Category — beaches

Magen’s Bay is probably St. Thomas’ most famous beach, and many consider it among most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. Its long stretch of fine white sand is in a sheltered bay, so the waters are almost always calm. Surrounded by hills, and with a few boats floating offshore, it’s very picturesque.

From the Charlotte Amalie (where the cruise ships dock), it’s a short cab ride over a steep ridge, where you can get a great view of the harbor. 

Hold on tight on the way down, though!

There is an admission fee to get into the park (I think it was $4 for adults), and you’ll need cash if you want to rent lounge chairs, too. The gift shop, bar, and restaurant all take credit cards, except during the occasional power failure. You can snorkel from the beach, and you can also rent kayaks or sailboats. Basically, this beach has everything.

The only problem with Magen’s Bay is that when the cruise ships are in port it gets very, very crowded. We soon discovered that St Thomas has much better beaches to offer. More on that later…

Anse Chastanet is on the southwest coast of St. Lucia, and it’s not easy to get to from the port city of Castries.

St. Lucia is a very mountainous island with roads that wind around its jagged peaks like a diabolical roller coaster. Danielle hates roller coasters, and even though I like them, after a half hour or so it gets old. 

It took us almost an hour to make it by taxi to town of Soufriere, just down the coast from our destination. 

Unfortunately, the last 2 miles of road into Anse Chastanet are not in good shape – after a bone-jarring last 15 minutes, we finally arrived. [Read more →]

Antigua claims to have 365 beaches, “one for every day of the year” – and a lot of them are quite nice. A lot of them are also very crowded when the ships are in port, so we try to find one that’s a little quieter.

On a previous visit we rented a car and made our way to Half Moon Bay, a gorgeous and deserted beach at the far end of the island from the port of St. John’s. It was great, but really hard to get to – Antigua’s roads are not the best, and street signs are nonexistent.

This time we were looking for a beach a little closer, maybe one with some facilities, too. We chose Turner’s beach, about a 20 minute cab ride from the port. Good call – when we arrived, there was hardly anyone there. 

[Read more →]

Bonaire has a different definition of “beach” than most other islands. Nearly the entire coast of this island is covered with piles of broken coral, with hardly any stretches of sand. We learned this the hard way, when at the end of an island tour we asked our taxi driver to drop us off at a beach where we could do some snorkeling.

Our cab driver left us at “1000 Steps”, a fairly desolate location on a high cliff on the northwest side of the island. Not yet knowing any better, we said OK and asked him to come back for us later that afternoon.

[Read more →]

Probably St Martin’s most famous beach, Orient is an easy cab ride from the cruise port, so we felt obligated to check it out – even though we were afraid it would be too crowded and touristy.

We were right – Orient beach is very crowded when the ships are in port. It’s a watersports enthusiast’s paradise, with sailboats, waverunners, parasailing, windsurfing & even kite surfing available for hire.

It’s almost always very windy here, making the waves very rough (or “gnarly”, as the girls called it). The winds do keep it from getting too hot, which makes it a pretty good beach for sunbathing.

The entire beach is laid out as a series of restaurant/bars, each with their own chairs & umbrellas available for rent.  One end of the beach is clothing-optional (if you’re looking for a weiner roast), and as with all the beaches on the French side, you’ll encounter a few topless women here and there.

If you aren’t into watersports, this is probably not the beach for you. Once was enough for us.

One of many crowded, “party” beaches along the coast, Paradise Beach is about a 5 minute cab ride from the cruise ship pier. Chairs are free here, as long as you buy some drinks, but you have to pay $10 extra to use the kayaks, trampolines & giant iceberg.

There are JetSki and Parasail rentals, and you can also get a massage or hair braids, if you’re into that.

There’s a nice big bar here, or you can get food & drinks delivered right to your lounge chair. Sure, everything’s a little overpriced, but the quality and service are quite good. It’s the only beach we’ve found where we can get our fix of “Tex-Mex” cuisine.

Princess’ version of Labadee, this private resort area is located on Eleuthra Island in the Bahamas.

There are free lounge chairs available, or you can rent a pair under a clamshell shade for $25. You can also rent sailboats, water bikes, beach mats, and snorkel gear, just like in Labadee. The snorkeling here is much better, though - and they don’t require you to rent vests, which is nice.

You can also rent a little beach bungalow for the day, if you want your own little air-conditioned closet to escape from the heat.

Lunch is served buffet-style, but it’s actually cooked on the island, so it’s a bit fresher. There are also a few bars around, where you can order drinks on your cruise account.

We liked Princess Cays much better than Labadee, but it can be a little chilly in the winter months. If you take a Princess cruise that stops here, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Labadee is Royal Caribbean’s private resort area on the north coast of Haiti, and most of RCCL’s Western Caribbean cruises feature a stop here.

If you choose to take a tender ashore here, you’ll find plenty of free lounge chairs that look just like the ones on the ship. You can order drinks from the same bartenders that normally work the pools on the ship. When you get hungry, there’s a buffet full of food that was prepared on the ship.

Basically, Labadee is the ship, but with a bigger pool and some sand. At least you don’t need to bring cash here – everything (except shopping) can be charged to your cruise account.

Labadee sits on a peninsula - one side is windy with a lot of waves, while the other is much calmer with a lot of people.

There are plenty of watersports available, most of which must be booked in advance onboard. But the main attraction is the huge Dragon’s Breath Zipline, where you can zoom over the beach at nearly 50 mph. We didn’t try it (too expensive), but it looks like a thrill!

There is some snorkeling available on the quiet side, but you’re required to rent life vests, which is kind of a drag. Hannah & I tried it – it wasn’t bad.

Shopaholics will flock to the “Authentic Haitian Market” (that’s actually what they call it - hysterical!), while the really smart people will opt to stay on the ship, which will be nearly deserted most of the day.

Needless to say, this was not our favorite beach. We’re tough customers, I know – but when you’ve been to as many beaches as we have, your standards tend to get high.

Maho doesn’t have a lot of the things beachgoers usually look for. The beach is often very small, depending on the tides, there are no watersports rentals and only a handful of lounge chairs.

The attraction here is its unusual location: right at the end of the runway of Princess Juliana Airport. The beach side bar has its radio tuned to the control tower and posts a schedule of expected flight arrivals.

There’s a constant stream of small commuter flights landing from nearby islands, but around noon the big commercial flights from the U.S. & Europe start coming in. It’s quite a thrill to stand in the water when one of these comes flying in as low as 50 feet overhead!

There’s a strangely-worded sign that warns of the danger, but that doesn’t stop most people from enjoying this unique experience. 

On our visit, I experienced neither severe nor extreme bodily harm. So check it out, if you’re ever in St. Martin!

We’ve been blogging a lot about our experiences aboard the cruise ships, but little about what we do on all the islands we visit. Yes, we do get off the ship every once in awhile, sometimes visiting some ruins or other attractions. But usually, we just go to the beach!

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting reviews of all the beaches we’ve visited in our quest to find our favorite beach in the Caribbean - and I’ve added a new “beaches” category in the right sidebar.

Stay tuned…