (speaking of shopping...), got in a few hours at Orient Beach, and then taxied back to downtown Phillipsburg on the Dutch side with an hour or two to spare so we could walk around and explore (and more shopping


Seasideliz - welcome aboard!! I'm Danielle (noelk's wife). Hopefully some of the above might be helpful re ports, but if you have any specific questions, we'd be happy to try to answer them... I think it takes 10 posts to PM
