whataboutport

Definitely taking a long time to load. The furthest it has played for me is four seconds. But I'm excited to see it when it does! Thanks for including it.

I will try again w YouTube when I get to work.

On our way back to the nothing-to-be-ashamed-about-that's-worth-less-than-$1.4b-Allure.

I had this pic on my Facebook with the caption, "This is what it looks like to not be invited onto a $400 million mega yacht. Keep it movin' poor people, nothin' to see here."

All three richy riches in this shot.

Final panorama I got before on our way home.

I'll do more food porn tomorrow.

Thanks to all who are still following along.

So I'm not having luck with Youtube. Anyone able to see the vid I posted? It was not on Youtube, but Dropbox and doesn't seem to want to load on my ancient mac.

Don't say nobody warned you! *The bottom part of that sign that you can't read says "resulting in extreme boldily harm and/or death"

So now we were on our way back towards Philipsburg. We got a few of these shots, but again, from a moving van =/ Notice the mega yacht The "A", next to lady Allure?

If you'll look closely in this one, there's The "A" in the center, another mega yacht to her left, and the one to her right I believe was the one waiting for us peons in the Allure to leave so she could dock. A total of $1.4b according to Capt Johnny and worth more than Lady Allure herself. Wow, who could ever imagine to have that much money?! Not me!

Two more shots from the moving van.

Alright, so where was I? Yes, Maho Beach, aka Airport beach. This was our next stop on our tour, and after Marigot, this was my next fave place on SXM. The beach is really tiny and narrow, and there are no trees or shade (unless you rent a chair and umbrella, but even those are not aplenty) but you know the one reason why people come here, to experience the planes and jets landing overhead. In fact, our driver Sexy told us that three months out of the year, the water comes all the way up the beach and even covers the rocks and floods the street, so this is a very interesting place to say the least.

There are some hotel/resort/casinos within walking distance, but the Sunset Bar & Grill is right where the action is. It's a very popular place that serves food and drink, with lots of places to sit, live music (while we were there anyway), friendly staff, ceiling fans (it sure was hot that day!), etc. It had a party atmosphere, but was good for families and kids too. I saw lots of young children there, in fact two of them (one each from different families) made friends with eachother and kind of overtook part of our table. Not a big deal, they were cute and very courteous. At the time we were there, it was not like Spring Break party with people flashing their bits type of party, but in the coming weeks, I don't know how it is. It a was very lively, energetic, and fun atmosphere.

Anyway, some pics...

This is the Arrivals surfboard. For all you spelling sticklers, notice it says "Beatch" chairs $10.

View from my table. Most upper part of the bar, in the front near the railing. This part is built so it goes over the beach a bit, on the rocky side that is.

Another view. This is from me with my butt in my chair. When I got up and went closer to the railing was when I got an almost undisrupted view. You can see there are small propeller planes as well as large jumbo jets.

AA jet coming in for a landing!

This is the view when we went down on the beach, just down in front of where we were sitting, in front of the rocks. You can get some crazy pics and perspective from down here. It makes the planes look even closer to the people.

See?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53728344/P1060658.MOV

Question about your waiter, Austin, did he have curly hair and glasses? Fairly tallish? 5'10" maybe?

 

We had a waiter named Austin on our cruise this summer and we loved him. If he is one and the same as the one on the Allure I will def. have to ask for him if we sail on her soon.

We wore glasses some of the time, but not every night, but I'm not super sure. His hair was short, so I can't tell if it was curly or not. And the only time I was standing up talking to him and not sitting down was the last night when we dropped off some additional tips for him and his asst. I didn't remember him to be tall, but he def wasn't short. I'm short, only 5'2" but with 2" heels and I don't remember craning my neck up like I normally would have to. So maybe this is not the same Austin. But he was very good. His Indian accent was thick, but not to the point where it was hard to understand him, however he was kind of soft spoken. He looked to me about early to mid 30s. But pretty much every waiter I've had on a cruise has been good to excellent.

Good review and photos. Enjoyed reading your posts.

Thanks for following along!

You have GOT to be kidding me. I don't know or even care what the poverty level is there, I would not be able to tolerate that. Asking is one thing, even begging, but when he's REACHING FOR YOUR FOOD?? I think I would turn violent. :mad:

My brother had a very strange encounter with a homeless woman in Huntington Beach, here in CA. He was eating a tuna poki out on the patio of a restaurant and she came by and leaned over the railing and asked him, Oh what is that? That looks so good. Can I try some? Just that little piece, that tiny little piece right there. She's reaching her hand closer and closer, and my brother is really confused as what to do and can't believe what was happening. Before he could answer, she reached in with her hands and scooped up the entire mound, stuffed it in her face and ran off. :eek:

Lots of sauce? Eeek. Too much sauce and too many toppings are not NY pizza.

