Caribbean Cruise-shore excursions
 

I'm going on a spring break cruise with my 18 year old daughter-Carnival Destiny, departing San Juan, and stopping at St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, and Aruba. Any advice on shore excursions, or really anything else, it's our first cruise.

Go to cruisecritic.com . They have lots of information on that sight about cruises and shore excursions.

a spring break cruise.
well you are a very brave woman!
my suggestions are for st. thomas
i have several thoughts. first for the most peaceful and quiet choice. take taxi to secret harbour beach resort, www.secretharbourvi.com, near red hook spend the day on their beach snorkeling and relaxing. have lunch at their open deck style, blue moon cafe (approx 25'from the beach) and drinks from their beach bar. best snorkeling is to right side of beach. or, spend the day shopping in charlotte amalie - all duty free! or, taxi to magens beach. its gorgeous. it will get crowed with cruise ship ppl. snack places on this beach. or, you will dock at havensight. they have a large shopping mall with dive shop named waterworld. waterworld has a very nice, very well run catamaran called the castaway girl that does snorkel excursions. book now if you want to do that trip.
and please remind your daughter regularly about stranger danger.

Godfrey on St Thomas does a nice island tour on an open air bus. It includes shopping and a couple hours at Coki or Sapphire Beach (we went to Sapphire and loved it!). It was about $25 per person. Very reasonable and a nice way to sample the island. Have fun!

Atlantis Submarine rides offers nice view of underwater St. Thomas. Coral World, next to Coki Beach is a nice aquarium. They also offer sea trekking that's kinda like scuba diving but there's an airhose to the surface so you don't have to lug all the gear. Coki Beach has great snorkeling too. Try SaintThomasGuide.com for more information there. While you're in Puerto Rico, build in a few days there. It's a great place to explore...Old San Juan is amazing and nearby is El Yunque rainforest - great for easy hikes to waterfalls and Rio Camuy cave system. For Puerto Rico info try Puerto-Rico-Guide.com

Dominica is one of my favorite islands! I would look up the website for Ken's Hinterland Adventures. They have tons of different tours (including the incredibly difficult and long Boiling Lake hike). The two waterfalls/gorge swimming tour we did was not difficult, but got us out to see this beautiful island. Ken's tour desk is at the hotel right next to the pier, less than a 5-minute walk.

In Aruba, I would rent a car for the day! It's much cheaper than the shore excurions, and you can get one right by the cruise dock. A few years back, a mid-sized car priced about $60.00 for the day. This way you can do things on your own time-frame, instead of the planned time on the shore excursions. They drive on the right, and the island is only about 12 miles long. It was very easy to get around. We drove to "baby beach" for snorkeling- go beyond the rock outcropping- and it's beautiful-you can walk into it right from the beach. We also visited the lighthouse, and of course "the natural bridge", which I've heard might have been damaged in recent years. This was the only island I've felt comfortable driving on. In San Juan- just get off in town, and you can do great shopping or go to "El Morro" which is the old historic fort. I haven't been to Barbados or Dominica, so I can't help you there. Snorkeling on Coki Beach in St. Thomas was nice- we took a cab to it, and there was great shopping near the cruise pier- I didn't even make it into Charlotte Amalie. Have a great time! Doing things on your own is great, just make sure you're back ontime- they don't wait for people- i would suggest getting there at least a half hour to hour prior to the time they list to be back onboard! I've seen people left on the dock!