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St Thomas and St Marteen help


msgauf

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2 hours ago, msgauf said:

Going on Wonder of the Seas in May. Looking for recommendations For these ports. A few I wanted are already sold out. Do the sold out ones ever become available??

 

 

 

Going on Wonder in May as well. What excursions did you originally have in mind? What type of excursions are you considering now?

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For St. Maarten, there is a third-party excursion offered by Soualiga Destinations, simply called their most popular tour. It's a boat tour around the island, with multiple stops for snorkeling and beach time, along with time at a variety of other places of note. My wife and I did it with our kids in 2018, and loved it so much we're doing it again on our upcoming cruise next month. Very reasonable price per person, and they make a point of scheduling the trip to work with each ship's schedule for the day. They are the #1 third-party excursion you'll find in St. Maarten on Trip Advisor.

For St. Thomas, I'm only doing my first visit there next month. But I found that sites like Trip Advisor are offering many if not all of the same excursions being offered by the ships, such as a half-day tour that includes stops at Magen's Bay, a panoramic mountaintop view, and the downtown quarter; or a trip to St. John's for most of a day. Their prices are comparable to the ship excursions; in the past I would have said they are typically less than the ship offerings, but I'm finding this time around that they are generally the exact same price, sometimes even slightly higher. Not sure if this is lingering after effects of the pandemic that will eventually sort themselves out; another effect of worldwide inflation; or the cruise lines getting desperate enough for passengers to book with them / give them more revenue that they've decided to really compete against these other providers.

Don't be discouraged by the ship excursions selling out, the reputable third-party sites like TA / Viator and such are generally very reliable.

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We're on Symphony next month and have these port stops.

I found this for St. Maarten...we had a lot of the RC excursions sold out so I was on my own to find something.  They have great Trip Advisor Reviews...

https://www.johnnysscooterrental.com/

For ST. Thomas, we're ferrying over to Water Island and renting a golf cart from Rachael's to explore and then hanging at Honeymoon Beach.

 

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We are sailing on Wonder in April and here was our plan for those two islands

St Marteen my wife and kids wanted to snorkel with sea turtle so we booked a 4 hour snorkeling tour with this company https://www.captainalan.com/challenge/index.htm  $80 plus $12 for transportation we thought was reasonable. Plus it gives us some time to explore and shop before all aboard. 

St Thomas we booked the 6 hour tour https://www.godfreytours.com/ $40 was more than reasonable, gives us shopping time, sightseeing tour and a stop at the beach so a little bit of everything all in one 

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We just sailed Symphony.  Most of the excursions we wanted were sold out, but additional excursions and spots on original sold out excursions opened up right before we sailed and again while we were onboard.  We booked a great snorkeling excursion on St. Maarten and an island tour of St. Thomas.

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On 1/18/2023 at 4:57 PM, JLMoran said:

For St. Maarten, there is a third-party excursion offered by Soualiga Destinations, simply called their most popular tour. It's a boat tour around the island, with multiple stops for snorkeling and beach time, along with time at a variety of other places of note. My wife and I did it with our kids in 2018, and loved it so much we're doing it again on our upcoming cruise next month. Very reasonable price per person, and they make a point of scheduling the trip to work with each ship's schedule for the day. They are the #1 third-party excursion you'll find in St. Maarten on Trip Advisor.

I would also recommend Soualiga - I have done this excursion 3 times - once with Captain Bob himself, once with his son Brett and once with another of the team.  It was great all 3 times.   Have great memories of snorkeling with sea turtles and chasing down a landing 747 at Maho Beach.   The lunch was awesome as well, some of the best MahiMahi I have ever had (my kids loved the ribs and chicken too!)

you do have to walk from the cruise ship terminal to their dock but it is an easy walk.

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