Aplmac

I agree, keep them coming!

with all your enthusiasm for big pics...:cool:

OK, here's where you enter the St.Maarten Water Taxi facility near the base of the pier

to take you across the big bay to Philipsburg for shopping.

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Great pics! Is this a pic of Great Bay beach? Also, if it is, how is the snorkling?

How's the snorkelling there?

I didn't snorkel(I'm from Barbados...does that make sense to a Northerner?):D

-but it looks to me like a lotta white sandy bottom to stare at, with little reef structure..but I could be wrong.

You might find reef at the other extreme end of the bay away from the pier

but it's a Biiig Bay as the name implies - lotsa sand-strolling to get there?

Reefs tend to cluster around headlands, while in the bays it tends to be sandy with grass beds.

That's the general Marine Bio pattern in the Antillean islands, in my experience living here..

If you have Google Earth, maybe you should fire it up and go over to St.Maarten and have a look at Great Bay..

..it gives you a fair idea of what's in shallow water,there

You can see enough via Google Earth to give a basic idea of what might be out there

but I see lots on plain ole SAND...if that turns you on..:cool:

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If you have Nikon Capture software it will 'automatically' take out the fish eye distortion out

and you do not have to crop it. Great photos.

We where there also on April 22nd it was a great day for photos.

but is Nikon Capture the software on the CD wot came with the camera??

-or do I have to get it elsewhere?

So you were at SXM same day as me, huh?

You must've been on either Carnival Liberty

or on Crown Princess...

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Plane landing at Maho beach

- wish I knew how to post a big picture though, all I seem to be able to post is a thumbnail :confused:

you need to text-in a link to photos already uploaded big on the internet somewhere.

If you have photos over on the CC Photo Gallery, you can link to those

--they come out quite reasonably big..

but these BIG ones of mine you see here, are on my Photobucket.com account

so you may want to establish a (free) account over there

and assemble yourself a collection of cruise-pics

before linking to them.

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Which way do you cruise?

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Life on the French side seems to be more chic...a bit of Riviera in the Caribbean if you will

Wife now insists we go over to Marigot -any time we get to St.Maarten

-not that I have a problem with that.

Taxi fare over to Marigot is around U.S.$ 7 per person, one way

and it's worth doing, to see the other half of this two-sided island

where you get two destinations for the price of one!

And if your girly-girly dau. of age 10 wants Euro-boutiques

where a girl can get pretty shoes and stuff..

then Marigot is definitely IT! :D

Marigot shops take a siesta at 1:30 p.m. until 3 p.m. one shop-owner lady told us..

so bear that in mind if you plan to get there after lunch -only to find most shops shut!!

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Life is 'tough':cool: in Marigot, as you can see from this one..

We had a delightful chocolate eclair at this table.

It came with little bits of crispy preserved/candied-orange-peel..

and the nice young man who waited table told us

that they sometimes do a 1:1 exchange rate between the Euro and the U.S.Dollar

on bills paid before 11 a.m.

Normally the exchange rate is around U.S.$ 1.30 = 1 Euro

so if that deal is going down, you get to save about 30%, eh? ;)

Now don't hold me to that.. but I did see signs posted

indicating a certain flexibility in exchange rate over in Marigot

when we were there April 22nd.

The Euro is the currency they use over on the French side

whereas the U.S.Dollar is the (widely-accepted) currency on the Dutch side,where you'll dock

even though the official Dutch-side money is -I believe- the Dutch Florin?

-although everything seems to be priced for us cruisers in US$.

Hope this helps you understand this two-for-one island a bit better...

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So that is what you are using!

Maybe I'd better put one of those on my birthday wish list... :D

Go here

http://pictures.cruisecritic.com/member.php?uid=272460

and see what I use..

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My new toy!

Bet Mr. T wishes he had one of these! ;)

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Great photos and all that, but don't we already have a Photo Gallery for posting our pictures?

 

Then the photos don't take up the bandwidth

for those of us just looking for answers to our questions here in the discussion threads?

===> This particular thread is about photos -not answers.

Go to other threads for answers. ;)

Thanks for bringing the CC Photo Gallery to the attention of people on the text message boards.

http://pictures.cruisecritic.com/

I was always under the impression that many people who do the text message boards

are quite unaware of CC's excellent Photo Gallery

so I was just kinda bringing pics to them...sorry I hit your bandwidth nerve,man

but it often helps to illustrate a point being made

since a picture is worth a thousand words? ;)

Maybe I should stop.

All who think we should stop posting pics to threads

- please say so.

Seriously!

