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St Maarten, St Kitts, Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia


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My husband and I are going on a 7N Freedom of the Seas (FOTS) cruise January 2020.  I'd love to hear of all your suggestions for excursions.  We LOVE the water/beach but are open to other ideas as well.  We have already been to St Maarten and did a RC snuba excursion which we enjoyed.  All other ports we have never been to.  With so many ports, we'd love to hear your feedback on ports to do an excursion versus no excursion-either staying on the ship or exploring the town.  I should also note that one day we'd love to go back and stay at an island for longer than one day so any suggestions on day passes at a resort to explore those would be great too.

 

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While on St. Kitts, I highly recommend Thenford Grey Tours.

Our group of 6 we were traveling with all did their "Grand Tour", and had a fabulous time.  You get an excellent tour and overview of the island, along with some beach time.  Thenford Grey, himself, did our tour, and he was an absolute walking encyclopedia of information on the island.  He was the most polite tour guide I've ever had, and would describe him as the perfect gentleman.

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9 minutes ago, MarvinS said:

While on St. Kitts, I highly recommend Thenford Grey Tours.

Our group of 6 we were traveling with all did their "Grand Tour", and had a fabulous time.  You get an excellent tour and overview of the island, along with some beach time.  Thenford Grey, himself, did our tour, and he was an absolute walking encyclopedia of information on the island.  He was the most polite tour guide I've ever had, and would describe him as the perfect gentleman.

I also highly recommend the Thenford Grey tour. I recently did it about a week ago and recapped it here. First post is the beginning and covered finding the tour and the bus and the second post is once the tour started. Very image heavy. 

 

 

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16 hours ago, CruisinUpinLife said:

My husband and I are going on a 7N Freedom of the Seas (FOTS) cruise January 2020.  I'd love to hear of all your suggestions for excursions.  We LOVE the water/beach but are open to other ideas as well.  We have already been to St Maarten and did a RC snuba excursion which we enjoyed.  All other ports we have never been to.  With so many ports, we'd love to hear your feedback on ports to do an excursion versus no excursion-either staying on the ship or exploring the town.  I should also note that one day we'd love to go back and stay at an island for longer than one day so any suggestions on day passes at a resort to explore those would be great too.

 

I'm doing this same itinerary in June of 2020 on a B2B with the ABC islands on the other week. It has been many years since I have been Barbados and Antigua and don't recall if we have ever been to St Lucia. So I'm just starting my own research.

St. Maarten - Leo Brown tours

St Kitts - Thenford Grey Tours (Mentioned above).

My recommendation on all of the sites is to go to the Cruise Planner for your cruise and look at all of the ports individually and look through all of the excursions and make notes of things that interest you, then go to Trip Advisor and look at each port individually as well and get additional ideas, you don't have to book through the cruise line but if this is a first cruise you may want to be more cautious and book through Royal

As far as resorts, go look at resortsforaday.com, I have looked and I believe they have at least one resort for each port. I have used the web site 5-6 times in recent history and have had great results with their recommendations.

From what I can remember, Barbados and Antigua are island that you might focus on for a return trip, but in reality none of them are bad.

Hope this helps. 

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Also, I don't know how locked in to that January 2020 date you are, but the January 05, 2020 is the last sailing date before Freedom goes in to be AMPED, if you wait until March of 2020 she will be freshly redone with new venues and restaurants.

I should say this is an assumption on my part, only looking at her available dates in early 2020 I see a hole in her schedule in January and all of February. Plus I knew she was due to be AMPED in 2020. 

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17 hours ago, tiny260 said:

I'm doing this same itinerary in June of 2020 on a B2B with the ABC islands on the other week. It has been many years since I have been Barbados and Antigua and don't recall if we have ever been to St Lucia. So I'm just starting my own research.

St. Maarten - Leo Brown tours

St Kitts - Thenford Grey Tours (Mentioned above).

My recommendation on all of the sites is to go to the Cruise Planner for your cruise and look at all of the ports individually and look through all of the excursions and make notes of things that interest you, then go to Trip Advisor and look at each port individually as well and get additional ideas, you don't have to book through the cruise line but if this is a first cruise you may want to be more cautious and book through Royal

As far as resorts, go look at resortsforaday.com, I have looked and I believe they have at least one resort for each port. I have used the web site 5-6 times in recent history and have had great results with their recommendations.

From what I can remember, Barbados and Antigua are island that you might focus on for a return trip, but in reality none of them are bad.

Hope this helps. 

Thanks for the advice --- we are also on her in late March (the AMP timing was an added bonus) --- this will be our first time on Freedom and to the islands..... will most def. be following this thread.

 

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Thank you all for the great suggestions!  We are looking forward to our trip.  This will be our third cruise but my ??? cruise as I cruised 25-30 years ago with my family but don't remember much of it.

 

This is one of the many reasons I love this blog-so many people with a wealth of knowledge and they share it with others.  Thank you!

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My wife and I are doing this itinerary in Nov of this year.  Rather than suggest excursions, here is a list of what we plan to do, which might give you some additional ideas and options.  Hope that this helps.  

 

St Maarten -  12 meter regatta.   https://www.12metre.com/

Sail a authentic America's cup yacht and engage in an actual race following to Cup rules.  One can take an active part in trimming the sails, etc., or just sit back and let your other sailmates do the work.  We've done this before in Cozumel and really enjoyed the experience.  Available as an RCCI excursion.

 

St Kitts -  our choice is a Couples Massage and relax on the ship.  But the Island tours that have already been suggested are very nice and received great reviews.

 

Antigua -  A foody excursion.  https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147243-d1739072-Reviews-Nicole_s_Table-St_John_s_Saint_John_Parish_Antigua_Antigua_and_Barbuda.html

We chose the seafood option, but all look interesting.  Not been here before, but the company has received outstanding reviews.  Independent operator.

 

St. Lucia -  We have booked Spencer Ambrose to visit Soufriere and the Pitons.  http://spencerambrose.com/

Still deciding if we want to visit the volcanic mud baths or just spend some beach time on Jalousie Beach.  Being beach folk, you may be interested in the latter option. Independent operator.

 

Barbados -  Mount Gay rum tour.  Available as an RCCI excursion.  According to the description, RCCI offers the extended tour which is not available through independent booking on the date that we dock.  

 

San Juan -  We have a late flight out of SJ, so we booked the RCCL excursion that allows 4 hrs to explore Old SJ prior to departure with luggage transfer and transport to the airport.  Seemed like a god way to wind down from the cruise.

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