Maho Beach .... St Maarten

sailing there in November on the Explore,

anybody been, cant see any RC excursions there, means I will have to do it myself

anybody done it thereselves, is there any place onboard that lets you ask if anybody if they want to share a taxi..... not sure of the distance

any help would be appreciated

They usually have taxis right outside the port. Someone their will ask you which beach and they put u in a group. We usually go on our own because we do not like to wait till they fill the van. :cool:

 

, is there any place onboard that lets you ask if anybody if they want to share a taxi..... not sure of the distance

 

I would try your roll call :) Based on your ticker, Im assuming the November 1 sailing. Is that correct?

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1848442

yep, 1st Nov, thanks

sailing there in November on the Explore,

anybody been, cant see any RC excursions there, means I will have to do it myself

 

anybody done it thereselves, is there any place onboard that lets you ask if anybody if they want to share a taxi..... not sure of the distance

 

any help would be appreciated

On our trip to Maho beach we got a taxi for the day. My wife's favorite is Orient Beach, so for me to get to Maho I had to do it in a way that we still got to Orient. We went to Orient early, then looped around the island to Maho. Spent about two hours there, then our driver took us back to the ship. If you check your cruise's roll call, you could probably find someone interested in splitting a taxi. St. Maarten is really easy to walk off the boat and find someone to take you wherever you want without having to do anything through the ship.

Very easy to pick up a cab just outside the pier area. You can arrange for them to pick you up for the return journey.

There is a bulletin board by guest services where you can ask for people to share with you if you want.

Linda

thanks for all the replies, really helpful

Very easy to pick up a cab just outside the pier area. You can arrange for them to pick you up for the return journey.

 

 

There is a bulletin board by guest services where you can ask for people to share with you if you want.

 

Linda

Thanks for the info Linda, we are there in November as well and this is really useful. :)

Great information. We are there in October and another CC poster suggested Bernard Tours. They have some tours that incorporate Maho beach as well as other SXM sights. Any other recommendations would be appreciated!

Beth

Thanks for the info Linda, we are there in November as well and this is really useful. :)

No problem.... I have pics of all the boards there.... :)

sailing there in November on the Explore,

anybody been, cant see any RC excursions there, means I will have to do it myself

 

anybody done it thereselves, is there any place onboard that lets you ask if anybody if they want to share a taxi..... not sure of the distance

 

any help would be appreciated

We went on Oasis last October and spent our day at st. marten at Maho

Beach, we were able to get a cab/van right at port I think it was 8$pp each

way. We went there with the intentions of seeing a few planes land and then

going somewhere else but ended up spending the entire day there and loved

it. My advice is to go early, if you plan on spending the entire day, rent a

chair close to the edge of the water so people cant stand in front of you. it

does get crowded and the chairs do sell out early.

Also depending on when your boat leaves port, give yourself extra time to get

back to the boat, it took us like 4x longer to get back to the boat because of

afternoon traffic.

sorry about the huge pics.

If you go into town, two blocks behind beach is Back Street. You can hop a local bus (Toyota vans with license plates that say BUS) at bus stops which are every couple blocks. Bus is $2 each way. I just did this last month.

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As others have noted, it is very easy to get a cab at the entrance to the cruise port to take you to Maho Beach, and there were cabs lined up near the bar/restaurant at the edge of Maho Beach available to take you back to the port. I assume you are interested in going to watch airplanes take off and land. If so, I suggest you check the airport's schedule for arrival and departure times to see when a good time to go would be. (Especially if interested in seeing a specific airplane (such as a Boeing 747, or one of AirBus' big planes). (You may have to check some other website to find out which aircraft is being used for a specific flight...)

I found this site to be easier/ more useful than the airport's own website:

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Airport/airportDetails.do;jsessionid=B50D0CF23381FE149749CD1FB0F8E289.web1:8009?airportCode=SXM

click on "arrivals" or "departures", then select the day you will be in port. Then select the time period you are interested in.

Looks like the info is available for 2 days into the future... but you can probably get a general idea of times before you leave for your cruise, since the generally don't change from one week to the next...

Good luck!

