Southern Caribbean Excursion Recommendations?
 

We have booked a May Southern Caribbean cruise on the Golden Princess.Ports are St. Thomas,St Kitts, Grenada, Caracas and Aruba. Any recommendations for excursions at these ports and any private tour excursions we could book instead of doing the expensive ones offered by the ship?I've checked and have not seen many new posts on this subject.

One St Kitts we did a kayaking/snorkeling excursion. The kayaking was fine but the snorkeling was awful. No one told us that St. Kitts has been in the paths of so many hurricaines and storms, that there is virtually no reef and not much to see under water. I would take a tour of the rain forest and go the fort or just to the beach. As far as St. Thomas, that is a great place for snorkeling. We booked the Winifred for our upcoming cruise. www.sailwinifred.com. It is a 6 hour sail with 6 passengers, lunch and snorkeling included.

Katy:

Here are some thoughts:

On our first trip to St. Thomas, we took a taxi to Koki Beach. It has a decent beach, OK snorkelling, and something called Coral World (which we didn't visit) which supposedly has some nice exhibits and underwater coral viewing.

Last time, we went to St. John's to snorkel at Trunk Bay. Slightly better snorkelling, nicer beach.

In St. Kitts, we took a horseback tour ot the rainforest with Royal Stables. This was a lot of fun. We then went to a beach near the Mariott--very pretty beach, nice little beach bars, great service.

In Grenada, you'll want Mandoo Tours. (grenadatours.com). Mandoo will take good care of you whatever you want to do--see spice plantations, water falls, etc. Great guy, very knowledgable.

In Aruba, we've taken taxi to Baby Beach (very nice little beach, great snorkelling--make sure you feed chicken sandwiches to the 3 stray dogs that live there--they're nice dogs). Last trip we rented a jeep and drove to Baby and to the natural bridge. Not sure all the driving was worth it.

Carlos-N-Charlies in Aruba was BORING. Nothing at all like Cozumel.

By the way, do not rent from "Supercar Rentals." When we wanted to return the car, no one was there from there from their company and we were left waiting around.

Cheers!

Also, you won't be going to Caracas--too much political unrest. They replaced it with Isla Margarita for a while, then dropped that in favor of another sea day.

We got a $100 credit because of the change--pretty generous, I thought.

Cheers!

We had a great time on an excursion in Arub where we caravaned 4x4s & traveled all over the island, then we went snorkeling in the afternoon on their private island. Great fun!
In St Thomas we have snorkeled in Trunk Bay, which is beautiful, and also Saphire beach which we just took a cab to. Good snorkeling is to be had right off the beach at Saphire Bay & Coki Beach.

It depends on your interests. We have done the typical Megans Bay in St. Thomas. This last time we went to Morningstar Beach. It was uncrowded, and we enjoyed it very much. Grenada is a wonderful lush Island. We took a tour when we got off the ship. There are operators all around. We paid I think $20.00. We went to the waterfalls, a place where they explain and demonstrate the making of spices. We also went to some park where there were monkeys in trees. It was not all. We then went to Grand Anse beach for the remainder of the time.

Have only been to St. Thomas (so far) of those you mentioned. Last time there we did a helicopter excursion over St. Thomas & St. John's. Definitely worth the $$$! We'll do it again next time. Also love the snorkeling trips there.

I may be on the same cruise as you. What date do you leave? I'm on the one on the 9th. I'd be curious if you heard anything outside of these e-mails. It seems that people think making the excursions on your own is the way to go. I've never cruised before. Do you or anyone else know how you can book things in advance? I hate learning from mistakes on vacation, it's such a waste of time.

MarcyH - Yes, we will be on the May 9th sailing!!! Can't wait!! This is our second cruise so we are rather new at this as well. I don't have any websites for any specific tour operators except those mentioned in above posts. I think if we want a tour of the island, go to the beach etc. we can hire a taxi at the port. I have looked at the Princess excursions to get an idea of what there is to see on each island. When we went on the western caribbean cruise we booked online before the trip for Stingray City and Dunn River Falls. That worked out well. If anyone can recommend any tour operators for southern caribbean it would be helpful. Thanks!

triathlete,

Do you know if it was possible to use the facilities at the Marriott St. Kitts? Could we have lunch there and use the pool for example?

Diann,

How difficult was it to get down to morningstar beach? We'll have a 9 month old and a 3 year old. Do you have to go through one of the hotels and use an elevator or does the street go down to beach level? Thanks.

Nina, not difficult at all. You do walk through the outside part of a hotel. It is covered and I believe a ramp of some sort brings you down to the beach. There is a Marriot close by that serves sandwiches, drinks, and snacks. The rental for the chairs is $10.00. It is a lovely beach.