indyfranks

We are also doing our first river cruise on AMA at the beginning of December (also a Christmas Markets cruise) after many, many ocean cruises.  We're definitely looking forward to trying something new.

3 hours ago, EatonDoolittle said:

 

This^^^

If you pay even a minimum amount of attention and follow the "Taxi" signs / arrows, you'll find them.

 

Be advised, though, it is beyond all the terminal shops and kiosks. I would venture a guess that it is pretty close to a mile from where you exit the ship. 

 

 

Agree that is it very easy to find.  If I recall, you hang a right at the "Saint Maarten" sign that folks take pictures in front of and it just a little past there.  And although it isn't super close, I didn't think it was a farther walk than most other ports from the ship to taxis/transportation.

I don't recall exactly where the taxi stand is, but we just followed the signs getting off the ship to "Taxis" and there is a little circle drive where the white vans are.  Just tell them where you want to go (Maho Beach) and they will direct you into a van with others going to the same place.  I think we paid $16pp and that is for a round trip.  They'll give you a wristband which is how you'll get back.  

We visited Maho for the first time on December 9 and absolutely loved it.  The beach is small and was fairly crowded but we found a spot on the sand and just set our towels out.  We were on the left side of the beach and all of the chairs were rented on that side by the time we got there.  You can get buckets of 6 beers for $20 so we made the most of that LOL.  I didn't know what to expect going in, but we had a blast.  Planes would come in every 5 minutes or so and you can just chill in the water and watch them fly right over your head.  It's unlike any other beach in the world and I would totally go back.

We got back from a cruise last week and we visited Sapphire Beach on Wednesday, December 8.  For a beach day trip from the cruise port, we loved it.  There are fixed rates from the cruise port to the various beaches and we paid $11pp one way to Sapphire.  We took one of the open air taxis and our entire taxi got out at Coki Beach except for us LOL.  We had been to Coki before, so we wanted to try someplace new.  We very much enjoyed our afternoon at Sapphire!  To start out, there were NO seaweed/seagrass issues the day we were there.  We rented beach chairs for $9 each and found a nice shady spot under some trees on the right side of the beach, but still close to the bar area.  We're not big laying out in the sun people, so we actually really enjoyed that our chairs were able to be in the shade for the day.  We did some snorkeling from the beach (we brought our own gear, but there are rentals available too) and while it wasn't great, it was decent.  The water was clear and not choppy.  The bar prices are quite reasonable and they had a good selection of beers including some local brews, which was nice.  They sell food too, but we just bought a few hot dogs, so I can't comment much on the food piece.  The beach wasn't super crowded either.  When we left, we just had to wait 5 minutes or so for another open-air taxi back to the cruise port.  All that said, we would totally visit Sapphire again on a future visit.

We'll be in London for 5 days prior to our June cruise and have tentative plans to purchase a London Pass and Oyster Pass and then just see what all we can fit in. Are there any recommended attractions tickets or the like that I should purchase ahead of time due to them selling out or anything along those lines?

Dead easy. The roads are quiet but well signposted.

Thanks! You've convinced me to rent a car. I'm assuming I should reserve one ahead of time. I see a few places that appear to be close to the pier - Orkney Car Hire and John G Shearer and Sons. Has anyone used either one before?

I'm still trying to figure out what to do while my family of 4 is in port in June since it seems that most of the private tours are already booked, and so are the excursions through the ship.

The major sites we're interested in (I think) are Skara Brae, at least one of the stone circles, and possibly the Italian Chapel and/or Scapa Flow.

The stagecoach bus is an option, but I've seen a few people mention either hiring a car for the day or even renting a car and driving yourself, which leads me to a few questions.

• How easy is it to hire a car/driver for the day to visit the major sites? Approximate cost?
  
• How easy is it to rent a car for the day and visit the major sites yourself? Approximate cost?
  

We used City and Causeway Tours out of Belfast. You can e-mail them at cityandcausewaytours@gmail.com and Alistair Cheyne will personally phone you back with tour information. You can check them out on line as well. We were six of us in a group and the rate was 60 pounds each in June 2017. The tour was wonderful and the only disappointment was that it was a very rainy and foggy day and we could not get to the Carrick-a-Rede Bridge as the visibility was too poor. Our driver, David Warren, was excellent and gave us a short driving tour of Belfast to make up for not getting to the above sights. If you get to the Giant's Causeway on a rainy day, be very careful on the rocks as it is very slippery the closer you get to the water.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Barb

Thanks!

We'll be in Belfast on June 22 and would like to book a tour of the Antrim Coast. I've seen a bunch of recommendations for Odyssey, but all of their tours are sold out on that day. Any other tour companies that you'd recommend?

Just saw this and thought I'd respond since we were on that first sailing after the refurb as well. I submitted a detailed ship review but it hasn't been published yet.

In general, I thought the publics areas were excellent. I saw some before and after pictures in the Photo Gallery of several areas that had been redone and couldn't believe it was the same ship! We thought the MDR was good and ate in both Giovanni's and Izume and liked both, especially Izume.

I saw someone asked about the concierge lounge and Raj specifically and to say he took great care of us in an understatement! He went above and beyond to treat us like royalty!

We booked a grand suite (#8014) and loved all the space and storage. The big bathroom and big balcony were especially enjoyed.

My only minor quibbles were the buffet (often crowded and didn't care for much of the food) and the missing movies that someone mentioned. In addition, we were supposed to be able to pick from a selection of DVDs in our room since we had a suite, but apparently that offering is not available yet either. Would have been nice for our kids, but they had plenty of friends they met in the teen club anyway.