which excursions at st thomas and st maarten???

[lindym]

Myself, mom 46 and our son, 16 are going on the eastern 7 night on june 26. What shore excursions would you suggest for us? We have done snorkeling and swim with dolphins before in mexico so would like to do different things. Would you book with DCL or with different companies? What about rhino riders? Is it fun and who would you book with? Any help would be appreciated. What would you do in ST Thomas? First Disney cruise. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[TheWog]

We did the Atlantis submarine ride. We went about 85 feet down and saw lots of sharks, barracuda, fish, coral, lobsters,etc. It was a lot of fun. On the way back in we saw the Screamin' Eagle boat ride run by the same company and DS6 said he wants to try that. This was in St. Thomas. It was a DCL excursion.

Rhino riders looked like a lot of fun, but my son was too young. They can only hold two people per boat.

 

[lindym]

bump

 

[savsawmom]

We chartered a day sail in St. Thomas and LOVED it. We and another family chartered two sailboats (Ike Witt and the Lou) each family had a boat to themselves and we were taken to St. Johns to have a beach all to our selves. We snorkled and then went back to the sailboat where they had prepared lunch for us and then a sail back to St. Thomas.

Heavenly!

 

[ganurse]

we really enjoyed the champagne catamaran tto St JOhns 2 years ago. they had great margaritas, wonderfulmusic, and there was plenty of room to walk around...they were very informative

 

[jeanie]

We did the Rhino riders and they were a blast!! I highly recommend this excursion. We had Carlos as our tour guide and he was great! There were only 11 people on our tour (9 from Disney, 2 from Princess ) so it was a small group. Disney does the first tour of the day. The next group after us was quite large, maybe 25 or so people

We were a family of 4 (DS 10 and DD 12) so they each rode with one of us. The whole tour took about 3 hours( 1 hour driving to and from).. There was about a 10-15 minute lesson on how to use the rhino rider and then you head up the coast to Happy Bay. You can do a little snorkeling or you can lie on the beach. Carlos gave us about 30-45 minutes on the beach (snorkeling is not that great but we had never snorkeled before and this was a good practice for the kids..) The beach was very private (you may see a few nude sunbather at the far end of the beach, if you look for them)

According to the guide the RR are almost impossible to tip over and I must say I felt alot steadier on these than I did on the Seadoos on Castaway Cay.. They do go pretty fast if you want... Next time we are in St Martins, we will do this again....definately worth the money....


On St Thomas we did the St. John's Beach and Snorkle and this was also a great excursion... Trunk Bay is absolutely beautiful!.. But I will do St John's on our own next time and forget the ship excursions...

 

[bassoongirl]

In St. Maarten, we did the Golden Eagle Catamaran excursion and had a great time! The catamaran ride was pretty wild on our way to the island they stop at for snorkeling. Between the big waves and the netting on the front of the catamaran, we got soaked! The snorkeling at the island wasn't that great (I don't think we swam out far enough), but the beach was beautiful. The crew did their best to make sure we had a good time. They gave us rum punch and sodas to drink on the way there and at the beach. On the way back to the Magic, they gave us submarine sandwiches, more rum punch and soda, and even some champagne. We did the excursion in the afternoon and spent the morning at Great Bay Beach near where the ship is docked. It is a very nice beach. We rented chairs and paid to use a water trampoline. The shops in downtown Phillipsburg are right off the beach, so we even did a quick shopping trip. We would've been happy to spend all day at Great Bay Beach, but we did have fun on the Golden Eagle Catamaran too!

In St. Thomas, we went on the St. John Trunk Bay Beach and Snorkel excursion. This was my favorite place on the cruise! Trunk Bay is the most beautiful beach I have ever been to! The snorkeling was a lot better there. They have an underwater snorkel trail with signs along the way. We saw all kinds of fish, coral, stingrays, etc. The facilities at the beach are very nice too.

Have a great cruise!

Gayl

 

[tvguy]

6 metre sailing Regatta on St. Martin was great. But all four of us, DW, DS 17 and DD 13 had to work the boat.

Been to St Thomas several times, so nothing there thrilled me. Did Coral World this time since it was the kids first time there. But we're an hour from Six Flags Marineworld, and 2 hours from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it really doesn't measure up to those wildlife parks.

 

[jrabbit]

If you want a beach day, arrange it yourself (DCL beach days are way, way, way, way to pricey!!). There are taxis at the end of the pier that will take you anywhere on the island that you want. I would walk around Great Bay/Phillipsburg (where the Magic docks) for a little while before going to a different beach (there are many nice ones on the island).

We've been to Orient Beach and the sceenery, beach, water and waves are very, very nice. Don't worry about the nudity - there's not that much and you can be asked to be dropped off at a "family" section.

 

[hydster]

We did Orient Beach on our own in St. Maarten and we did the Doubloon Sail and Snorkel in St Thomas and it was a BLAST!! I'd recommend Doubloon any day!! They were awesome and the pirate tatoos and banana benders were great as well!

Heidi