Yeah I guess not. That's CA style maybe? Do you guys have Papa John's out there? That's the only chain pizza place I like, and it's lots of toppings and sauce, just enough cheese. :)

We saw this yacht too on the 5th of March while on our Indy cruise. It was incredible, looked like something from a James Bond movie. We had heard that there had been a yacht regada over the previous weekend so figured it was leftover from that. Glad someone knew more about it. Thanks. Enjoying your review, keep it coming.

We saw it on the 7th at St Maarten. What island did you see it at? It is really neat looking isn't it?

That's probably the same beggar that was at Sarafina's when I was there in October. The guy was very aggressive and scared my 4 and 6 year old girls. We were sitting there at a table 'inside' the restaurant and he came up asking for money and wouldn't leave us alone. "Give me five dollars. Come on, five dollars, I want five dollars. You need to give me five dollars."

 

He then said, "Give me some chocolate. Come on. I want chocolate. Why do you not give me chocolate? Give me half the chocolate" and he actually started reaching for our pastry that was sitting on the table. I had to tell him NO forcefully quite a few times before he left us alone. The workers there seemed very disinterested in chasing him away from hounding their customers who were sitting inside their shop.

Yes, he said "You NEED to give me" now that you mention it! If you look at my pic of outside Seraphina's he's behind the sign. Well you can't see his face but that's him. Bf is right next to him in the blue Hurley shorts.

I can't believe the staff there doesn't care.

Thanks so much for posting this great review - I'm really enjoying reading about your experiences. I have one quick question for you if you don't mind. What would you say was the total time that you actually got to spend at the beach at Trunk Bay? We're debating doing the ship excursion on our next cruise and I'm just wondering once you factor in the ferry trip over and cab ride to the beach how much time you have to enjoy the beach itself.

 

Thanks again and can't wait to read the rest of your review!

MouseGirl

Ok MouseGirl, I just went back and checked the time stamp on my photos. The time we actually got to Trunk (when I took my first pic) till the time I took my first pic back at Mongoose Junction (where we ate) was 2hr 15min. It's about 15min taxi ride between Trunk and Cruz, so we were at the beach for only 2 hrs. But you could stay another hour easily if you can wait till you get back on the ship to eat, but we were starved from snorkeling. You can always bring some snacks with you. You can easily take food off the ship, but you can't bring it back on. I would say we spent about 45 mins just to eat a burger at the Sun Dog.

Thanks so much for posting this great review - I'm really enjoying reading about your experiences. I have one quick question for you if you don't mind. What would you say was the total time that you actually got to spend at the beach at Trunk Bay? We're debating doing the ship excursion on our next cruise and I'm just wondering once you factor in the ferry trip over and cab ride to the beach how much time you have to enjoy the beach itself.

 

Thanks again and can't wait to read the rest of your review!

MouseGirl

We got about 3.5 hrs, but that's from the time the ferry dropped us off, not once we actually got to Trunk, however we left a bit early back to the town so we could get a proper meal. At Trunk there's only a small snack bar. It has hot food, but it's basic stuff, hot dogs, fries, etc. They do serve some alcoholic drinks too, but I didn't try any.

If you want to do the same excursion I did, if you book the Walking tour or Shopping tour, you can go directly to the taxis to take you to Trunk. I wanted to do the Coastal cruise as well to have a look at the beaches from the other side. This I would say was an additional 20-25. Not long. They take you from Cruz bay only as far as Trunk and then back. I thought it was going to circle the entire island, but no, thinking about that now, that would have taken a very long time!

Before I booked this, I also thought about going without a tour. Meaning taking a cab from the dock to Red Hook, then the ferry across to Cruz. The pricing was about the same, but with the excursion you get some more coastal scenes. The taxi from the dock to Red Hook is more mountainous (as far was that I believe to have read, I have not done the taxi to Red Hook personally). Hope this helps. :)

If this yacht was called "A" then we saw this in Cannes in 2012.

 

It reportedly belongs to Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenkos and is named after his wife Aleksandra.

YES! It had a A on the back, exactly like that! Wow cool! I thought maybe it was some Asian billionaire bc I saw a bunch of Asian guys standing guard LOL.

At first I couldn't figure out if it was a submarine or what. Never seen anything like that before.

I like the pizza. And I AM from NY. Born and raised in Queens. You may not like our pizza, lots of cheese. Had a friend tell me our pizza was too greasy and too cheesy.

