Independent Shore Excursion Recommendations for Eastern Carib
 

We will be on Voyager and will be stopping in San Juan, St. Thomas, and Nassau and would like to know if any of you found interesting excursions that you arranged on your own. In the meantime I will continue researching. Thanks!

My husband and I went on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon, and we did all the excursions on our own. It's pretty easy, fun, and much cheaper than going w/ the cruise's.

We take the local bus even.

You need to read up on what you want to do there. Check out Frommer's cruise guide for the Caribbean and also lonely planet's. And when you get there, you just ask the local where to catch the bus/ferry and do it.

For example, when we got to St. Thomas, we took a ferry to St. John on our own and took an open air "bus" (it's like sitting on the back of a truck) to Trunk Bay and snorkel as long as want. We brought our own snorkeling gear. We spent a heck of a lot more time there than the tour from the cruise ship. They came for barely an hour and the water was swamped w/ cruise people.

We had enough time to come back to St. Thomas and walked around looking at the shops and checked out the impresionist Pisarro's studio.

So, be adventurous and do it yourself.

St Thomas is a great place to do your duty free booze shopping. There are several large shops, so shop around. The one the cruise ship recommended was more expensive than others. They'll even sent the stuff back to the ship for you so you don't have to carry it around.

On a clear day, take a taxi to Mountain Top and have a Banana Daiquiri. Great views by the way. ((b))

Thanks guys!!!! I really am a believer in my own tours. It only took a couple of ships tours to convince me. Budman, is Mountain Top a bar?

I'll chime in, Lightfoot, as Budman is
currently imbibing his way thru some
fine CA wine country.

This url ought to help:

www.greathouse-mountaintop.com/

I'd like to second the recommendation for taking the ferry to St. John and going to snorkel at Trunks Bay, when you are in St. Thomas - it was wonderful. We only actually saved about $12 per person over the ship excursion but we had more time. We took an insulated cooler bag and took sandwiches, cookies, etc. from the ship to eat at the beach.

We did a "do-it-yourself" walking tour of Old San Juan and we visited one of the forts. They have tourist buses right near the pier that go in a couple of different loops. Our guide books had a recommended route. We bought an "Eastern Caribbean Ports-of-Call" book. We also had the AAA Caribbean book. Both had suggested walkign tours.

About your own excursion to St. John to snorkel, I remember we saved like $70 per person going on our own vs. the cruise's. But we had our own snorkeling gear and brought towels from the ship. And also asked them to pack us sandwiches and fruit for lunch.

And we definitely spent a lot more time there. When we had over an hour of snorkeling and started napping on the warm sand, the cruise's tour had just arrived then and the water was packed with people.

You can also rent your gear at Trunk Bay. I usually bring my own mask and rent fins rather than packing them. Nassau is a crowded, crime ridden place (3 people on our ship were robbed there) A nice alternative is to take the ferry over to Paradise island and walk to the end of the beach. Nice water, fewer people.