Looking for best family beach excursion on eastern...

[lornak]

Looking for some advice on beach excursions. We would like to do just one shore excursion and since our girls are young (7.5.4) we thought the beach choices were the most appropriate. Does anyone have any opions on:

French Riviera Beach Rendezvous in St. Maarten (sounds risque! )
OR
St. Thomas Beach Day????

Your help is appreciated!

 

[Favorite Auntie]

I asked about this a while back. I am traveling on the Eastern with my 5 year old nephew. It seemed that the consensus was that we should do Coral World on St Thomas and then go next door to Coki Beach. I guess it is a beautiful beach with a ton of fish and a very gradual drop....We are going to do it on our own in November by catching a cab from the pier and packing some snacks/lunch from the ship.

Good Luck!

Oh yeah, if you search on yahoo Coral World has a website with a coupon!

 

[lornak]

Thanks for the info! I'm going to check that out.

Anyone done the other excursions?

 

[fred ferdlap]

We tried the Orient Beach Family side. The beach was great, but, It's not family only, a few nude people here and there after the first 5 minutes the kids forgot about it, and never really mentioned the nudity since then. We did not see it as a big deal.

It's an adventure and experience, the ride to the beach and and seeing the area and beach were worth it. As I recall there is a beach right near the port and a few people hit that in the afternoon and there was a swim raft you could use for $5? Our friends took there little kids there and had a ball.

 

[SweetSpot]

Last year we took our 3 kids to Megans Bay. We took a taxi that was waiting at the pier. I don't remember the exact cost but it was reasonable. We were in an air conditioned van and the ride was short and very pretty. The beach is very beautiful. Calm water , amazing scenery and trees for shade on the beach. We didn't see many fish and I understand the snorkeling isn't very good but you can rent paddle boats and wave runners at the other side of the beach.

They rent chairs and floats and there is a place for food and a bar with beach waitress service on the beach. There is a bathroom there also. When you want to leave there is a taxi station there with taxis waiting to take you back to the ship. It was an amazing, calm, easy day. It's very hard to decide if we will go back to Megans Bay or try another beach this year.

 

[anitad]

We just returned from the Eastern. In St. Maartin we did Pinal Island on our own. It was wonderful. As soon as we were permitted off of the ship we took a taxi from the Dutch side to the French side to the Pinal Island ferry dock. Our taxi driver Jerry was wonderful. We took the ferry over to the island (5-10 minutes) and rented beach chairs and umbrellas for the group (it was not expensive). We were one of the first to arrive at the beach and it was very beautiful and serene. By noon when we left (we told Jerry to meet us at 12:15) the beach was very busy. We went back to the ship for lunch and showers, then headed back to the Dutch side for shopping.

 

[lornak]

More great info to process!! Thanks...

Is the general thinking that doing a beach excusrsion on your own is preferrable to booking one of the "official" excursions? I get a little worried about getting lost or left behind if I am not doing a DISNEY endorsed excursion.

 

[RellingTwin]

We did Dawn Beach "on our own" at St Martin. We took a cab at the pier (about 20.00 each way 2 adults 2 kids)) to Dawn Beach and asked that the driver pick us up at 2pm. We rented 2 chairs/umbrella (12.00). There was a small rest/bar with rest rooms right there. The beach was very nice and almost deserted. There were small waves the day we were there but we were told most of the time there are no waves. The cab driver met us at 2pm as requested and took us back to the ship. We would go there again!

 

[cynjam]

How did you guys find out about these different beaches to do on your own? Is there a map of the islands on the web somewhere?