Well I wouldn't know, I've never had real NY pizza before! EEK! I like lots of sauce and topping, and just enough cheese to hold everything together. :)

Tomorrow I will do Maho Beach and wrap this up. Maho was really cool. =)

Awesome pictures and great review! Thanks!

Thanks for following along. :)

So what time did you actually dock in St Marten? I am trying to book a tour and am so confused about the ship time/Island time thing too.

We docked at 7am ship time. yes it was confusing for me, still is. I guess whatever tour you book just make sure you tell them you are confused about ship time vs. island time and see if they can help you. According to past Cruise compasses, I had put down we docked at 8am ship time, but in actuality we docked at 7am ship time that day. I don't know if this is usually the case. I remember on my papers, STT was 9am dock time and SXM was 8am, but we got there at 7. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

We were hungry but didn't have time to eat at the many restaurants here. We went to the famous Seraphina's to take a look. There was a guy outside asking us very aggressively for a dollar. We said sorry, and he kept insisting, why can't I have a dollar? Why not just one dollar? Give me one dollar? That really caught me off guard. Anyway, like I said we're not into sweets, so we took a look at the sandwiches. They look like the stuff you get at the Promenade Cafe.

So instead we walked by this place, that happened to be right next door to the sugar cane guy and saw a woman ordered a stuffed crab. We asked how much ($5) so we got that, and it was a very good snack.

We scarfed it down, and went back to the van, and we were the last ones to get on. Sorry guys. Just wished I had more time there.

I agree...the capital of the French side is nice. However, it's spelled "Marigot", not "Marigold".

 

A marigold is a flower...

Ok I got it. MarigoT

we spent a good chunk of the afternoon there and we went on our own. we did the jetskiing they had there and ordered drinks/food from the restaurant that was there. food wasn't too bad.

 

the vendors were around but left us alone for the most part. This was DBF and I's favorite port on the cruise and our most relaxing. It was perfectly warm and wonderful out.

That's great to hear something positive. We barely used out chair rentals and every few minutes someone else came by to ask us to buy something.

Not sure what you were expecting to see at Orient... If you were uncomfortable with the whole nudity thing and European beaches why even go there?

 

And it's Marigot, not Marigold.

Thanks for the correction on the spelling, noted.

Not everyone is as well traveled as yourself. To answer your question why did I even go there? Bc I went on a cruise and wanted to to to St John, and SXM was another port of call. Since Bernards tour was so well received here I decided to book it. Have I ever been to a European beach before? No, so how would I have known I would not have liked it that much? I wouldn't have and well now I know. This review is not for people who know everything, it's for people who are first timers like myself. I hope this would help at least one person in the future.

and I def wasn't expecting to be bugged by vendors every five minutes. Heard that Junkanoo was like that but didn't see anything about Orient.

Marigold was beautiful. I really wished we had more time there. We only had 20 mins. >=( As we drove in Sexy points out the fort on the top of the hill, and the mile hike up and mile hike back, and that this is the stairs you go up to the trail to get to the fort. But that we can't go there bc you need to have at least one hour in Marigold to see it. ooookay.

I would have really like to stay at Marigold longer and skip Orient, but there's always next time. Marigold has a beautiful harbor with nice boats, and clear blue water.

There's a small shopping area, but mostly it's lots of restaurants. I loved this bench.

Sexy pointed out this stand while we drove in, that this is the guy to see if you want fresh sugar cane juice. Oh yeah! We love sugar cane juice, and he also had fresh coconut juice. Sugar cane was $6 a cup, coconut was $5 for the whole coconut.

DBF and I were at Bikini Beach!! We LOVED it. Did you happen to see the black lab and the pit bull mix dog walking around the beach? Precious!

I only saw the dog I posted and a cat or two. Not the black lab or pittie. Did you get bugged by the vendors as well at Bikini? Did you stay there all day or just part of a tour?

Finally it was time to leave Orient, and our driver was now the infamous Sexy. We piled into a larger bus, and the people who were there first were very surprised that there were new people. I would be too if I had been one of them. There were *just* enough seats for all of us. What if there was one more? What then? I thought that was a bit strange too. Anyway, so now onward to Marigold. On the way there Sexy gave us more useless commentary about who is the new owner of Chuck Norris' old house (answer: Chuck Norris' ex wife. har har har), and things like, if you look to the left you will see an empty lot that is the future home of a new medical facility. Ok that's nice. We drove by a dead grass golf course (I wonder where is this nice golf course that Capt Johnny likes so much in SXM?). And then we come up to this hilltop point and he says for us to look at the view, but we don't actually get out to take pics, we have do do so from inside the van.

