SWEET LIBERTY! The cruise that almost wasn't! Sept 20-27, 2015 review

[valentinebaby1]

Hubby and sis both enjoyed the snorkeling:

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we finished up at the beach, hubby had talked to Rose about finding some hot pepper sauce he found on our last trip called Mrs. Greaux Hot Sauce. She had kind of avoided the question, but finally when pushed at the end she stopped at a grocery store to see if it was there. Hubby and Rose went in together but didn't find it. So we headed back to port. Traffic was getting very congested around the port area but she managed to drop hubby off at a different grocery store to see if they had the hot sauce, and then she dropped us off closer to the port. We had a little time to shop so we decided to go see about the free earrings mentioned on the bracelets she had given us at the start of the day.

 

We headed to the jewelry store. I'm fairly certain it was called Royal Gems. They said in order to get the free pearl earrings we had to look around. The 3 of us (without my hubby) looked around a bit and of course they pulled out items and tried to sell us things. We kept saying no and finally they said they would show us the $20 earrings and pendants.

 

Sis and I looked and actually liked what was offered at that price. We ended up each buying a pendant and a pair of earrings. They are a gorgeous triangle cut mystic topaz (or they called it Caribbean topaz) set in sterling silver. We did get our free pearl earrings too.

 

My BIL suggested that he and my hubby each get the pearl earrings too, so we would have 2 pair to give to each of my daughters. The store was not pleased with this idea. They said the men get free rum punch, not earrings. We had to argue the fact that both the men were given bracelets that specifically said free pearl earrings. Of course they wanted to get the guys drinking so they'd say yes to the women's jewelry purchases...lol. But after some arguing, they did give BIL the earrings. Now at this point I was waiting for hubby to arrive and BIL and Sis left to get back on the ship. Hubby walked in as they were leaving and he came to "shop" to get his free earrings. Of course we had to go through the free rum punch for the guys, free earrings for the girls discussion again but he did get the earrings. But in the meantime I was shown a ring to match the earrings and pendant and I fell in love with it. It was just a simple ring with a large triangle cut mystic topaz, same cut as the pendant and earrings, set in sterling silver. The ring was marked at $250 and I said there was no way we could get it. She said she'd bring the price down to $100. Hubby offered $90. She agreed. So I have no idea if that was a great price, but it was a price we were comfortable with and the ring is a pretty nice size and I love it.

 

Then she wanted to show me the matching bracelet. haha...no. We were done at that point!

 

So we left there with our 4 pair of free earrings, and were suckered into buying a total of 2 pendants, 2 pair of earrings and a ring between sis and I...lol

 

We headed back to the ship after our shopping. Oh and hubby found the hot sauce he wanted at the 2nd grocery store so we were both happy campers!

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

We stuck to our usual routine of me going back to the cabin and being lazy...and hubby running around the ship!

 

 

 

 

 

This was the 2nd elegant cruise night and we dressed for dinner and headed to the main dining room, just the 2 of us. We were seated alone and ordered (if I remember correctly):

shrimp cocktail

lobster bisque

filet mignon & short rib

 

I swear grand marnier souffle was supposed to be on the menu that night, at least according to menu's posted from a month or 2 prior to our cruise, but it wasn't. I don't even recall what we had for dessert that night. I might have had a banana split from the kids menu again. I just remember not being impressed with the menu options that day.

 

We were surprised to see several groups dressed like this:

 

jeans, tee shirts and even baseball caps.

 

Now I'm not wanting to start a debate here about the dining room dress code or anything, but I was surprised that on the first elegant night, we saw a couple turned away because he was wearing shorts. They actually looked nice, they were dressy shorts, they looked classy and he had a nice button up shirt with it. So after seeing them turned away and seeing the above allowed was just very confusing to me. It just seems that if they are going to enforce the dress code one night, they should be doing it every night. And this was not the only couple we saw dressed in jeans and tee shirts. We saw at least 2 other couples just in our immediate area. Most everyone else adhered to the code and were dressed appropriately.

 

I don't recall doing anything exciting after dinner. I think we did a little shopping in one of the stores and called it a night.

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Day 11 September 26, 2015; Saturday

St Martin/Sint Maarten

 

This morning I slept through the sunrise, but of course hubby was up bright and early to see it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

 

 

We toured with Bernard's Tours on our last visit, and had a great time so we decided to do the same tour again. It's affordable and covers what we wanted to see. We had our usual quick breakfast and headed off the ship pretty early.

