What beaches to do on Eastern?

[The Dis Family]

We're sailing on the Jan 22 Magic Cruise that goes to St. Maarten & St. Thomas/ St. John. DS is looking forward to body surfing at one beach with some good waves and DH and I are planning on enjoying a beautiful, peaceful beach at another location. Any suggestions for beaches? Thanks for your help!

The Dis Family

 

[Mike320]

Hi DIS - We are on the same cruise! Good Question! Our children are 10/8 boys, 5 yr old girl! See you there! 1050/1052...
Mike

 

[The Dis Family]

Hey Mike Only 26 more days! We are getting so excited for this cruise. Even DS15 has been checking up on all of the new teen activities. Have you done a cruise before? We did our first in 2001, then 2003, and now 2005. We could do one every year if we could afford it! We'll all be there in just a few more weeks...if only the next 26 days could go by extremely fast and the cruise days go by super slow! But we all know that's not how it works LOL.

 

[princess crazy]

Hi Dis Family and Mike!

We will also be on the same cruise and can hardly wait!! Thanks for posting this question and we were wondering if anyone could tell us which beaches on this cruise would be best for shell hunting? Our DD7 is so excited to be able to do her first shell hunting and she is also doing a Science fair project on shell collections so any help on which beach is the best for this would be appreiciated too! We can hardly believe it's so close---our DD just found out a few days ago as a Xmas gift and is soooo excited!!! See you all there!!

BTW--We do realize that shells can't be taken from Castaway Cay so I'm referring to the other beaches on the islands. Thanks!

 

[jel0511]

As for body surfing, unless there is a storm in the area, which would mean less than perfect beach conditions, most of the beaches will have little to no wave activity. Most of the beaches in the Eastern Caribbean are known for their calm shore lines, so unforunately finding a beach with any type of wave activity is going to be next to impossible. As for shells, since most of the beaches are protectec by coral reefs (the reason they are very calm) most of the shells stay out to sea. If you find any, they are usually small or broken from hitting the coral on the way in. We usually go to St. John about once a year or so, and have had very little luck finding any shells of consequence on the beaches there. Also a note, if you're on a National Park beach, (most on St. John and some on the North Shore of St. Thomas) you're prohibited from removing anything from the beach there, since it's considered park property.

 

[PiperG]

We're sailing on the Jan 22 Magic Cruise that goes to St. Maarten & St. Thomas/ St. John.

We are also on the cruise. We can't wait! DS7 does not know about trip. We will be picking him up from school and telling him he has an MD appointment. When he figures out we are not going to the MD, we will give him a postcard from a past cruise with a "note" from Mickey and Minnie to come cruising on the Magic.

Yipee!

Eager to hear more about the beaches, although we are planning to take it easy and do Great Bay Beach in St. Maarten.

 

[traceycooper]

Hi we did St Martin & St Thomas in November, we did Great Bay Beach & thought it was fine, sea lovely, jet ski reasonabley priced $40 for 30 minuetes
At St Thomas we went to Trunk Bay this was my favourite it was beautiful, it was a snorkeling trip but you can just lay on the beach if you want we did a bit of both, only down sound is we would have liked longer there only had just a couple of hours at the most, this was my favourite place of the whole trip & have said next time we would try to find a way of getting there & staying longer. Pretty good sized waves too.

 

[jwann]

Hi - we just got back from the Eastern cruise and I have some info --
My DH loves the big waves. We even took our boogie board with us. On St. Maarten, we went to Dawn beach. The waves were 4-5 feet and we had a blast. Unfortunately, I wanted to snorkel but the sea was too rough. We also went to Orient Beach. The waves were a little smaller but we still had fun. On St. Thomas, we went to Coki Beach and had a great relaxing time. There were small waves and the snorkeling was great! IMHO, I would go to Dawn Beach on St. Marteen and Coki Beach on St. Thomas. Feel free to PM me any questions. You can follow this link to my pictures from the cruise.
http://community.webshots.com/album/235746755GXOiAb

 

[The Dis Family]

Hi we did St Martin & St Thomas in November, we did Great Bay Beach & thought it was fine, sea lovely, jet ski reasonabley priced $40 for 30 minuetes
At St Thomas we went to Trunk Bay this was my favourite it was beautiful, it was a snorkeling trip but you can just lay on the beach if you want we did a bit of both, only down sound is we would have liked longer there only had just a couple of hours at the most, this was my favourite place of the whole trip & have said next time we would try to find a way of getting there & staying longer. Pretty good sized waves too.

