Day Five: St Maarten

I was awaken by the announcement from our Captain that we arrived into St Maarten around 8am.  I peeked through our cabin curtains to see the sun was out and it was bright.  I worked on our blog for a bit and then saw the sun disappeared.  Much to my surprise the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas was docked right next to us.  Yes, the Oasis does a great job as a sun blocker.   

We ended up having a late breakfast right before the buffet switched over to lunch.  

We left the ship around 11am and it was already quite hot outside.  As we were leaving the dock area, a photographer tried to talks us into getting our picture taken.  We declined and I noticed he was wearing a name badge with Royal Caribbean written all over it.  Did he not see us leave the Princess ship?  We made our way through the shopping area of the port and walked out the main cruise port gate.  We made a left and followed the road for about a mile and made a left to head into main beach/shopping area.  Wow!  Was it ever a hot day.  

Along the way to the nearby beach, we could see some of the hurricane devastation.  We saw several cargo containers crumpled.  Others had large holes as though an object pierced it way through the container’s walls.  Many of the palm trees had no leaves at all.  Several buildings located up along the hillside lost their roofs and a few walls.   

As we approached the start of the beach area, we noticed additional hurricane damage. A few hotels stood without their roofs.  We continued walking and then noticed brightly painted restaurants and cafes were open and ready for customers as well as the hotels.  

We chatted with a few locals.  One of beaches I had wanted to go to, Divi Little Bay was closed. along with another nearby resort/beach.  

We decided we had enough sun and headed towards the main cobbled stone street.  It has been several years since we’ve walked the downtown area and that time they were putting in the cobbled street.  Now, it looks like they will have to replace it as some areas lost its foundation resulting in uneven areas.  A church was having it’s roof repaired.  Several shops were being renovated.  Others were closed.  The ones that were opened had folks standing outside beckoning folks to come in and shop.  

We went back to the beach front to look for lunch.  We found a small restaurant that had a grill out front.  We ended up having BBQ chicken and Jerk chicken.     

After our wonderful meal we walked back to the ship.  I believe it was hotter here in St Maarten than it was in St Thomas.  I’m not complaining, just stating a fact.  We have seen lots of blue skies and white puffy clouds.  We are enjoying it immensely.  

In the late afternoon we were lounging in our balcony waiting to leave port.  I was looking down along the dock area when I saw the crew of the Oasis of the Seas was taking a gurney with a body bag on it off it’s ship and loaded it into an awaiting van.  That was a shock for us to see.  

We saw the St Maarten Police car driving down pier between the two ships.  They stopped at our ship and chatted with a few uniformed ship’s staff.  Then they drove down to the end of the pier where the van was still waiting with the body inside.  The police visited with the uniformed staff from the Oasis of the Seas for a few minutes and then left.  Shortly after that, the Oasis sailed out of port.  For a few minutes, the two ships were sounding their dueling horns.  We of course won.  Psssst!  Princess has the best horns.  :)

We were scheduled to leave port around 6pm and instead left around 7pm.  Which of course delayed our dining time.  Hubby and I always do sail-a-way from our balcony.  It’s a tradition.  

Our movie at MUTS tonight was the latest version Pirates of the Caribbean.  Since we had a late start with dinner, we arrived late at MUTS.  We found lounge chairs, but no popcorn.  We’d have to wait to get popcorn at 10pm.  But I will be asleep by then….Zzzzzzzzz.

Thursday-Day 5: St Maarten & Ships

We shared St Maarten with 4 other cruise ships:  Celebrity Summit, Holland America, RC Freedom of the Seas , and RC Serenade of the Seas.  I was only able to capture two of them as they were on the port side of our ship where our cabin is located (Celebrity and HAL):

I spied a jacuzzi on the Celebrity ship:

We watched the other ships leave port.  We had a nice "battle of the horns" with Celebrity.  Of course, you can beat our Princess deep and long horn and our secret weapon the Love Boat theme.  

For our evening meal we headed down to Alfredo's, an Italian specialty restaurant.  They serve personal pizzas, eggplant, ravioli, salads, calzones, and desserts.  Their menu is limited, but the food is "gourmet".  Hubby and I each had a salad and personal pizza with thin crusts.  It was devine!  We finished our meal with a yummy Tiramisu.  

We were hoping to find a movie on MUTS, but instead a Bon Jovi concert was playing on the huge outdoor screen.  Hubby mentioned The Martian movie was playing on TV.  We picked up some popcorn at Swirls (ice cream place) and headed down to our cozy cabin.  Zzzzzzz!