 

Now I remembered exactly where we were to meet the last time, and I had quickly glanced at the email instructions and saw that it said by the statue, so we headed off the ship and went right to the spot. There was no one there. We wandered around and asked a few people and they told us where Bernard's Tours meets, which was at the far end of the port area..where there is another statue. We rushed there, thinking we were late, but we weren't the last ones to arrive. Unfortunately one in our party was rather grumpy because of our "wild goose chase" but it was my fault. I just didn't realize it until we got back to our cabin later and I read the email instructions again and realized I assumed it was the same spot as the last time. It was pretty hot already, but they did have a tent at least with shade while we waited for the last few people to arrive.

 

We had Mailman as our tour guide for the day. We really enjoyed him on the last trip. This time he did a good job, but he didn't seem to be having much fun himself...maybe it was the fact that it seemed like a lot of people on the bus weren't listening to him and I imagine that gets old for him real fast.

 

We loaded up into the bus and they provide drinks and rum punch and beer all day. We knew from the last time that we wanted to be near the front of the bus so hubby grabbed the front seat right away for the 2 of us.

 

After the first stop, we were asked to give up our seat for a couple who complained about being in the back for some reason...so hubby and I ended up sitting in the 2 very front seats, which meant we had to climb over stuff to get into the seats...not really ideal, and we weren't sitting together anymore, he was in front of me.

 

The tour started out by crossing over to the French side. The border is open so there is no ID or passports needed to cross over. We had a brief stop for pictures at one of the marinas:

 

 

 

Then we stopped at Oyster Pond and had a demonstration by and older gentleman, who showed us several live sea creatures like urchins, starfish, sand dollars and conch. He also showed us the shell/dead equivalent. We were able to hold the creatures and take photos:

 

 

We spent about 10-15 min at this stop, then headed out on the road again.

[valentinebaby1]

Our next stop was just a spot at the side of the road to see the iguanas. Bernard's Tour used to stop at an iguana farm, but now they have a spot where the wild iguanas just come up to be fed. There are dozens of them!

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

After we fed the iguanas, we headed out again towards Orient Beach. The landscape in St Maarten is pretty dry and desert like, so it looked like this for most of the drive:

 

 

It didn't take long to get from one stop to the next so we soon arrived at Orient Beach. They took us to the beach club called La Playa, which is pretty much the furthest stop away from the nude portion of the beach.

 

 

That's not to say we didn't see any nudity where we were...there were a few topless women on our far end of the beach.

 

The beach was lovely, and we paid a small amount for a couple beach chairs, umbrella and drinks. I can't remember what it cost, but I think it was maybe $15 total? It was reasonable at least. We were guided to the row furthest from the water. I think they discount the cost for Bernard's Tour, but for the discounted rate we didn't get the best seats in the house.

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

We had about 90 minutes to spend at Orient Beach. We cooled off in the water and enjoyed the gentle waves, and spent some time just relaxing in the beach chairs. There really isn't snorkeling at Orient Beach. The facilities at La Playa Bar are very well kept.

 

 

We were approached by many people selling various items, mostly bags and jewelry. Hubby wanted to walk down the beach...yes, to the other side. I had no interest in that so I told him to go without me. Sis and I enjoyed some quiet time while her hubby was at the bar. We had joked with the boys that if they left us, we were going shopping. So that's exactly what we did!

 

We made a few purchases from some of the venders. I got a bag (which came in handy on our plane trip home!), a couple of scarf/beach wraps, and a couple of bracelets.

 

After our time was up at Orient Beach, we loaded back into the bus and headed on to Marigot. Along that route we saw the "castle" up on the hill, which is...well, a home built to look like a castle;

 

 

We also saw the shipwrecked boat in Marigot Bay, left there after hurricane Lenny in 1999.

 

 

Our stop here was just about 30 minutes. We headed to Sarafina's, the French bakery for lunch:

 

 

 

 

We bought a couple of sandwiches, eclairs and some other goodies. We ate quickly so we'd have a few minutes to shop in the market area. We found a couple of magnets to add to our collection. After this quick stop we loaded back onto to the bus to head to our last stop, Maho Beach.

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Along the drive to Maho Beach, we passed the "Border Monument", which was erected in 1948 to celebrate 300 years of coexistence of Sint Maarten and St Martin.

 

 

And we got to cross the new bridge called the Causeway Bridge that crosses Simpson Bay. It was still under construction on our last visit, and opened a few months after our last trip. This was a big time saver!

