We’d heard that Les Salines beach is the most beautiful beach in Martinique, but it’s quite a long way from the cruise port and not that easy to get to.
But the photos we’d seen and reviews we’d read, combined with there not being a huge amount of places to visit in the immediate Martinique cruise port area, meant we were very keen to get to Les Salines on our stop here on our P&O Arvia cruise.
Les Salines beach is about 1hr and 10-mins drive from the cruise port at Fort de France in Martinique.
We got off the ship about 8am to find the usual rows of local taxi drivers touting for business, and we asked one about how to get to Les Salines from the cruise port.
The taxi drivers are happy to take people to Les Salines, but because it’s a long drive, it has to be worth their while, so they want their 9-seater people-carriers full.
With four of us, he needed to find another four passengers to fill the car so he spent another 10-minutes or so asking around the crowds leaving the ship whether anyone else wanted to get to Les Salines.
We helped out, explaining to other passengers that we’d seen that Les Salines is the best beach in Martinique and soon we had a full car load.
The drive from the cruise port to Les Salines takes you out of the built-up town of Fort-de-France and into the beautiful Martinique countryside.
The traffic on Martinique is apparently always very busy, but our driver seemed to know all the short-cuts and eventually we arrived at Les Salines beach in about 1-hr and 10-minutes.
It’s not worth the taxi drivers’ time to then head back to the city – they need to stay at the beach themselves all day in order to take you back, so we agreed with the other passengers we’d all stay at the beach until 3pm, hopefully leaving us plenty of time to get back to Arvia for its departure at 5.30pm.
The taxi driver was pretty pleased with the job – as he got a full day’s pay (the cost was $40 per person for a return journey, so he’d got a $320 fare from eight passengers) and instead of spending his day driving around short trips about town, just spent his own day at the beach until we were ready to go back to the ship again.
It seems the convention with trips like this in the Caribbean is that, for a return journey where you’re relying on the taxi driver to take you back to the port again, you pay them at the end of the day, giving you reassurance that the driver will come back for you for the return journey (or in the case of Les Salines, will wait there for as long as you’re staying).
As soon as we arrived at Les Salines, it was clear the journey was well worth it – it definitely lived up to its reputation as being the most beautiful beach in Martinique, and in fact was the most beautiful beach we saw on our entire Caribbean cruise.
When you imagine a typical Caribbean beach, or some kind of paradise island with coconut tree-fringed pure white sand and crystal clear blue water, you’re basically picturing Les Salines beach in Martinique.
It was stunningly beautiful and, best of all, very quiet with not many other visitors at all.
There are a few beach-side restaurants and food-sellers, a stretch of sun loungers that you can rent and a couple of other small huts selling beach clothes and stuff like that.
Most people were congregated around this area – but the beach is a long stretch curving around a quiet bay and just a short walk away from the loungers area we found ourselves almost completely by ourselves on areas of beach that were deserted and peaceful.
Palm trees line the edge of the beach providing much-needed shade from the boiling hot December Caribbean sun, and the sea was calm, warm and peaceful with brightly coloured fish swimming around in shallow areas.
We walked the entire length of the beach a couple of times taking photos, cooling off in the sea and just enjoying the views of what I think could be the best beach we’ve visited anywhere.
It felt too soon that the 3pm meeting time came and we had to head back to the taxi, where our fellow passengers had met for the journey back to the cruise port.
Everyone in the car agreed it had been well worth the travelling time and the money to get here, especially as others complain of the fairly limited beaches and sights around Fort de France itself.
So our recommendation if you’re visiting Martinique on a Caribbean cruise is get a taxi from the cruise port to take you to Les Salines, it’s definitely a destination worth visiting.