Sailing on the Allure in April and a bunch of us are going through Bernard's tour, so we can all go together from our Roll Call :D

Just a note .. jets can be 45 minutes ahead or behind schedule depending on head/tail winds. The day I was there they were all 30 minutes early except KLM which was 45 minutes late.

How much are the taxis

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How much are the taxis

 

 

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See post #6

How much are the taxis

 

 

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Very easy to pick up a cab just outside the pier area. You can arrange for them to pick you up for the return journey.

 

 

There is a bulletin board by guest services where you can ask for people to share with you if you want.

 

Linda

As shown in Post # 6

In case anyone wants to take a "bus", those can be picked up on Back St., near the courthouse. Cost is $2 per person, one-way. The bus looks like a VW bus.

Great information. We are there in October and another CC poster suggested Bernard Tours. They have some tours that incorporate Maho beach as well as other SXM sights. Any other recommendations would be appreciated!

 

Beth

We used Bernards a few years ago, well worth it. Was a great day and they will tailor the day to match what the group would like to do. Hopefully you will get a good group of people if you aren't going by yourselves. We had one other family with us and luckily we all had the same thoughts in mind.

I second taking the city buses. We thought we were getting in a taxi and when we asked how much, driver told us $2 each. Bus stops a few times but not enough to be annoying. When driver dropped us off we asked if he would come back and get us at 2:00 and low and behold we couldn't believe it when he actually came back for us. We left at 2:00 so that we could make sure we didn't have any traffic problems and this left us plenty of time to stay in the port area and enjoy many $2 Coronas!!! We will actually be back there two weeks from today!!!!!

Sometimes the afternoon traffic can be a bear, so if you are doing Maho "on your own" please remember to allow plenty of time to return to the ship.

Both times we went to Maho we booked through Bernard Tours and loved it. We got beach time at Orient, time at Marigot (think French pastries) and then on to Maho.

We didn't have to worry about time or the traffic because his driver stays on top of that. We also didn't have to worry about our "stuff" because it is locked in the van and the driver stays with it.

Everyone in St Maarten knows Bernard.......great guy.....great business!!!

We used Bernards a few years ago, well worth it. Was a great day and they will tailor the day to match what the group would like to do. Hopefully you will get a good group of people if you aren't going by yourselves. We had one other family with us and luckily we all had the same thoughts in mind.

We used Bernard's last year and did the St. Maarten highlights tour, and we used him again a couple weeks ago for the Maho tour. While there was no rum punch, Coke or water on the Maho tour, we did have a private driver to take us to/from Maho. It was worth the $5 extra (vs. the taxi), we thought, especially since we found our driver when we were ready to leave. Love Bernard's tours!

Enjoy Maho! We've seen the KLM flight take off (last year) and land (this year) and it's quite an awesome sight. If I recall, it lands around 12:15 and takes off after 1. Quick turnaround for such a huge plane!

Sometimes the afternoon traffic can be a bear, so if you are doing Maho "on your own" please remember to allow plenty of time to return to the ship.

 

Both times we went to Maho we booked through Bernard Tours and loved it. We got beach time at Orient, time at Marigot (think French pastries) and then on to Maho.

 

We didn't have to worry about time or the traffic because his driver stays on top of that. We also didn't have to worry about our "stuff" because it is locked in the van and the driver stays with it.

 

Everyone in St Maarten knows Bernard.......great guy.....great business!!!

We did Benards also. When we left Maho the traffic around the airport was at a standstill. The driver whose name was John got off the main road and took some back roads through the neigborhoods to get us to town and dropped us off there to have some shopping time before heading back to the ship. He said if we would have stayed in the traffic he would have had to take us back to the ship because there would not have been enough time to get dropped off in town. From town we took the water taxi back to the port.

Bernards also provide all you can drink beer, water and rum punch included in the price! :cool:

Mullet Bay

This is one of the BEST beaches in the entire Caribbean.

In 1989 hurricane Hugo destroyed the Mullet Bay complex, but the beach is beautiful if you like to stand in 5' aquamarine water and look at your toes and watch the fishes swim between your legs while admiring the white sand cove-like beach, which is picture card perfect.

Maho Beach has the planes worth seeing - and 500 yards away is the beach you have to see to believe.