This blog was originally written, yesterday, August 9th. Today Dave is at sea heading towards Ft. Lauderdale.
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Day 5: St. Maarten/Sint Martin
I woke up this morning to an alarm clock blaring and my mom screaming for me to get up or we’ll miss our excursion. I got out of bed, turned to the balcony window, and there it was. The absolutely beautiful island of St. Maarten (or Ille de Sint Martin if you are on the French side.) I know I say beautiful a lot when referring to an island, but man, if you haven’t seen St. Maarten before, it is drop-dead gorgeous! It totally beats St. Thomas and the Bahamas in island appeal.
I finally got off the ship with much anticipation to start touring the island. My excursion for St. Maarten was a power rafting adventure that allowed you to see the entire island, plus you could also go snorkeling in the coral reefs. The tour was amazing. The island is truly beautiful and the coral reefs out-beat Magen’s Bay by a long shot. Not only was the island magnificent in site, but the cultural influences of the island were really cool to see.
I then went shopping on the Dutch side of the island, in the city of Phillipsburg, where there were some pretty good deals. The stuff in St. Maarten is substantially cheaper than in the U.S., but the problem was that the shops either didn’t have what you wanted or didn’t have your size. Some of the shops, however, were not afraid to show you the owner’s true “character.” I don’t want to get too much into detail about that. Overall, the island of St. Maarten is a lot cleaner and bigger than St. Thomas, and it’s just more beautiful than any other place I have ever been to.
When I got back on the ship, I went down to the Amber Theatre to play Bingo with my mom and brother. Sadly, we still didn’t win, but tomorrow they are hosting a bingo tournament in the morning to raffle off a free cruise so hopefully we will win that one. After bingo, my family and I ate a small dinner at Sorrento’s (the pizza place) on the Royal Promenade. My parents then headed off to the casino (where they lost even more money) so I had to go with my younger cousins to help them make their own stuffed animals for over an hour… Fun. I then retired to my room after a long day at port and watched “How to Train Your Dragon” (it was the only thing on, but it was pretty good.)
Overall, today was a great day, and a great port of call, but I am looking forward to two days at sea as I start to head back to Ft. Lauderdale. Stay tuned tomorrow for another blog post! 🙂
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Header image: TripAdvisor