 

 

We arrived at Maho Beach...but one could hardly call it a beach. There was basically no sand left, just large boulders. On our last visit, Mailman dropped us off right on the road by the runway. This time he parked the bus just about as far away from the runway as possible, in a parking lot past Sunset Bar. We really only had about 40 minutes at this stop and it was a long hot walk to where the planes actually came in. Since there are so many boulders and no beach to even walk along, it basically meant walking in the street. It was super crowded and so very hot.

 

Here's another last time/this time comparison for you...Maho Beach 2013

 

 

Maho "Beach" 2015:

 

 

There was more sand on the northern side of the beach, but it was just a dangerous walk to get to it. They say the beach comes and goes depending on the season. It was just a disappointment because there wasn't much room for people to stand under where the planes come in. Walking along the boulders and asphalt just made it even more hot, and the boulders made it very difficult to get to the water to cool off. One on our tour tried to get down to the water to take a few photos from there and managed to ruin his phone when a wave about knocked him down.

 

We got to see a couple planes, but really weren't close enough or there long enough to get any really great photos this time.

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

 

 

 

 

After seeing a few planes land we headed back to the bus to ride the final leg on the tour back to the ship. We got to cross the new bridge again. There are no traffic lights on the island; instead they utilize roundabouts to control traffic. Mailman told us the story of Osborne Kruythoff who was known as The Traffic Man. He made himself the traffic controller just because he could. He directed traffic for many years until his services were no longer needed or appreciated. The story goes on that one day he somehow ended up causing a car accident that involved something like 20 cars...oh the irony!

 

 

We also learned a couple interesting facts about the homes of St Martin/St Maarten. The homes built into the hillsides aren't built on stilts like a lot of the islands hillside homes are built. Instead they cut into the land and carve out a flat spot to build a home. It's a lot of work to do this, as most of the land is rock and not soil. We also learned that a lot of the homes appear to be unfinished. This is because a home is not taxed until is is completed, so they intentionally drag out the build or are constantly adding onto a house in order to avoid paying taxes!

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

What a difference in the beach at Maho from two years ago!!! Maho is something we want to do, and will someday, but we just ran out of steam on that last day and hung close to port but enjoyed where we went. Some of the others mentioned that the beach at Maho was gone and now all rocks and now seeing the pictures - glad we didn't go this time. I am still really enjoying your review and pictures.

[valentinebaby1]

What a difference in the beach at Maho from two years ago!!! Maho is something we want to do, and will someday, but we just ran out of steam on that last day and hung close to port but enjoyed where we went. Some of the others mentioned that the beach at Maho was gone and now all rocks and now seeing the pictures - glad we didn't go this time. I am still really enjoying your review and pictures.

 

I felt like we spent a lot of this trip saying things like "Wow this is different than the last time" or "That's not what I remember this looked like" and I swear my sis and bil must think we were crazy when we would say things like this!

 

Thanks for reading along, and for all the nice things you've said about my review(s)!

[conshycruiser]

The views from the condo:

 

 

 

 

We decided to head out to the grocery store to get some drinks, breakfast items and toilet paper and paper towels. We found a store very close, did our shopping and headed back to the condo. There was a bar/restaurant nearby called The Brass Cactus and we decided to stop there. Hubby took the groceries back to the condo and we stayed at the restaurant, and decided to eat there that night instead of cooking the meal fixings we had purchased at the store. We all had some type of enchilada casserole that was very good, had a couple drinks and headed back to the condo to call it a night.

 

 

We were actually on a cruise last year with the owner of the brass cactus. Thinking about taking a day trip there. Is there a public beach nearby?

[JKirkN]

We were actually on a cruise last year with the owner of the brass cactus. Thinking about taking a day trip there. Is there a public beach nearby?

 

We hung out with him at the BC too! He's pretty nice. He and my BIL really hit it off talking about baseball! :)

[dltvermont]

I will add my WOW to Maho Beach! I just checked my pics from our May 2014 cruise there and its sand all the way to the cement wall between the beach and the road! I remember a few rocks peeking thru the sand but overall it was a "beach"!

 

Must be it all just washed away?

[Dirkgun]

I felt like we spent a lot of this trip saying things like "Wow this is different than the last time" or "That's not what I remember this looked like" and I swear my sis and bil must think we were crazy when we would say things like this!

 

Thanks for reading along, and for all the nice things you've said about my review(s)!

 

I will add my WOW to Maho Beach! I just checked my pics from our May 2014 cruise there and its sand all the way to the cement wall between the beach and the road! I remember a few rocks peeking thru the sand but overall it was a "beach"!

