Philipsburg, St. Maarten Cruise Port Reviews

Beware of aggressive sellers...the islanders rely on tourism but man are they pushy!Every 5 feet was someone trying to sell you something. Not a port to go out alone in. We took a water taxi to the beach and sat in the water with buckets of beer for a few hours. Snorkeling wasn't good where we were. A lot of shopping and cheap beer, but venture out in groups.

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5

by MrBucketlist

Beautiful views. Fun people. I did a 3rd party ATV tour around the island and stopped at Maho Beach. I couldn't of asked for more.

Visited: Oct 30, 2021

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3

by JOHIOSTATE

This is a review of the Anguilla Dolphin Swim and Beach excursion. The regular price for this excursion is $189 for adults and $149 for children. Keep an eye out for Royal Caribbean's Cruise Planner sales, where you can typically get a 10% discount on this excursion. This 6 hour excursion includes ferry transportation to and from Anguilla, beach time where they have complimentary snorkel gear, kayaks, and paddle boards (first come, first served), a very light lunch (choice of ham and cheese sandwich or a salad with iced tea), and, of course 30 minutes of time with the dolphins. Keep in mind that roughly 2 hours of your excursion involves transportation to and from Anguilla. The ferry leaves at the dock near the cruise ship, where many people board a separate ferry to Philipsburg. (SIDE NOTE: If you have never been to Philipsburg, you don't have to take the ferry to get to the city. It is about a 15 - 20 minute walk from the ship to the city and they do have a free beach there for you to enjoy.) The ferry ride to Anguilla is about 45 - 50 minutes each way. I thought that the ride was very smooth, but it all depends on how sensitive you are to the motion of a boat. When you arrive, you walk through customs (since this is a Royal Caribbean excursion, you do not have to bring your passport to show. We just had to stay with our tour leader and she walked us through). From there, it is a very short walk to a gift shop, where you wait for a bus to take you to the dolphin swim site and beach. The beach is about a 2 minute drive from the gift shop. It is very close. Keep this in mind: there are 2 different Anguilla dolphin experiences offered as excursions. The first is a dolphin ENCOUNTER. An encounter excursion is where you spend 30 minutes standing on a platform in about waist-deep water petting the dolphins, giving them hand signals, interacting with them, etc. The second type of excursion, which is what this review is on, is a dolphin SWIM. In the dolphin swim excursion, you stand on the platform in the waste deep water doing the basic interactions that you would do in the dolphin encounter, but then you get to do 2 additional activities. You swim out into the water (Everyone is wearing life jackets, so no worries if you cannot swim well), give the dolphin a hand signal (as instructed by the trainer), and the dolphin will swim out to you. When the dolphin reaches you, the dolphin will roll over on its back, you grab both of its flippers, and away you go! The other dolphin swim activity involves you swimming out into the deeper waters with a boogie board and having the dolphin push you across the water as you lie on top of the boogie board. The boogie board element was a lot of fun and very fast. They send people in your group out into the deeper waters 2 at a time to do these swimming interactions, one person with the boogie board and the other person grabbing the dolphins flippers for a ride. After they get through the first round of swimming interactions, you simply switch in round 2 and you do the interaction that you did not get to fo in your first go around. The trainer we had was great. There was someone taking pictures the entire time. You cannot bring any electronic or recording devices into the dolphin swim and cannot wear any loose jewelry. They do provide cubby spaces in the life jacket/briefing area for you to use. When you do this excursion, the dolphin encounter guests and the dolphin swim guests ride over on the ferry together. Thus, it is a fairly large group of people in the excursion. Everyone is given a wristband for the specific excursion that they are doing and are assigned a number. The number represents your group number. They will call your group number when it is time for your dolphin interaction. While waiting, you get the opportunity to utilize the beach along with all of the complimentary equipment. Just be sure to tip the person running the equipment stand. Theys have lots of beach loungers and umbrellas for shade. There are restrooms onsite and a couple of stands where you can purchase food and drinks in addition to the light lunch they provide. I have to say that the beach time was my favorite part of this excursion. We had beach time first, which was great because we were able to take advantage of the water equipment. You have to sign a waiver to use the equipment and wear a life jacket. My son and I utilized a 2-person kayak, which was great fun. Later, I attempted paddle boarding for my first time ever and had a great time falling into the water 😂. It was a lot of fun and just took some practice. My son also did some snorkeling, which he enjoyed. There are a few areas where they can improve this excursion: 1. They do not have an intercom system, or at least a whistle with large number signs to notify people which group is up for the dolphin activities. If you are out kayaking, snorkeling, paddle boarding, swimming, etc. you really have no clue as to when your group is called. I had to periodically find an employee to ask. Not only that, but we were given no notification as to when we had to get on the buses to start heading back to the dock. The communication was lacking. 2. The "lunch" was underwhelming and small. 3. I would have liked to have had more time on this excursion to enjoy the beach. A lot of time was spent on the ferry and at the Anguilla gift shop. 4. Speaking of the gift shop, this is where you view your dolphin interaction pictures at the end of the excursion. We were at the gift shop for about 40 minutes after leaving the beach. They have a large patio with picnic tables for you to sit as you wait. There are also restrooms at the gift shop. The photo packages were crazy expensive. The price is based on the number of people in your party. We had 4 people in our group and would have had to pay nearly $200 for our photos! They have monitors throughout the gift shop with employees showing you your pictures. Each photo they show you is watermarked on the screen and it was very difficult trying to figure out which pictures had members of our party in them. When you do the dolphin interactions, you are with other people, which made it difficult trying to find the watermarked photos with our family members. Needless to say, we did not buy the photos. 5. More water equipment is needed for the beachtime activities. There were some guests that did not get to enjoy any of the water activities because they are first come, first served. At the very least, they should have time limits on how long you can use the equipment so that everyone has the chance to enjoy. In conclusion, we primarily did this excursion because our kids had never swam with dolphins. My wife and I have swam with dolphins in the past at SeaWorld's Discovery Cove in Orlando, which is an awesome park. Both of my kids had fun on this excursion, but all of us liked the beach time activities more than the dolphin swim. I'm glad we did this excursion and we had a good time, but I would not do this excursion again. We LOVED the Sea Lion swim at Coral World at St. Thomas A LOT more and would definitely do the Sea Lion swim again (I have a review posted for the St. Thomas Coral World Sea Lion Swim if you are interested). The dolphin swim excursion is pricey, but I imagine that is primarily due to the ferry transportation. The employees were very nice and it was great to visit Anguilla. I hope this review helps in answering any questions that you may have had regarding this excursion.

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3

by jadecruiser0304

We came during their Carnival, so there was so much heavy traffic we were in the same spot in the highway for over an hour. We decided to get out and hitch hike back to the port in fear of missing the ship. We ended up taking a water taxi to town to do some shopping and eating and then got back on the ship.

Visited: Apr 21, 2019

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by jmrondini

Been there before. Just walked around at the port area. Warned not to go to the Dutch side because of civil unrest.

Visited: Dec 05, 2021

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4