Thursday-Day 5: St Maarten

We arrived and docked in St Maarten around 7am.  That's about the time we woke up. So far, I'ved missed the ship's approach into 3 islands.  Yes, you call me a sleepy head this week.

Breakfast time came and went and so did our coffee time.  We met our excursion group on the pier at 10:30am.  We were heading to Orient Beach for a few hours of fun in the sun.  

We are docked in Philipsburg at the southern tip of St Maarten (the Dutch side) and Orient Beach is located on the French side of St Martin on the east coast:  

Our bus ride took about 20 minutes going from the Dutch side of the island to the French side.  We were dropped off at Kakoa Beach, next door to Bikini beach. Now, it's been years since we've been to Orient Beach.  Back then, I remembered some construction work being done, the beach was smaller and less crowded.  

It's changed a lot.  More crowded (with 5 ships in port) and the beach area seems to go on and on.  

We were given two lounge chairs (included).  The umbrella was an additional $3 to rent.  We settled down for a lazy day at the beach.  

Lunch was included:

We walked the beach to burn some calories:

We napped under our umbrella and enjoyed listening to the sound of the surf crashing into the sand.  Life is definitely good!

Back at the pier we walked around until it was to head back to the ship: 

Can you see me?

Tuesday (01/06): St Maarten

St Maarten (Philipsburg Pier):  10am-6pm
Temperature:  79 degrees

Princess Patter-Today's Activities:  Bible Study/Card & Board games/Singles & Solos Get-together/How to Lose 8 inches in 1 hour (Really???)/Chess Lovers Get-together/Knitters & Natters/Paddle Tennis/Quiet Room (Skywalker's)Brunchtime Trivia/Party Bridge Play/Pictionary Challenge/Baggo Challenge/BOGO Happy Hour/Best of 10 Basketball Challenge/Afternoon Tea/Golf Chipping/Caribbean Melodies/Trivia/Acupuncture Clinic Open Hour/Piano Melodies/Modern Masters Exhibition (art gallery)/Crab Shack (Cafe Caribe)/Runway @Sea/Production Show-Colors of the World/Party Line Dance Class/Cocktails and Dancing/Blackjack Tournament/Passenger Feud gameshow/Team Trivia challenge - All about Musicals/Karaoke Power Hour/The Ultimate Deck Party/Texas Hold'em/Jackpot Bingo/Princess Theater Evening Movie: Boyhood

Cruise Life:  Wow! Hubby and I are having a wonderful time on this cruise. I'm so far behind in my posts that I've had to jot down things on a piece of paper so I would not forget the key points of our cruise. I apologize for not posting pictures. I am using five (5) cameras plus an iPhone to document our cruise.

Three cameras are being used for snorkeling/beach/marine activities. All three are waterproof. The remaining two and my iPhone are used on dry land to document ship's activities as well as ports visited. It's taken awhile to go through all the pictures and still having issues with posting them here on the blog. I hope to iron that problem out by this coming weekend (turnaround). I may have to purchase additional Internet minutes...it's actually a special package on top of what I get for free. No worries.

Approaching St Maarten

Is that Dumbo's rear end?

Super Mega Yachts

Ship maintenance is always ongoing

Now back to the cruise. We arrived into St Maarten (Dutch side) to find several ships already in port. Yes, the Ruby was the last to arrive to the huge port party. One pier was shared by the NCL Getaway and the Disney Fantasy. The other pier which we were headed into was shared with RCCL Independence of the Seas and the Jewel of the Seas.

Hubby noticed tiny butterflies fluttering around the Disney ship. How cool!

Our snorkeling tour excursion did not leave until later in the morning, so Hubby and I left the ship to do some early window shopping. As we were walking around the port area we noticed a lot of butterflies all around us. It was so beautiful to see.

Hubby's new boat...all aboard?!

This is probably as close to Christmas cruising we'll get.
It was great to see some holiday decorations.  

Places to go and see

Can you see the small butterflies?  

Linens available for sale

A bit crowded at the pier with two RCCL ships (left) and the Ruby (right)

After window shopping, we headed back towards our ship's gangway and waited for our snorkel group to assemble. We all signed in (waivers) and walked over to the water taxi dock area. Our yellow speed boat was waiting for us. We boarded the boat and literally "took off" away from the port area and cruised (fast) along the western side of the island toward Martinique (French side of the island). It was a bright and beautiful sunny day. Warm weather and cool breeze makes for happy cruisers.

