Maho Beach

We will be cruising to St. Maarten, what is the cheapest way for us to get to Maho Beach. Does the water taxi go anywhere near there, if so, how far of a walk is it? Any information will be helpful Thanks:)

Maho Beach is covered extensively on the St Maarten board, here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=93

We will be cruising to St. Maarten' date=' what is the cheapest way for us to get to Maho Beach. Does the water taxi go anywhere near there, if so, how far of a walk is it? Any information will be helpful Thanks:)[/quote']

 

The water taxi does not go there and it's not located anywhere near enough to walk. The only way to get there is by taxi. If you are going to see the planes land keep in mind the big ones usually don't arrived until early afternoon. Traffic can sometimes be awful so make sure you leave early enough t allow for traffic.

 

We usually just book a tour through Bernard Tours and get some beach time, a little shopping at the French capitol Marigot and arrive at Maho to see the planes. Bernard and his staff keep up with traffic and will absolutely make sure you arrive back to the ship in plenty of time.

 

No worries with Bernard!!!!

Here's a photo to either whet your appetite, or to satisfy your curiosity. We took a taxi both ways. It took about a half hour to get there, much longer getting back to the ship due to heavy traffic at the port. We ended up getting out of the taxi about halfway through town and walking the rest of the way to the dock.

Love Maho Beach! We also took a tour with Bernard's tours.

We used one of the shuttle services that are at the port.

The water taxi does not go there and it's not located anywhere near enough to walk. The only way to get there is by taxi. If you are going to see the planes land keep in mind the big ones usually don't arrived until early afternoon. Traffic can sometimes be awful so make sure you leave early enough t allow for traffic.

 

We usually just book a tour through Bernard Tours and get some beach time, a little shopping at the French capitol Marigot and arrive at Maho to see the planes. Bernard and his staff keep up with traffic and will absolutely make sure you arrive back to the ship in plenty of time.

 

No worries with Bernard!!!!

Taxi is not the only way. You can take the water taxi to downtown and then take a public bus for $2 each way.

Taxi (van) at the pier adjacent to the shops - direct route $8 pp one way. They like to fill each one - about 6 - 8 passengers - but run back and forth all day. About 20 minutes (depending on traffic, which later in the day can be heavy). There are tours as mentioned but if you want the easiest, most flexible and direct way to get there, this is it IMO.

we took a taxi from town and it took 20 minutes - the big planes come in and go around noon - 1/-30 but there are planes all day

We had a blast, literally

getting a taxi back is easy, they fill them for $7 or $8 each but give yourself good time to get back - leave yourself an hour - our cab gave us a choice - drop in town or take to the cruise port - same price and he dropped some in town and some at the ship

Great pic boogs.

We were just there on the 16th and the beach was not like in that picture. It was very rough surf and you could not use chairs or umbrellas since the water was washing right up to the road. The waves were pushing so much sand up that the road was closed for a bit while they bulldozed it away. People were having fun in the huge waves, but a lot of them looked completely freaked when they got flipped head over heels not realizing the power of the water. :eek:

We were there on a Saturday and the list on the surfboard was huge. About 20 flights? But a lot of them are little planes. We were waiting for the Air France at 2:07, but it must have been late because we had to leave to go back to port without seeing it:(. What was cool was that some flights were actually taking off over the beach. I had not heard that mentioned here, so it was a nice twist.

Thanks!

If you really want to see big jets, you need to build your whole day around Maho.

Today's schedule gives you an idea of the large long haul arrivals:

KLM 12:40, United 1:02, Air Canada 1:02, American 1:10, Jet Blue 1:27

earlier flights are all small inter-island commuter types. After Jet Blue at 1:27, the next is US Air at 2:30 --0 which would put into the beginning of the afternoon rush hour traffic jams to get through Philipsburg and back to the cruise terminal.

So you might want to hit a beach first, then plane watch, then lunch (maybe in Phillipsburg on the way back)