Eastern Cruise May - What to do?

[Whisky In A Va]

So we are under 100 days to my first ever Cruise and we cannot wait.
Travelling will be myself (38), wife, dd (8), ds (3) and the in laws.

This weekend we are looking are deciding on what we need to book when the bookings are available.

We have studied this long and hard, but the more I look the more we can't decide. So if you have been on this cruise what would you favourite tips be for what to do while on the cruise at port?

We are really keen on doing snorkelling (just me, daughter (8) and father in law) but can'r decide which trip. Then the wife is keen on doing some shopping.

Your help is appreciated.


Thanks

Neil

[jdybnsn]

Personally for a first cruise, I would not plan to do too much off the boat - just relax and enjoy the ship.

If you do have some 'must do' trips, then you will often find its cheaper to book these independently of the cruise ship...after all, most cruise ships don't actually run their own excursions - they are just taking a handling fee for organising you to go on existing ones available in the ports (though you do get the security of the ship waiting for you should you be late back for unexpected reasons !).

We did the Seahorse Snorkel trip on Castaway Cay and was not at all impressed with it.
For a start, even on CC, it is not a Disney operated excursion (ie not run by Disney personnel), and tbh it could be described more accurately as " a trip in a boat to a reef and back ! " ..than what its fancy romantic title implied !
And though its a catermeran go are taken in, they don't sail to the reef so it might as well be any old speed boat !
The snorkelling was distinctly unimpressive - did not see anything very interesting, and the waters were hardly teaming with different fish... quite boring stuff really unless you haven't ever snorkelled at all before ? I thought it was a little too deep really where they took us.

The rapport of the operators was appauling - just get you in the water, and then out of it asap... no proper instruction, no information about what you might see - the crew hardly spoke to us more than they had to.
We did wonder if it was because they knew we would not be carrying cash on CC, so knew there was little prospect of a tip.

[Bella1]

Which ports are you visiting?

[Whisky In A Va]

Originally Posted by Bella1

Which ports are you visiting?

See more...

St Marteen, St Thomas and Castaway.

[Whisky In A Va]

Originally Posted by jdybnsn

Personally for a first cruise, I would not plan to do too much off the boat - just relax and enjoy the ship.

If you do have some 'must do' trips, then you will often find its cheaper to book these independently of the cruise ship...after all, most cruise ships don't actually run their own excursions - they are just taking a handling fee for organising you to go on existing ones available in the ports (though you do get the security of the ship waiting for you should you be late back for unexpected reasons !).

We did the Seahorse Snorkel trip on Castaway Cay and was not at all impressed with it.
For a start, even on CC, it is not a Disney operated excursion (ie not run by Disney personnel), and tbh it could be described more accurately as " a trip in a boat to a reef and back ! " ..than what its fancy romantic title implied !
And though its a catermeran go are taken in, they don't sail to the reef so it might as well be any old speed boat !
The snorkelling was distinctly unimpressive - did not see anything very interesting, and the waters were hardly teaming with different fish... quite boring stuff really unless you haven't ever snorkelled at all before ? I thought it was a little too deep really where they took us.

The rapport of the operators was appauling - just get you in the water, and then out of it asap... no proper instruction, no information about what you might see - the crew hardly spoke to us more than they had to.
We did wonder if it was because they knew we would not be carrying cash on CC, so knew there was little prospect of a tip.

See more...

Thanks for this. I agree and as we have 10 days running around the parks before the cruise we will be having plenty of relax time on the cruise. But I was thinking that we have 2 days at sea before any port calls, so may feel like getting off ship for a couple of hours... What I don't want to do, is get home and people say, did you not do this, that and other and think I have missed something. Thanks for the reply.

[jdybnsn]

Unfortunately, on our Eastern cruise, we missed St Marteen - we were going to visit the beach where the planes come in really low so that you can almost touch them! Our cruise last Feb., sadly was victim to the ship getting stuck for an extra day at CC the cruise before... so consequently we only had 6 days instead of 7 .

If you are looking to do snorkelling its a shame your smallest is so wee, as this excursion was fantastic for the kids and adults on St Thomas !

stthomascruiseexcursions/...Snorkeling.htm

[Whisky In A Va]

My youngest at 3 would not be going, but my daughter 8 would want to. Do you think she is to young for this excursion as it looks great.

[jdybnsn]

Originally Posted by Whisky In A Va

My youngest at 3 would not be going, but my daughter 8 would want to. Do you think she is to young for this excursion as it looks great.

See more...

My DD was 8 last year (and small for her age) - kids ride with you, not on their own jet ski... she absolutely LOVED IT !

Its run from a small hotel on the island so you can get to use their pool, restaurant & changing facilities while you are there...the kids enjoyed the use of a "proper" pool afterwards, particularly as the ones on the ship are really just big bath tubs and get crowded.

The excursion was great fun - a great way to experience jetskis (much better than just going round in circles, as they say on their website ! ), a great way to see a bit more of the island, since its a 20 min journey to the hotel, and also the snorkelling was 100 x better than CC. We went along with a US family who recommended the excursion on our cruise meet on "the other" (U.S.) forum.
Not sure what the minimum age is -obviously it was fine for DD... and the jet skiing they will let you set your own pace and I thought they were very good at giving all the safety advice etc.(ie. we felt very confident in them).

[DIBBadmin]

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