The Island:
21 miles long (N-S), 12 miles wide (E-W)
Key Insight:
Volcanic, mountainous interior with lush rainforest. West coast = calm Caribbean (port, beaches). East coast = wild Atlantic. Town is very hilly—limited mobility = taxi recommended.
Grenada's crown jewel: 2-mile crescent of powder-white sand with calm turquoise water. Beach bars, chair/umbrella rentals ($15 for 2), kayak and snorkel gear available. Never feels overcrowded despite popularity. Water taxi from port is fastest and most scenic route.
National Geographic "Top 25 Wonders of the World." 75 sculptures at 16-26ft depth in Molinere Bay. Snorkel tours from Grand Anse dive shops ($60pp) beat ship excursion pricing ($100+). Glass-bottom boat option for non-swimmers ($45pp). MPA fee $3.50 cash (price increase to $7.00 October '26).
Volcanic crater lake at 1,800ft elevation surrounded by rainforest. Spot wild Mona monkeys (bring bananas). Visitor center with exhibits. Seven Sisters Falls hike (20-30min trail) nearby. Roads are steep and winding—go with a driver.
Walk from pier through Sendall Tunnel (1894) to Grenada's most picturesque harbor. Fort George (1710) crowns the hill above—steep climb but panoramic harbor and coast views. Stop at Market Square for fresh nutmeg, cinnamon, and spice necklaces.
30ft waterfall cascading into a swimmable turquoise pool, surrounded by tropical flowers and vines. Easy 5-minute walk from parking area—Grenada's most accessible waterfall. Local cliff divers often perform. Bring water shoes and insect repellent.
Grenada's largest and oldest distillery (since 1937). Guided factory tour shows traditional distillation from sugarcane to bottle. Tasting room pours 20+ rums including award-winning Old Grog. Purchase bottles on-site at local prices. Weekdays only.
Golden Rule: Never plan to arrive "at the pier" at all-aboard time. Plan to be back in your cabin. Your ship's all-aboard time is the LAST moment you can board—not when you should arrive.
RESULT: Leave Grand Anse Beach by 3:15pm
St. George's port-day questions, answered
Answers verified August 2026 against port-operator and official sources.
Check the strength on the label before you buy. River Antoine's local overproof is bottled at 75 percent alcohol or above, and spirits over 70 percent cannot legally travel by air, which is exactly why the distillery also bottles a 69 percent version so that visitors can fly it home. The one poured on the tour is usually the strong one. On the ship it makes little difference, since shore-bought alcohol is normally held at the gangway and returned on the last night; the problem arrives later, at the airport, in your checked bag.
There is, at Gouyave up the west coast, and it is a genuine processing co-operative rather than a museum, where nutmeg is still graded and sorted by hand for a nominal entry fee. The catch is access. It keeps weekday hours and closes Sunday, and visitors do sometimes report being turned away depending on whether processing is running that day. Treat it as a stop on a west-coast tour rather than a solo objective, and have your driver call ahead.
Yes, but a much diminished one. Ivan in 2004 and Emily the following year destroyed the overwhelming majority of the island's nutmeg trees, well over ninety percent by most accounts, and nutmeg takes years to bear, so the recovery has been slow and Grenada is no longer the world's second producer it once was. The spice you buy at Market Square is genuinely local and genuinely good. It is the industry behind it that is still rebuilding two decades on, which is worth knowing before you ask a guide about it.
Rum, unless you have a long stop and it falls on a weekday. Clarke's Court is twenty minutes out and takes about an hour all in. The serious chocolate experience is Belmont Estate in the north-east, a tree-to-bar workshop running several hours with a meal, weekdays only and not in the late-summer off-season, and it sits roughly an hour's drive each way, so it consumes most of your day. Cruise-group versions compress the estate visit to about ninety minutes. Decide by your clock, not your sweet tooth.
There is one a few miles north of the island, and no, it will not affect you. Kick 'em Jenny is a submarine volcano sitting well below the surface, monitored by the UWI Seismic Research Centre, which maintains a maritime exclusion zone around the vent and widens it when alert levels rise. The hazard is real but specific: escaping gas thins the water and can rob a small vessel of its buoyancy, which makes it a yacht problem rather than a cruise-ship one. There is nothing to see from the deck.
Quite possibly, if you are at all prone to it. The interior is mountainous and the roads are narrow, steep, and endlessly switchbacked, with blind corners and a climb over Grand Etang on the cross-island route; official travel advice singles out exactly these conditions. A full island tour means several hours of that, and the run to the Atlantic side is about an hour each way rather than the quick hop the map suggests. Take something before you get in, and ask for a front seat.
It is, though almost none of it is signposted the way you might expect. The fort was called Fort Rupert then, and it is where Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his ministers were executed on October 19, 1983, six days before the American-led intervention. Visitors report bullet marks still on some of the walls. Parts of the site remain in police use so access is not complete, and improvements have been under discussion for some time. What you get is a working hilltop with an extraordinary view and a very recent history that Grenadians discuss carefully.
This guide draws on the official institutions below, cross-checked against current cruise schedules and traveler reports.
Listed sources are not affiliated with and do not endorse CruiseProdigy.
Researched and reviewed by Richard Nicholson, founder of CruiseProdigy. · Spotted an update? Report it →