We spend the next 30 minutes cruising around the waters going in and out of coves and going under bridges. We passed many fancy yachts and beautiful extravagant homes. We finally stopped at a place called "the Rock" which literally had a huge rock-like island in the middle of the ocean. It was beautiful! We were one of the first groups to arrive and dropped anchor. We were told not to climb the rock and to stay within the confines of the small reef area. Beyond the tiny reef, I could see some waves that could carry someone out to the Caribbean Sea quickly.

A hurricane moved this freight into the island

The Rock

It did not take Hubby and I too long to put on our snorkel gear and basically jump off the boat. We headed over to the "Rock", but didn't find much coral or fish. We swam away from the rock and headed over to the reef. Not much here. A few fish, but that was it. Hardly saw much live coral. Hubby and I spend about 20 minutes snorkeling in the water and decided to head back to our boat. Several other fellow snorkelers agreed with me that besides the water being murky, there wasn't much to see. The above water view with the "Rock" was striking and beautiful (picture to come).

Once everyone was back on board, we headed back the way we came. We cruised around a small island and stopped briefly. We were told Denzel Washington has a house here along with some other famous folks. We continued onto another island with a huge beach front and huge home. This home belonged to Harry Belafonte. I heard there were 20 or so bedrooms at his home (picture to come). We also passed a home that belonged to Oprah Winfrey. They were all beautiful!

Harry Belafonte's home as told by our tour guide.  I can't confirm this,
but it definitely belongs to someone and it's one beautiful abode.....

We stopped at a beach to take a break and enjoy the cool water. Yes, it got hot on the boat even though we were speeding along at 15-21 knots. After our beach break, we cruised over to another beach and stopped. Behind this beach was the airport. I imagined if I was lying on this beach and plane came over to land, I could probably see the treads on the plane's tires. That's how close the airport is. We watched a plane take off, but didn't see one land. Too bad. Still...this was something not to miss. Side note: as we were waiting for some airport activity, I looked over to my left and saw a guy standing on a small surfboard. He was moving at a good clip. He had a small motor on his board! How cool! (pictures to come)

Pit stop at a public beach

Motorized board riding along in front of Maho Beach

Where the airport and beach meet:  Maho Beach

We made it back to the pier in time and headed back to our ship. We were starving! Can you believe that?! We watched the NCL Getaway sail out along with the RCCL Jewel of the Seas and the Independence of the Seas. We were next and waved goodbye to St Maarten. We had a wonderful excursion despite not seeing much underwater marine life. We did enjoy the tour of the island (French and Dutch side). This island is very mountainous and very beautiful. We saw a lot of yachts here. More than we've seen in St Thomas.

Water slide looks like fun

Disney Fantasy is a beautiful ship...all lit up!

I overheard another cruiser say that around 10pm
the Disney Fantasy set off fireworks from the ship

Sailing into the sunset

Tonight's movie at MUTS:  Guardians of the Galaxy!

Monday (01/05): Another @Sea Post and Next Few Days

Note:  I wanted to post what will be happening the next few days. Starting tomorrow (Tuesday), we'll be in St Maarten followed by St Thomas, and then Grand Turk on Thursday. We also have snorkeling/beach excursions planned. Full days with a lot of activities. So pardon me if I go silent for a day or two.

After this 1st sea day, I'm kind of anxious to be back in the water with the beautiful fish. I'm feeling a bit lazy today along with wanting to take several naps.

Back to today's events....

Cruise Life:  After lunch, I dropped Hubby off at the cabin. I made my rounds on decks #7, #6, and #5 and where the main Piazza (center venue) is located. There's a lot going on...especially people watching. Deck 5, you will find me looking for peanut butter cookies at the International Cafe (IC). On this same deck is where I get my specialty coffee also at the IC. Across the way, is the Future Cruise Sales desk where I patiently wait for Angela, the Princess Rep to appear. If I wanted to, I could head over to the Internet Cafe next door and burn more Internet minutes.

Deck 6 is where is the Purser's desk and Princess kiosk is located and where I pause for station identification. There are also shops/boutiques located on this level. Deck 7 has the sales tables where I pause for the second station identification. More shops and boutiques are here. Nearby, is the library where I find my daily dose of Sudoku and other brain teasers available for us to take with us.

I was able to sit and chat with Angela about future cruises. Looks like Hubby and I will be on the brand new ship Regal Princess next year. Well, by then it will be less than two years old.
It's 4pm and time to get ready for formal night. More later....