 

Must be it all just washed away?

 

 

I know the pics of the differences you had of Shipwreck beach were crazy as well. The first time we went there in 2009 there was only one row of umbrellas on the beach and they were just recovering from a hurricane (that missed but the storms really pound the beach). Then the last couple of times in 2010 and 2012 they had steadily built up the numbers of rows and how many chairs were there. Can you imagine all the work they go through after big storms?

 

On Maho beach I heard somewhere that they brought all those big rock in to help keep the beach from eroding away... either back out to sea or washing across the road. I think it is a new thing they are trying. It really does kill the beach atmosphere there though. Hope they work it out. Really love the review, thanks again for taking the time to do it. It brings back a lot of memories.

[conshycruiser]

We hung out with him at the BC too! He's pretty nice. He and my BIL really hit it off talking about baseball! :)

 

 

That's funny! My boyfriend and him loved talking about football.

[Mrs.C05]

Just found your review, and was hoping to see the pictures! I can't see them :-(

[bcsurvivor05]

Love love love the review...leaving in 14 days and will be on lady liberty. :)

[pghsteelerfan]

I felt like we spent a lot of this trip saying things like "Wow this is different than the last time" or "That's not what I remember this looked like" and I swear my sis and bil must think we were crazy when we would say things like this!

 

Thanks for reading along, and for all the nice things you've said about my review(s)!

 

Oh, I know (differences). We went to Sapphire Beach after Paradise Point when in St. Thomas and although there is still a wide enough beach area to the left (if facing the water), it was very rocky getting in. In 2013 it was smooth sand bottom. Over to the right, a lot of the beach there has washed away, exposing rocks. There must have been some major storms between then and now. Hopefully the sand will eventually wash back in. But I love your comparison pictures. After seeing the one of Shipwreck Beach, I was so happy that the water was very calm that day. If it had been rough, I don't think I'd have enjoyed it as much.

 

Forgot to mention, that spotted eel (looks like a brown snake with yellow spots, but don't know actual name)? There is one at Jalousie Beach in St. Lucia that I've seen in numerous pictures in other reviews. I asked Spencer and his daughter about him and apparently he likes to hang out around one of the rocks closer in. I was hoping to see him but I didn't. :( Glad you guys got a picture of one.

 

Still enjoying your review and pictures. :)

[kruisinkris]

Loved your review so far. It's nice to have one with pictures. I don't have any cruises coming up until 2017, so it was nice to vicariously take a cruise through you.

You went to some of my favorite ports. I also LOVE St Kitts (you can also buy the batik at a shop downtown close to the port) and I love St Lucia so much I call it St LUCIOUS!

Thanks again for the detailed review. :D

[valentinebaby1]

Just found your review, and was hoping to see the pictures! I can't see them :-(

 

I apparently hit the max views with my photobucket pictures...I changed hosts later in the review, and those should be viewable. Come back tomorrow (the 15th) it should reset and the photobucket ones should be viewable.

 

I wish I could go back and edit earlier posts and change the photo host...the only way I can change it otherwise is to pay photobucket...which I don't really care to do for the handful of people actually reading this...I'd rather save that money for cruising! lol

[valentinebaby1]

Love love love the review...leaving in 14 days and will be on lady liberty. :)

 

Thanks for reading and enjoy your cruise!

[valentinebaby1]

Oh, I know (differences). We went to Sapphire Beach after Paradise Point when in St. Thomas and although there is still a wide enough beach area to the left (if facing the water), it was very rocky getting in. In 2013 it was smooth sand bottom. Over to the right, a lot of the beach there has washed away, exposing rocks. There must have been some major storms between then and now. Hopefully the sand will eventually wash back in. But I love your comparison pictures. After seeing the one of Shipwreck Beach, I was so happy that the water was very calm that day. If it had been rough, I don't think I'd have enjoyed it as much.

 

Forgot to mention, that spotted eel (looks like a brown snake with yellow spots, but don't know actual name)? There is one at Jalousie Beach in St. Lucia that I've seen in numerous pictures in other reviews. I asked Spencer and his daughter about him and apparently he likes to hang out around one of the rocks closer in. I was hoping to see him but I didn't. :( Glad you guys got a picture of one.

 

Still enjoying your review and pictures. :)

 

Thanks for reading along! Isn't is sad how much has changed? I suppose if you didn't know the difference, it wouldn't be a big deal...

[ZoeyVictoria]

There are probably more than a handful! I don't believe I am the only person who is reading and enjoying quietly. Very good review.