Our day in St Maarten

[judyf]

St. Maarten: Wednesday: 11/15/06 11::00am to 5:30pm-all aboard

 

We arrived about 9am two hours ahead of scheduled, NCL warned us all trip that we needed to tender as there were 7 ships visiting St. Maarten this day. They estimate about 20,000 passengers were there. I went down real early to get tender tickets and we were on tender # 4, this was a chore as I got into my cabin real late last night for an early morning. Everyone was complaining about the situation but NCL did tell us in advance what it was going to be like. We ended up getting off the ship about 11:30-12:00 we had breakfast and waited for our tender to be called.

 

We had pre arranged with Sunny Liston to due a tour with Victor but when we got off the ship we met up with part of our roll roll that were doing the same tour with us. She told us the meeting place was on the other side of where the ships docked and we were on the wrong side and needed to take a water taxi to the meeting location. At this point my DD and SIL said let's just shop as we haven't had much time to do any this cruise. I'm not a big shopper on a cruise I can do that at home but went with the flow. I did get a nice couch bag so it was worth it. I was a little disappointed that Victor didn't realize that our ship was tendering and wasn't where we got off to meet us, as I was really looking forward to the tour. Oh well.

 

It worked out good, we got a few hours of shopping in and then took a Taxi to Dawn Beach. I think that was the name I can't remember the name right now but it was one that wasn't too far from where we were and we didn't have a lot of time so we went with his suggestion. It was nice except for the jelly fish, lots of them. We were told it's jelly fish season. I've never had a problem with them in all my cruises except this one and I have never cruised this time of year so I do believe this statement is correct.

 

My DD decided to rent a set of snorkel gear so her and her husband could go out to the reef area. She loved it in St. Thomas and wanted to do it again and I had the one set I brought. Well, this was before we saw all the jelly fish, they tried it any way but there was no way they could swim out to the area without running into the jelly fish. She brought the gear right back in about 10 minutes but she didn't get a refund and she didn't ask for one. My GD and her father had fun catching jelly fish in a plastic cup and then releasing them back in the water. She also buried herself, as kids do in the sand. Funny thing was when it was time to leave she wouldn't go deep enough in the water to rinse off all the sand due to the jelly fish.

 

A cab driver actually was walking on the beach and we got a ride back from him. So no need to worry about a cab. We didn't set up for the one we took to come back as we didn't know what time we would leave. I think it was $6 pp each way. When we got back in time for the last tender the line was really long and our friends were sitting in a place right there by the line. Mu GD was hungry so she sat with her dad as My DD and I went shopping right there in that area as we watched the line. We got an extra 60-90 minutes of shopping done while we waited for the tender.

 

Funny thing is the sign we saw right there at the place as you get on the tender said Beer 99 cents but water was a dollar. Also if you want to purchase liquor there's a huge store right there where you get the tender we bought must of your there as we were waiting for the tender.

 

Here's a link to our pictures of St. Maarten.

 

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/556102360UpSenV

[xxkatiexx]

Nice pictures! were going to St Maarten this month on carnival legend :D