This one has some nice graffiti on this podium thing. Don't click if you are offended by the F word, but it's not that bad, but still.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53728344/P1060540.JPG

Also taken from inside the van:

Almost to Marigold he points out a wrecked ship that's been there for years after a hurricane. Now this is something I thought was cool, but again, pics from inside the van while zooming by. I'm glad I got some decent ones.

And also the Budda Bar at Bikini is -----> That way.

As you can see the weather is cloudy again.

This type of beach is more like a beach resort. You HAVE to rent chairs, you can't just put your towel down on the sand. So we were taken to the La Playa part of Orient Bay Beach bc they have a deal with Bernard's. Two chairs and an umbrella rental with two free "drinks" for $10. Sounds like a deal at first bc the other beaches charge $15. The beach is all pretty much the same. Very little sand, a few palm trees, but it's still topless (being on the French side and all) and we did not enjoy this at all. Now instead of old dudes stuff hanging out, it was old lady boobies everywhere. I guess that is just the American side of me. I don't want to see that and it makes me uncomfortable. In addition, all the vendors that would come by and bug you to buy their wares, and when you say no thank you (even with a smile) they give you the dirtiest looks! you can't even relax. There were two of these vendors who just happen to decide to have an arguement about something or another right in front of us. This is when we decided to take a walk. That's when we saw this big guy.

He was the best thing about this place. The drinks were a joke too. I think Kool Aid has more alcohol in it than what they gave us. At least we were able to sit in their restaurant side and we weren't kicked out, since the kitchen didn't open till about 11:30. This was the most excruciating 90 mins ever. Could not wait until we left. We even contemplated taking our own taxi back into town we were that upset. It's not just the toplessness, or just the drinks, or the just the vendors, but I think just everything together at once, and after being subjected to naked old dudes, we were kinda over it. Well we stuck it out bc I really wanted to see Maho Beach. That did not disappoint. More on that later.

I guess if you think you will have a problem with the nudity, don't come here. The beach was just so so anyway after being at Trunk the day before. It wouldn't have mattered to me if we skipped this and had more time in Marigold (which was WAY too short all of 20 mins!)

So now we are at the last port day St Maarten. I think it's abbreviated SXM? Not sure why. Anyway, we woke up to a view of this ginormous mega yacht. Oh wait, there was two. No wait actually there was THREE! The third one came in later in the afternoon and Capt Johnny actually said they were waiting for us to leave so it could dock where the Allure was. He also said the cheapest of those mega yachts were $300 million, and that all three together were worth $1.4 billion and worth MORE than the Allure! OMG who has that kind of money?! Anyone one this sailing, did you catch who was the owners of any of these?

Anyway, the ship docked at 7 and started letting people off around 7:30. Here is where we had issue this day. We had reserved a tour with Bernard's tours since his tours are so highly regarded here. A few weeks prior to the sailing, I emailed and also posted on their Facebook page about the meeting time. When you reserve a tour with them, the form online asks you what time your ship docks, not what time you want to do the tour. At the time, according to past cruise compasses and what I had on file, I selected 8am. I also knew that ship time and island time is different. So after I got a confirmation email from Bernard's that my meeting time was 8am ISLAND time, I asked how that could be since that would make it 7 am ship time, and we can't possible be out at the meeting point the moment the ship docks? It's always about half an hour later. I even asked on here and didn't really get a clear answer. So anyway, we ended up getting to the meeting point at 8 am SHIP time. We didn't think we were late bc there was a man there from Bernard's waiting for people to check in. He told us we were fine with the time and he even made us wait another 30 mins to see if he could get more walk by customers to fill up the van. Little did we know until after the tour ended that we completely missed the iguana farm and sea urchin man, two photo ops that I was really looking forward to. Not only that but we were still charged full price for the tour even though we didn't get the full tour.

Anyway, this is the meeting spot, up the stair by the info booth, behind the statue. Not that I would recommend this tour to anyone, but nevertheless, this is the view from there.

So after waiting for more pax, we get into a van waiting and our driver (John I think) and we pass by the old salt pond where they used to harvest salt.

Then he drives us through a very run down and sketchy looking part of town called Sucker Garden, yes it's really called that. That is the way to get to the French side of the island. When we get to the border there is a very ho hum sign telling you so.

He tells us some more info that I don't quite remember probably bc I didn't find any to be particularly interesting for me. After about a 20 min or so drive we get to Orient Bay. First he takes us to the nude side. Of course it is always the old guys who love to let it all hang out. We paused there for about 15 secs and we were ready to go. He took us to La Playa towards the center of Orient Bay, next to Bikini Beach. In the parking lot where we got dropped off I saw this statue that we really wanted to take home with us.