Sapphire Beach ship excursion or on our own?

[cadburysmom]

Hi,

My DS8 and I have reserved the Sapphire Beach Day excursion while on the FEB22 Magic. The price seems high and I was wondering what the benefits of doing the ship excursion are as opposed to going on our own by taxi. I know the ship excursion includes a buffet lunch and I'm wondering if it is worth it. Any info you could share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[mmouse37]

I think I can help you out here....we have done it both ways on two different cruises. The first time we did the DCL excursion and went to a beach called Orient Beach. there are several beach clubs along Orient Beach and I believe we were at the one called Waikiki Beach. We were a party of five and it was very expensive thru DCL, I think about $50 per person. the lunch was Ok, nothing great.
On our next cruise we just took a taxi (I really forget how much it was, but not much) and said we wanted to go to Orient Beach. He took us to the Bikini Beach Club which was adjacent to Waikiki Beach!!! We had all the DCL excursion people right next to us. I think we only paid about $5.00 for the umbrella and a couple bucks for each lounge chair. Our taxi driver would not even take money for the first part of the trip....he insisted we tell him what time we wanted him back and we should pay him when we got back to the ship. Sure enough we was there waiting for us when we were ready to go back.

We saved a ton of money doing it on our own. Next time I would order room service and pack it in some zip lock bags and bring my own lunch from the ship!!! Another advantage is you can get to the beach and come back to ship on your own schedule...not DCL's!!!

Hope this helps. Oh, be warned.....there is a nude beach all the way to one side of Orient Beach about 1/2 mile down the beach. Some of them do talk strolls so just forwarn your children if they happen to see very old, wrinkled, nude men walking down the beach.

MJ

 

[seagull4]

We just returned from the Eastern 7 day and did go on the Sapphire Beach excursion. The tour people were very disorganized - took about 20 minutes on the dock trying to hand out lunch tickets. Then, they did not have enough transportation busses for all who had signed up. Some people had to ride in cars or mini-vans. Our particular driver seemed to be the one in charge, so we had to wait until the transportation was arranged for everyone, and were the last ones to finally leave. Sapphire Beach is actually in front of a resort, and since the beach chairs are on a first come, first serve basis, we noticed some hotel guests were a little upset that there were not enough chairs for them. The lunch served was nice - deli sandwiches, chips, cookies & fruit salad. It was nice to have clean restrooms to change in. Would we do this again?....nope. Don't think it was worth the price.
We envy you! Have a wondeful cruise!

 

[>>^..^<<]

We enjoyed our sapphire beach excursion - but I agree it was a little disorganised when getting on the buses.... the ride was pretty quick, the beach was beautiful and the lunch great.

>>^..^<<

 

[shefor24]

Where IS Sapphire Beach? I was hoping it was Nassau, but I reread and it says something about the Magic, so it probably isn't Nassau.?

 

[cadburysmom]

Sapphire Beach is in St. Thomas

Thank you all for your helpful advice!

 

[CoachMinnie]

We just returned from the 1/25 Eastern Cruise. We went to Sapphire Beach on our own!! This beach is absolutely gorgeous. Here are a couple of things you should know!! The taxi ride from the pier to the beach is crazy. Straight up the mountain and then straight down!! Our taxi driver was NUTS!! WAY to fast!! The taxi fair was $8 per person each way! You do not have to pay for beach chairs, which is nice!! The water gets deep kind of fast. There is a little store that had chips, pop, candy, etc. Our kids enjoyed watching the large iguanas that were on the beach. My husband found a little cove that was decent for snorkling.

We had a fabulous time on this beach. We stayed until 2:30pm or so, but the DCL excursion had left alot earlier then that!!

If you have any specific questions, please let me know!
CoachMinnie

 

[cadburysmom]

Thank you CoachMinnie for the wonderful info! I'm so glad you enjoyed Sapphire Beach and now I'm convinced I should do it on my own rather than take the cruise excursion. Do you know if they served sandwiches at that little shop or if you could have lunch at the resort? Did it get really crowded when the Disney excursion crowd showed up? Did the beach chairs you used belong to the resort and were you actually on resort property or just next to it?

Mom from NC

 

[Nasi]

We did the Sapphire Beach excursion on our cruise last June. The ride there was an experience in itself. The beach was beautiful and my DH and DD enjoyed snorkeling there. Lunch they served was just OK. When we went they only put out about 20 lounge chairs for our group of about 80. If you weren't in one of the first vans there you didn't get a chair. One family had reserved 10 chairs by themselves and only used about 3 of them during the day. They had plenty of chairs around the beach but wouldn't let excursion people use them. Overall we enjoyed our day. Nasi

 

[RC Sunshine]

We also did the Sapphire Beach excursion on our own and saved a lot of money. The beach is beautiful there, but so is the pool. We enjoyed having lunch near the pool area. It was a great day and I would go again in a heartbeat.