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Southern Caribbean Excursions


MoneyMan702

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All,

My wife and I will be doing an 11 night Southern Caribbean itinerary on Serenade of the Seas in the beginning of next year.  This will be our third cruise overall, and our first time visiting any of the six ports of call on this itinerary.  I have certainly done some research on my own, but I wanted to see if any of you all had any tips for excursions or exploring on our own in our ports of call.  

 

The ports are:

Ponce, PR

St. Kitts & Nevis

St. Lucia

Grenada

Barbados

Antigua

 

Any and all input is welcome!

 

Thank you,

 

 

Sam  

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6 hours ago, MoneyMan702 said:

All,

My wife and I will be doing an 11 night Southern Caribbean itinerary on Serenade of the Seas in the beginning of next year.  This will be our third cruise overall, and our first time visiting any of the six ports of call on this itinerary.  I have certainly done some research on my own, but I wanted to see if any of you all had any tips for excursions or exploring on our own in our ports of call.  

 

The ports are:

Ponce, PR

St. Kitts & Nevis

St. Lucia

Grenada

Barbados

Antigua

 

Any and all input is welcome!

 

Thank you,

 

 

Sam  

We did Southern Caribbean about 2 years ago...

St Kitts we booked Greg's Safari tour directly. His company is the one RC uses for their tour.

Barbados we walked to Carlisle Bay, rented jet ski's, did a little $5pp snorkeling excursion right from the beach and ate conch fritters (so good)

Antigua we booked the RC swim with stingray excursion then asked our driver to take us to a beach for a couple hours 

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St Kitts - First time I went we did the volcano hike. Not sure I'd recommend unless you're an athlete. (I am not.)

2nd time - We did a resort for a day - made the mistake of going to the Atlantic side - not the Caribbean side. Beaches weren't swimmable that day due to sea weed. We had a great time in the pools but I'd recommend going to the Caribbean side.

Barbados - I *think* it's a 2 mile-ish walk each way - we walked to The Boat Yard. Drank, ate, swam and relaxed. One of the most memorable and best port days ever.

 

 

 

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On 9/11/2018 at 6:25 PM, 41m33 said:

We did Southern Caribbean about 2 years ago...

St Kitts we booked Greg's Safari tour directly. His company is the one RC uses for their tour.

Barbados we walked to Carlisle Bay, rented jet ski's, did a little $5pp snorkeling excursion right from the beach and ate conch fritters (so good)

Antigua we booked the RC swim with stingray excursion then asked our driver to take us to a beach for a couple hours 

It looks like we will be walking or taking a short.car ride to a beach in Barbados. That was our initial plan before I came on here, and all the positive feedback is making that decision easier. 

St. Kitts and St. Lucia are still the toughest ones for us to pick from with all the great suggestions we have received, as well as what we have researched on our own. 

12 hours ago, ellcee said:

 

St Kitts - First time I went we did the volcano hike. Not sure I'd recommend unless you're an athlete. (I am not.)

2nd time - We did a resort for a day - made the mistake of going to the Atlantic side - not the Caribbean side. Beaches weren't swimmable that day due to sea weed. We had a great time in the pools but I'd recommend going to the Caribbean side.

Barbados - I *think* it's a 2 mile-ish walk each way - we walked to The Boat Yard. Drank, ate, swam and relaxed. One of the most memorable and best port days ever.

 

 

 

We looked at doing the volcanic hike. My wife and I are both hardly athletes, but I do work out most days of the week. It is still a possibility. We have done some hiking around Gatlinburg, TN during the summer months in years past, but we moved at our own pace. I'm also nor sure that summers in Gatlinburg, despite being hot and humid, compare to the climate and environment we would be in. 

12 hours ago, Matt said:

Valley Church Beach in Antigua is quite lovely

I just checked that out based on your recommendation. I will be sure to add it to our short list. A beach day, or at least a half beach day, was our initial plan for Antigua. After a quick glance at Google Maps, it looks like it could be either of those based on the distance to and from port. 

As always, thank you for all your help on here and Facebook. 

3 hours ago, KathyC aka KathLuvsGH said:

We'll be in Barbados and Antigua in November.  Will report back on our experience.  

I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Thank you all very much. I appreciate all the feedback. There are just too many great things to do... I guess I'll have to book another cruise.

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Just now, ellcee said:

This hike is not at your own pace. It's up the mountain and the guides have to get you up and back down to the bus. If you're interested please read other's reviews on this particular hike. I say this because I jog 1 or 2x a week and I was not prepared...

That is good to know. Unless we both do some serious training between now and then, I'd say we may steer away from this then. I'll look at some other reviews as you suggested. 

Thank you again for the input!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/4/2018 at 5:07 PM, RatedPG said:

I will be on this itinerary in November.  I'll be traveling solo so I should have some time to chat with you on this thread about the ports and the onboard experience as well.   

I'm still researching on the ports myself.

Please do! I'd really appreciate it.

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  • 4 months later...
On 9/12/2018 at 9:39 AM, Matt said:

Valley Church Beach in Antigua is quite lovely

Matt,

Did you take a taxi on your own to Valley Church Beach or book an excursion?  Royal Caribbean doesn't have anything to Valley Church Beach, but they do have an excursion to nearby Ffrye's Beach.  

Also, I just want to confirm the distance/time from port.  All the research I've done indicates that Valley Church Beach is about 15-20 minute drive.

It appears that Antigua is going to be busy while we are there.  According to Cruise Mapper, we are going to be 1 of 5 ships in port that day.

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  • 4 months later...

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