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As always, your pics are breathtaking with incredible resolution and the (10-)20mm lens.

was taken with the new 10.5 mm Nikkor fish-eye lens I'd bought just 2 hrs. previously! :)

With some cropping at the sides, the shot you see shows very little of the usual fish-eye distortion.

It's quite a lens, I assure you!!

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These few lifeboat shots are not the usual 'behind-the-scenes' stuff..

but we were taken to this outside area on Deck 4 just the once

for Muster Drill -and we never saw this area again!

What are those dangling triangular pull-handles for??

Carnival Victory

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At the Philipsburg end of the quick Water Taxi run

the unbelievable scenery looks like this! :eek:

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This thread is for all you cruisers who took away with you..

fond memories and nice photos of St. Maarten -the good deals island!

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Everyone has this shot.. :D

If you took the Water Taxi from the pier over to Philipsburg..

..you might remember this kinda scene?

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Thanks for the photo of the Victory's atrium.

We'll be going on her for the first time this weekend.

If you have any more, please feel free to post. :)

http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w219/aplmac/Carnival%20VICTORY%20Apr%2009/

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This is the Caribbean Show Lounge -on decks 3,4 and 5 forward.

.

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BTW, I'm interviewing now to go to Princess

so hopefully I'll be in that pool soon!;)

Please remember us if you succeed

and send us a few more interesting Behinders,okay?

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My one meagre offering from this last cruise of mine

is a quick peek inside what appears to be a beverage storage/prep room

just off the Atlantic Dining Room, amidships Carnival Victory

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I'll see what I can do, on this cruise I'm currently on til Apr. 24th.

I'm surprised there haven't been more submissions of this behind-the-scenes nature, frankly.

Maybe such pics are rarer than I thought, after all...

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Sure looks tasty!

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Actually it could be by design, metal contracts and expands depending on temps.

Thanks for pointing that out. Makes sense...quite a possibility.

I have no idea what part of the ship that shot was taken,other than a lower deck...

but it could indeed be somewhere where a cool-ish section meets a warm-ish section

-or something like that? ;)

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General crew movement areas..

I'm thinking that striped black-and-yellow area of the floor..

is where sections of the hull may not have 'mated' quite accurately

during hull assembly, modular section by modular section?

Minor fitting mistakes are bound to happen during assembly of huge sections of pre-fab hull

and it's just too darned late to un-weld everything and start over

..so they make a little ramp to adapt floor level by the 1 - 1.5 inch error in elevation? :confused:

Surely it can't be like that, on purpose...by design ?

Anyone ?

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I'm curious what ship you were on.

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Wow, do you have any more "behind the scenes" pics? I'd love to see them.

OK, here are the guys in the galley, preparing Lunch..

That should keep you until the next round, I hope... :)

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It's almost hard to believe you are on a beautiful cruise ship

seeing these pictures. ===> It's a gorgeous ship!

 

Such a difference from the public areas.

I was on board the ship for about 4 hrs.

and during that time our group moved seamlessly between the two worlds

This is just a bulkhead away!

It was quite strange at first, but after awhile you came to realize..

this is what it's like for the crew members who move in both,parallel worlds

-unlike us paying passengers who move in one world only!

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... all the shots so far have been great, so everyone is setting a very high standard.! ===> Never mind that..

 

 

Well done for starting it!! ===> Glad you're enjoying the rare sights!

Submit what you have irrespective of 'quality'..sharpness..whatever.

This thread is not about pretty pictures! :)

Even those blurred shots, some few posts above

shared lots of visual-info re. what happens behind the scenes!

-so please post away! ;)

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No fancy carpeting and cute,colour-coordinated decor here!

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Here is the forward line handling room on the Coral Princess in 2008...

 

 

 

 

I was slightly amazed at how clean it was. ===> Norovirus starts -and gets- everywhere!

If I'm not mistaken, it's a big ole brake liner (wrong term,I'm sure...)

presumably to go on one of the large-dia. spool-drum thingys, no?

Looks like it's got 13 maybe 14 brake-pads(look at the color) on it.

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This is where all Food and Beverage waste is sorted, processed,etc.

.............................

All glass is collected to be later disposed of, ashore someplace..

The Environmental Officer informed us that glass was his most difficult-to-dispose-of material

due to a shortage of land-based handlers! (strange,I thought)

Anyone in the glass-recycling business may want to step up and take advantage?

Overall view of the room

Cardboard boxes that once contained your meat,fruit,veg and butter

are flattened and stored for later disposal.

Environmental disposal controls on cruise ships are now incredibly strict! :eek:

You have no idea!! ;)

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