A Look at Planning a Cruise: Choosing Shore Excursions

I love seeing new places and doing new things. Cruising is the perfect way to do this!

Everyone has preferences on what they like to do, but we like to do a mix of historical/island tour type of excursions and water/beach type of excursions.

So, when we are planning our shore excursions, I typically research each island and see what they offer. Is the port known for amazing snorkeling or scenery? Does the port have a lot of historical significance? Is the port a large cultural center with a lot of food and art?

After I have a feel for each of the ports, I start looking at excursions. As a working example, I will go through how we decided what we would do at each port.

Half Moon Cay:

Half Moon Cay is a private island owned by the cruise company. It does not have any significant historical locations. It is not particularly known for snorkeling or scenery. It does have a fantastic beach and swimming area. We decided to buy our own snorkel equipment and bring it along for this port. There is a beginner snorkeling area, so we will spend some time doing that. But mostly, we will float in the water and hang out on the beach.

St. Thomas:

St. Thomas has beautiful beaches and a lot of history. However, I have always wanted to try going out on our own while on a cruise. Because St. Thomas is one of the safer ports, we decided to take a taxi to a beach and use our snorkel gear to snorkel and relax on the beach.

San Juan:

This one was a no-brainer. Last time we were in San Juan, we did not get to see the rainforest, which is the only rainforest in the United States. So we decided to do a "Best of" kind of tour. We will see a lot of the San Juan staples and go to the rainforest!

Grand Turk:

When we were researching Grand Turk, we found out some interesting things! Christopher Columbus landed on Grand Turk and discovered the New World and John Glenn landed near Grand Turk after he became the first man to orbit the earth. Grand Turk also has some amazing beaches, so we found a Grand Turk Experience excursion that will give us a tour of those historical sites and leave us on one of the white powder sand beaches. I have a feeling Grand Turk is going to be high on my list to return to.

My biggest piece of advice is to go through all of the available excursions for your cruise and then find the most unique excursions available and go for it! (P.S. Included Rum Punch is always a bonus!!!)

My favorite shore excursion ever. Grand Cayman, a pirate ship sailing. We walked the plank and then drank rum punch!