Trips, Pics, and Tales

Our tour of St. Martin continues!!! This really was a great day...we did a lot! So, we left Maho beach after seeing the planes and our last stop was our beach stop. Our original tour was supposed to include a 2 hour stop at Orient Beach. However our guide told us that after the recent hurricane, they preferred to take us to a different beach because Orient just wasn't up to their standards.  So, we went to Divi Little Bay Beach Resort. This was just fine by us! This is where the tour divided for those who went on option 1 vs option 2! Those who didn't want the beach went back to the ship, and those who did, well, we went to the beach! It was gorgeous! I believe you could rent a chair for about $10 or $15 and there were jet skis you could rent as well. There was an outdoor restaurant too.  Alex and I just put our towels down and went in the water - it was perfect! You can see the beach wasn't crowded at all, which was nice ...

Our next stop was Maho Beach! If you haven't been to St. Martin, you may not know that this is the beach right next to the airport, and this is where the LARGE international jets come in and fly right over the beach! I knew Alex would enjoy this...but he wasn't so sure. We pulled up to a mob scene! It was crazy. And when our driver told us we'd be here for an hour, or maybe it was an hour and 15 minutes our whole bus grumbled! No one wanted to be there! Come on guys....let's see the planes land! I'll admit it was packed. I think a plane must have just landed or taken off. During our last trip, the tour we had drove by here and we saw the beach area but didn't get to see any action. So I was looking forward to this! Our driver told us to be careful and the risks of being blasted.  We got out of the van and I checked the board, which again...no picture, sorry! And we had only about 5 minutes until a BIG plane was to land! Cool! So first some pictures of some small...

Next we stopped in Marigot. I think this stop was one of the main reasons I wanted to do this tour! There's just something about this market area that I felt like I wanted to experience. It's not the typical cruise port shopping area, it's just a bit more than that. It's French, very French! And that's just unique to me. This tour gave us the drive around the island, the photo stops, the beach and time to stop here. I'm not a shopper at all. At least not a vacation shopper. I collect magnets everywhere I go, and maybe get a necklace or some other small thing, and by necklace I don't mean an expensive one, I mean something more handcrafted. Maybe a t-shirt...so I don't go to the ports for shopping and bargaining, but I wanted to come here. Maybe this was why? Everytime I read anything at St. Maarten, Sarafina's came up!  Alex doubted me...remember he's a picky eater. And for some crazy reason he doesn't really like pastries or believ...

Today was our day in St. Maarten! With the pretty much perfect day we had in St. Thomas, could this day compare? Keith and I had been to St. Maarten a few years back on the Eclipse cruise, but I felt like on that day we didn't really get a good feel for the island. We did a land/sea type excursion. I think it was one where you drive the jeeps and then drive the little speed boats and maybe snorkel? I know we had a blast! And while we did drive across the island, I don't feel like we "saw" the island! I'm pretty sure that time we did have some short beach time, which I'm sure was great - but this time, I wanted to actually get a feel for St. Maarten/St. Martin itself! I'd always been intrigued by this two country little place! So, I booked an island tour with Bernard's tours. I picked the one that had some time in Marigot as well as about 2 hours at a beach. Originally the scheduled beach was supposed to be Orient Beach, but this was shortly after the h...