Trip Report: Caribbean Cruise (Day 7)

Day 7:

We arrived in Saint Maarten on Thursday morning and it looked like the weather was going to be perfect for our day in port. The ship arrived to port at around 8am.  A lot of people don't know that a Pilot comes onboard the ship as it arrives in port so they can help navigate the ship safely to the dock.  I have seen the Pilot boat before, but on this day I was able to look down from my balcony and see the pilot climbing onto the deck.  It was really cool to see!

Right after that happened I went up to meet my friends for breakfast.  We were eating in the buffet as the ship finished docking. After we were done eating we decided to head off the ship and walk around the pier and shopping area. The last time I was in Saint Maarten I didn't spend a ton of time exploring the area right around the port so it was nice that this time I got a chance to take a closer look at all of the shops and stores in that area. 

After wandering around for a little while the others decided to walk down the road to a nearby beach. I knew that I needed to limit my time in the sun so I decided to get back on the ship where we would be meeting each other for lunch at 11:15. I was pretty tired so I decided to go up to the pool deck and get a pineapple blast, which is a drink made out of pineapple juice and Redbull. I grabbed a spot in the shade and listen to the poolside music while looking out at the gorgeous blue water and feeling the Caribbean breeze. It was heavenly!  Before long it was time for lunch so we met at the buffet and had some food.

Our first view of St. Maarten as we arrived to port

The Pilot boat coming up next to the ship

If you look closely you can see the pilot on the ladder hanging from the side of the ship!

Two big ships side by side

I loved how blue the water was!

Welcome to St. Maarten!!

By the time we were done eating lunch it was time to go down and meet our group for our excursion. The excursion we chose was called the Airport Adventure, which involved taking a boat over to Maho Beach where the planes land at the local airport. We grabbed spots on the boat and took a 35 minute ride down the coast to the airport beach. Almost right away there were a bunch of planes landing, so we all took some pictures & videos and had a lot of fun watching the planes land. It's crazy how low they get right over the beach. I don't know if I could actually be on the beach without panicking because planes are flying so close overhead!  They had music playing on our boat and they had a bar where they were serving drinks, so it was a really fun day. My favorite part was getting in the water and floating around with a pool noodle. There was an option to snorkel but I decided to just float on my own without the mask.

We had about an hour in the water and then it was time to get ready to head back to our ship. We went back the same way we came and soon we were at the pier. I was really glad that we booked the excursion through the ship because our all aboard time was 4:30 and I was literally on the gangway at 4:28. If I didn't have the guarantee that they wouldn't leave without me I would have been panicking to make it back so close to departure. Although this was a more expensive excursion I'm glad to have paid the money for the peace of mind that they wouldn't leave without us.

Our boat for the Airport Adventure excursion

Our bar for the day

Houses along the coast on the way to the airport beach

Seeing the planes land was amazing, especially the big ones!!

A daiquiri made with the local guava berry

​After getting back on the ship I was ready for a nice, cool shower. I turned on the water and quickly realized that something was wrong. No matter how I turned the dial the water went from scorching hot to boiling hot and wouldn't get any colder than that. I called maintenance and they said they would send somebody out to look at it, and he didn't seem surprised so I think it was a problem they were already working on fixing. In the meanwhile, I went and showered in my friends room so that I could get cleaned up and get all that salt water off of me. 

When we were all cleaned up we met at 6 in the library to play Phase 10 and we had an hour until it was time to go to dinner. When we went to the dining room they told us there was a short wait so they gave us a pager and we went to the pub to get a drink. I had told the guys about one of my favorite drinks, which is called Angry Balls and is made of Angry Orchard cider and a shot of Fireball whiskey. They both seemed to really like it, so I was glad I had told them about it. At dinner I didn't see anything that really stood out to me on the menu so I decided to go for the vegetarian Indian option again. It was really good! I'm so glad that I found out about that as another dinner option. 

After dinner we walked over to the theater to see what show was playing, but there weren't a ton of seats and it didn't really catch our eyes so we didn't stay. Instead, we walked up to the helipad to see the stars. It was beautiful! That was probably one of my favorite moments of the whole cruise because it was a reminder of how huge the universe is. Feeling so small really put my worries into perspective and made me realize not to sweat the small stuff.

Once we were done stargazing we ended up going into the wine bar and playing some more Phase 10. I kind of liked playing there because we were right off the Promenade and we could do some people watching while playing cards. There was also music and it was a bit cooler there as opposed to the library which could get stuffy at times. We played cards until 11pm when Mark won our fourth game of the trip.

The others went to bed and I wandered back up to the helipad to see the stars again. It wasn't as serene this time around because there were some rowdy people up there, which  kind of ruined the moment. So instead I went back to my room and hung out on the balcony for a little while before going to bed at about midnight.

My towel "animal" that I found that night :-)

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So that's it for our last day in port for this cruise! I'll have one or two more posts for our sea days and my return to Denver...