Is Great Bay and Little Bay Beach worth it?

Hi there, my husband and I are going to be celebrating our 1st wedding anniv. on the Golden on 1/23. We were thinking that instead of spending $$$ on an excursion in St. Maarten, we can go to either Great Bay or Little Bay beach which is supposedly close to the pier. Is this true? What is the walking distance? Is it worth it to spend some time there before walking into Phillipsburg to do some shopping? We just want to sit bk and relax on the beach. Any help would be awesome!:D

If you just want to chill out on the beach, there is really nothing wrong with Great Bay. And you wouldn't have to 'walk into Philipsburg' after the beach, because you'd already be there. There are plenty of choices for chairs/beverages/food available. And since it's your anniversary, why not splurge on a bottle of champagne and some hot wings?

It is certainly within walking distance of the cruise terminal, or if your ship happens to tender in, then you're already there.

Check out my shot of Great Bay here to see the distance involved.

Or view the bay from the air over at airliners.net.

You can check out a couple of shots of the beach in my Photobucket: Left and Right of Little Pier.

By the way, Divi Little Bay is the resort above and just to the right of the stack of the Disney Magic in the second photo mentioned, above.

We were in St. Maarten last year on Sun Princess and wanted a relaxing day, so we opted to go shopping and then to Great Bay beach, which runs parallel to the main street in town. We were pleased with the ease of getting there. We took the $5 all-day water taxi from the cruise pier which gets you right to the heart of town and right next to the beach. We shopped, took the water taxi back to the ship & dropped off packages and ate a quick bite, then took water taxi back....it was a quick trip and fun too. Plenty of places along the beach rented out chair and umbrellas....if you walk down a ways, it is quite uncrowded, or at least it was the day we were there.