(Slightly less so) Cheapo dad's trip report on Independence of the Seas

harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

Obviously the first thing he talked about was hurricane Irma and the amount of devastation it did to the island. He said as far as he know, more than 90% of the Dutch side folks have filed for insurance claims and have settled on the amount. Whereas the French side has a much longer bureaucracy and the typical insurance claim for the French is 6 to 8 months. Thus we will see slower recovery on the French side.

It didn’t take long before we see damages all along the road. I took many pictures of the damage along the road. I will show a few sample ones now and maybe more later on. The most obvious damage you see are the roofs being torn off by the hurricane.

More disclaimers here – even though I am showing these damaged properties, while we were on the island, we encountered NO sour mood or despair from the locals. There were some fears at these boards on how the locals would react. Of the people we met, their spirits were certainly not down. It’s just a matter of waiting for issuance claim by those that have insurance. All the people were happy the cruise ships are coming back as mailman said they haven’t done any tours after hurricane Irma to until December so they are happy for the business.

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

OK, we made it to the first photo stop along the hill. Even from afar, you can see some damages along the water front on the other side of the nicer homes. Of course, if I had my 60X zoom camera with me, we would have much better pictures. Sigh…

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Common theme of roof damages

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

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Without my zoom camera, this picture is more fuzzy from the cell phone

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

After we got back to the bus, it was time for the first free refreshment break from the mailman. The dude has in his ice chest water/beer/soda and the special mailman rum concoction. As it was only 10:15 AM, a tad too early to booze up, so we passed on it on this round so I just got water and the boys got soda.

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

After the refreshment break, time to head off to next stop for more pretty photos. In terms of number of pretty photo ops, St. Maarten certainly has more to show compared to the other islands we visited this cruise, notwithstanding the various damages we saw along the way.

All righty, time to get out for next stop. Here is one of those “Hmmm, maybe I should have thought about this some more at the time” situations.

So we stopped and got off and people climbed up this thing to take pictures. No big deal, right? Only after I came back and looked at the picture of this structure. Not exactly the most sturdy looking thing. Then if you think about it – all the stronger buildings have collapsed from the storm but this remains. How strong is the foundation after the hurricane? Who knows?

If anyone plans to go on this platform going forward, just do a simple math before you climb up. As with all elevators, they have limits such as 15 people or 3,500 pounds or whatever each limit is. So if you see a WHOLE bunch of large people climbing onto the top and hear creaking noises, you are better off just staying away from this. Just a thought…

(Sure people, let's all just climb up this thing after a major hurricane has come through. I'm sure some building code inspector person who has nothing better to do, came by here and examined this for structural integrity, right?)

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View from the top

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

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Yeah, that sucker looks sturdy to me...

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They call themselves the friendly island

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

Note there are NO bars here at the edge. Be sure to hold onto little ones if you take them up. Don’t lean too close to the edge…

But these are only thoughts that arises AFTER you get home. While there, you are just clueless and just wander around taking pictures like a typical tourist.

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harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

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sg1phileshipper · January 25, 2018

Still immensely enjoying your review, Harry. It’s great to see that St. Maarten is slowly recovering.

Cindy

harryfat1 · January 25, 2018

Still immensely enjoying your review, Harry. It’s great to see that St. Maarten is slowly recovering.

Cindy

Hi, Cindy,

Thanks for continuing to read along.

St. Maarten's Dutch side is recovering much faster due to their ability to process insurance claims faster. Supposedly they are more than 90% of the way done with insurance claims. The French is looking at 6 to 8 months red tape processing time so their damages are more evident as everyone is waiting for the insurance money.

griffy116 · January 25, 2018

Thank you for posting all the photos of St. Maarten. We won't be there until June but glad to hear the recover is coming along. We haven't been to St. Maarten for years. Looking forward to returning.

seaair100 · January 25, 2018

OMG,says the nurse.Wonderful pics , says the tourist.

RMH · January 25, 2018

Not sure what they do if the kids doesn't show up to collect their gift.

The daily compass says they have between 8:30 to 10:30 to pick up the presents. I would assume if you don't go, it's snooze and loose and you get nothing but maybe you can get them at the kids or teens camp if Royal is nice about it.

Someone else will need to chime in what happens if they didn't go there on time.