We also have gone to Trunk Bay on our first cruise. Also thought it was one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. We even have a picture of Trunk Bay as our wallpaper on our computer to remind us!

When you said you get the jet ski for 30 minutes--is that a guided tour on a jet ski or do you get to roam by yourself? Most of the jet ski places we've heard about are guided tours. Is this what they tend to do in the Carribbean?

 

[15minfromOGDL]

DW and I honeymooned in St. Maarten in 2001. The jet skis at Orient Beach are available for a tour or for just roaming around Orient Bay. We took a jet ski tour and it was just the two of us one one craft and the guide on the other. It was a blast. DW and I had rode on the largest available Yamaha jetski available at the time, it was pretty stable even in going around the Atlantic Ocean side of St. Martin. At times we could not see our guide in front because of the ocean swells. The guide took us through the bridge near Marigot and we cruised the lagoon and went back. This was much more of an adrenaline rush than the Rhino Riders, but I would say also more dangerous because of going around the north side of the island.
Well we go back in Feb and going to do the Rhino Riders.

 

[TheWog]

When you said you get the jet ski for 30 minutes--is that a guided tour on a jet ski or do you get to roam by yourself? Most of the jet ski places we've heard about are guided tours. Is this what they tend to do in the Carribbean?

If you rent the jet ski at Great Bay, you get to use it for yourself for 30 mins. They don't let you go near the ships, but you can go pretty far out and over near the large cliffs. There was a boat that wrecked there and you can get pretty close to see it. MY DS6 loved that. We didn't see any guided tours offered at Great Bay. You can bargain the price in with your chair and water trampoline rentals. We got 2 chairs, water tramp and 1/2 hour jet ski for $45.00. Have fun.

 

[disneygatorfan]

Orient Beach on the French Side of St. Martin is very nice.. and since its right on the Atlantic, there is a little more wave activity. I enjoyed the Orient Beach excursion via Disney. Was like $42 for an adult.. and included a decent lunch, two free beverages, and reserved lounge chairs.

I love Trunk Bay.. nothing beats Trunk in terms of relaxing, beauty, well worth the extra travel time to St. John. Most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life! St. John is such a pretty island in general, and Trunk Bay has a nice park attached to it.

But if you didn't want to leave St. Thomas... Megan's Bay also, very nice... I wouldn't reccommend Coki Beach... it's fairly small, and tends to be crowded... better off taking the ride to Megan's beach if you are looking to stay on St. Thomas.

 

[DOOGIERUNNER]

We did this in the summer of 2003. It was beautiful. In this months issue of Carribean Travel, there's a 5 page spread on Anguilla.

www.offshoresunsations.com. Click on Testimonials; we're July 2003.

 

[princess crazy]

Doogierunner--

Thanks for posting and the link! Sounds like a really awesome excursion! I did'nt even think to check on the website but was wondering about how much this is, how long it takes to get there and how you book it? Our 7 yr old DD wants so badly to be able to bring back some shells and the sand dollars would get her even more excited!! Is it an all day excursion?? I'm just wondering because we will have my 75 yr old parents with us and I don't know if they could go all day but this sounds so great. Anyway again thanks for posting this and I'm really hoping that someone out there can tell me of any beaches where we could find some shells that are'nt the national parks or Castaway of course that my DD could go shell hunting on-----no matter how big or small she would be estatic!!!

 

[The Dis Family]

Thanks to all who responded! But I forgot to ask--is there an age limit on renting/driving a jet ski? DS15 would be disapointed if he was not allowed to drive a jet ski.

The Dis Family

 

[TheWog]

My son was 6 at the time, but I let him run the gas for some of the time, but he was in no way old enough to do it himself. I don't think they are too concerned with ages, 15 should be old enough to do it himself, but I can not say from my own experience. I did see some families doing it and the kids looked to be in the teens with their own and dad on his.