Enough time for maho & orient beach without booking tour? bus or taxi?

[ChristianAutumn]

I'll be in St.Maarten next Thursday I have heard good things about orient beach, so I had planned on just going there. Trying to convince husband to check out the nude beach, but he's being a prude lol ;). I was also reading on here about the airplane experience at maho beach and I think he would really enjoy that. Our ship, Allure, will be in port 8-5 that day. It doesn't seem that the beach itself at maho is very big, so I don't want to limit our experience to just that. It's our first cruise and I definitely want to be sure we aren't stressed with timing and getting back on time. Do we have time to do both? How expensive would a taxi and or bus (?) be? There's only two of us, so we aren't splitting the cost with anyone else. Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Karysa]

I'll be in St.Maarten next Thursday I have heard good things about orient beach, so I had planned on just going there. Trying to convince husband to check out the nude beach, but he's being a prude lol ;). I was also reading on here about the airplane experience at maho beach and I think he would really enjoy that. Our ship, Allure, will be in port 8-5 that day. It doesn't seem that the beach itself at maho is very big, so I don't want to limit our experience to just that. It's our first cruise and I definitely want to be sure we aren't stressed with timing and getting back on time. Do we have time to do both? How expensive would a taxi and or bus (?) be? There's only two of us, so we aren't splitting the cost with anyone else. Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

 

I would suggest taking a taxi to the beautiful Mullet Bay beach enjoying that for a few hours and then walk the 15 minutes through the Maho entertainment area to Maho Beach and watch the planes land for an hour and a half or so and taxi back to Town or to the port. You should be able to find enough people in both directions to keep the cost down.

[atog254]

traffic was a problem last time there. 7 ships in port and road contruction every where. Also, the airport is on the opposite side of the island from Orient Beach.

 

Soooooooooooooooooooo. pick one or the other! Since I live near an Air Force base and see planes all of the time, I recommend Orient Beach and facing the water, you can stay on the left side and not see any of the clothing optional side.

 

Enjoy!

[GTO-Girl]

I would suggest you book a tour through Bernards Tours. You will get a couple of hours at Orient, about 30 min of shopping at Marigot which is a neat area and then on to Maho for the planes.

 

Bernards keeps up with the plane schedules so he makes sure to get you there for the big ones. He also keeps up with traffic conditions so no worries about getting back to the ship on time.

 

And all the free water, cokes, diet cokes, beer and rum punch doesn't hurt either.......:o

 

Great tour guide!!!

[mitsugirly]

We did the same thing you are talking about back in Sept 2010. We grabbed a cab and went to Orient and spent several hours there then grabbed another cab and headed for Maho to watch the planes come in and have a wonderful lunch. It was a great day (other than me falling at Maho and breaking my hand)...but it was a great day. I hope to get back there again some day soon. :D