We were playing ping pong two or three days after Christmas and just happened to look into the window of Adventure Ocean and saw at least 30 wrapped presents behind the desk. Now that I think about it, they did look like cups, but I did not know it at the time. I am guessing they did exactly what you suggested and tried to give them out at the kids camp and these were the left-overs.

Sorry, I have no photo proof that this happened, nor did I count the exact number of gifts we saw. Disappointing, I know, but you (CC community) will just have to take my word for it.

AmyJA · January 25, 2018

Even with the damage…the pictures of St. Maarten just makeme go….aaaaaahhhhhh

SleepingUgly · January 25, 2018

Wow, what a cool trip report! I just happened to be checking out RCCL's boards (because I'm nosy) and am so glad I happened upon this thread. We are not big cruisers at all ... our last one was more than 10 years ago ... but we are going a Christmas / NYE cruise later this year on Celebrity, so this has been an interesting read indeed! Love the itinerary, really love the pictures, and really REALLY love your commentary. Thanks for making my morning at work so interesting. I thought I was doomed to have to read a 95-page report on the Australian mining industry, but this is much, much better. I just hope the minion I delegated my work to will do a good job and make me look good ...

And, yes, I am just as OCD as you when it comes to vacations and planning. Disney - pssht. Been there, done that. My oldest daughter found one of my vacation journals from when I was single. It was one of those "See Europe in 17 Days!" trip, where we went to 14 countries and spent no more than two hours in each place (typical Asian tour group itinerary). I not only had the itinerary printed out and pasted to the cover of the journal, I had a daily schedule of what I would wear each day as well. She thought it was hilarious. I did not see the humor in it. I was prepared, I was appropriately dressed and I remained fashionable. 'Nuff said.

Thanks for the awesome trip report, and looking forward to the rest of it!

Dixie1337 · January 25, 2018

(Sure people, let's all just climb up this thing after a major hurricane has come through. I'm sure some building code inspector person who has nothing better to do, came by here and examined this for structural integrity, right?)

For sure, and they ok'd it not having a railing too :p

bobmacliberty · January 26, 2018

Thanks for the St. Maarten pictures Harry. We did the same Bernard's tour in 2015 and the views are still pretty fresh in my mind. Heartbreaking to see the damage, but great to hear that the locals are in good spirits. I'm fairly certain that I remember that wood platform having a railing along the stairs going up, and vertical slats all around the top deck. I'm guessing that the missing railing and slats are a result of hurricane damage that hasn't been fixed. Impressive that it is still standing at all. I'm interested in seeing your Orient Beach pics (assuming this is still the beach part of the tour) as I've read that the beach area received a lot of damage.

Edit: Actually, after looking again at the picture above of the wooden structure, I have a vague memory of staying to the left as I climbed the steps because there was no railing. Who knows.

CTCruiser76 · January 26, 2018

Great Pictures Harry !!! We will heading to this Island in April, after taking this tour, would you recommend it? or am I asking too soon and messing up your Cruise review flow.....

harryfat1 · January 26, 2018

Hi, Folks,

Sorry for the late posting tonight. Been a busy day.

Thanks to everyone for posting comments since last night. As I am running behind today, I will circle back tomorrow with replies instead of doing them the same day as it's my typical style but I think people sign in to see pictures more than see me reply to postings.

So don't think I ignored your postings if you left a comment. I'll just want to upload few pictures before I go to sleep tonight...

H

harryfat1 · January 26, 2018

OK, time for another stop. Iguana time. I think I know who likes section the most..

Several tour buses stopped here and one of the tour guides brought a banana and a head of lettuce to entice the iguanas to come out for tourists to take pictures. They said before the hurricane, there were over a hundred of these guys around the area but we saw less than 10 when we were there. Not sure if they were displaced elsewhere or something bad happened to them.

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harryfat1 · January 26, 2018

Formal night tonight back at the ship so this guy has his bow tie ready

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harryfat1 · January 26, 2018

The tour keeps going and we made it to the world famous Orient Beach area. You see lots of debris by the side of the road as they bulldoze them out of the road way but haven't gotten around to pick them up yet.

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harryfat1 · January 26, 2018

Mailman said most of the Orient Beach as people once knew it was pretty much wiped out by the hurricane.

We didn’t see too many people at the beach area. As far as I can see in my cell phone (yeah, yeah, no Canon camera zoom), I only saw one red beach umbrella going down that part of the beach. Looking back the other side, there were some red umbrellas about 100 yards down the other way but there weren’t a lot of people there either.

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