San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Maarten & Grand Turk NON-Princess Excursions

[mishelliebelle]

I will be going the on the Crown Princess 8/28/07 to the above listed ports. I did a cruise in Novemeber with Carnival on the Valor and did every excursion without the ship and had a better time and saved so much money!! I would like to do this again but I am not too familiar with these ports. There is also no seperate blog for the Crown Princess (I understand why from reading previous posts) nor information about non-cruise sanctioned activities. We are a group of 8, very active and in our 20's. Plese help!!!

[drlivingston]

There are 36 beaches on St. Maarten, so anywhere you go there is fun in the sun. My input on St. Thomas would be to take the 30 minute trip to St. John and definitely hit Trunk Bay while there... That is one of my favorite places to visit.

[penny3333]

In San Juan take a tour of old San Juan or the Bacardi Factory. In St. Thomas I second the good dr's suggestion. Catch the ferry $6/pp to St John, a cab to Trunk Bay $4-5/pp, and the entrance to Trunk Bay is $2/pp (I think-I can never remember-but it's not much). It is one of the most beautiful beaches with a self-guided snorkel tour about 50 yards off shore. They have all the amenities you will need. St. Maarten we did the America's Cup Yacht racing (even though it was through Princess) the last time we were there. It was a hoot. The snorkeling there is not nearly as good as Trunk Bay or any of the sail/snorkels out of St. Thomas, so like drlivingston said, pick a beach. Orient Beach is clothing optional and on the French side of the island. Taking a cab there you can see some of the island which is interesting. There is also a beach right near where you dock. Shopping is good there. Grand Turk take a snorkel trip. We did one last December through Costa, it stopped at 2 dive locations one for the coral, one for the fish. We had about 2 hours of snorkeling and the water was great. The Crown is a beautiful ship and I truly believe you will enjoy your Princess experience. We sailed on Costa, Carnival, Norweigan Caribbean, Royal Caribbean, HAL, and Princess. So far, Princess is our favorite. Just make sure you are back to the ship on time, they wont wait for you if you're late from a non ship sponsored tour. Best wishes and hope you have a marvelous time!

[Trippy]

In St maarten there are some great tours, the 12 meters yacht racing is very popular but only sells directly to the cruiseships or hotel excursiondesks as far as I know. Another great tour is the Rhino riders, they do sell directly and you will save a lot of maney that way, check out the link: Rhino Riders