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

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

One and only bar we saw at our section of the beach. Don't see any bar stools.

 

 

[harryfat1]

Few misc pics of Orient beach before we move on the next stop on the tour

 

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

One and only bar we saw at our section of the beach. Don't see any bar stools.

 

 

 

This is great! A few boards, some paint and some sheet rock and back in business. I'd definitely buy a beer or a Pain Killer from this place. :D

[harryfat1]

This is great! A few boards, some paint and some sheet rock and back in business. I'd definitely buy a beer or a Pain Killer from this place. :D

 

Yeah, who needs a fancy place when you can just turn around and admire the scenery?

[harryfat1]

After enough time at Orient Beach, it’s time to go to our official beach stop. For those that took this tour in the past prior to the hurricane, your beach stop would have been at Orient Beach. But post hurricane, this is not really a feasible beach stop so Bernard changed his tour to have people stop at Friar’s Beach instead.

 

But before we get there, we got the Mailman’s rum special - all included in price of the tour…

 

 

The beach is much smaller than Orient Beach but it was not crowded at all. I think our bus tour accounted for more than half of the people on our side of the beach. There were people on the other end but it doesn’t look like the building on the other end was open. Don’t know if Christmas had anything to do with it.

 

We had our 90 minute beach stop here. There is a restaurant here right by the parking lot that offers menu in French and English. The lunch at the 15 to 20 euro range. I pass on them based on the principle of them serving iguanas as lunch food. Naw, I like those little guys now from previous cruises I always seem to run into them. Can’t see myself eating them for lunch.

 

Nobody else from our tour ate there either. One couple sat and ordered drinks while the rest of us from the tour bus just grabbed a cheap seat on the sand and plopped down.

 

In case anyone was interested, I want to say the chair rentals were $18 for 2 as the waiter came by to ask if we wanted them? But old man memory being what it is, I could be way off.

 

Oh, one more thing of note. Perhaps with Orient Beach being mostly deserted, some of the people that are used to semi nudity have changed beaches. When we arrived, there was a French speaking lady walking outside the restaurant topless speaking to the waitress. I was somewhat surprised by that as I had given the family a heads up on possibility of seeing some nudity at Orient Beach, but I wasn’t expecting it elsewhere.

 

Just an FYI in case anyone is looking to go to Friar’s Beach. I don’t know if it’s an isolated one time incident or it has become a regular event. Just passing along what we saw.

 

OK, so we are here. We walked a bit to be near the middle of the beach and set up the beach towel and have tons of space near us. Certainly the most quiet beach we will visit out of the 4 beaches we saw on this cruise (I don’t count Maho or Orient Beach as a beach stop per se).

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

This is not the prettiest beach I have ever been to as it has some rocks but the tranquility can’t be beat. No loud DJ music as in the beach at Grand Caymans from last year’s Freedom visit. If you want a quiet beach away from the rest of the cruise ship crowd, this one fits the bill.

 

We came here as part of the tour. If you want to make a bee line here directly from the pier, be sure to arrange with the taxi driver for round trip as it’s pretty far away from the pier to be stranded out there.

 

The color of the water changes depends on the sunshine from above. With various clouds coming by during the 1.5 hour there, the color can be blue or shades of gray. Interesting to note that when we viewed the ocean water on the Panasonic camcorder recording after coming home, that software interpret the color to be more green than Samsung’s interpretation. Either way, it’s very pretty color.

 

I think somewhere while we were at the beach stop, we passed the half way mark of this 9 day cruise but wasn’t going to get too deep into it.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Few more people got into the water after we arrived

 

 

We never made it to this end of the beach but looks like more people on the other end

 

 

 

I saw a bird flying across the beach and just wanted to take a picture of it

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

[paper1122]

Harry, I'm enjoying your review very much. DW and I are taking the Oasis in April ( which will be a drastic difference in taking the Empress last year) we stop in st Maarten. I am not typically a fan of ships tours and was considering renting a Jeep for the day. Being that is has been almost 20 years since I was last there I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on getting around the island on your own vs. a tour.

 

On an unrelated note, why am I not surprised an accountant drives a 22 yr old Camry, haha. I'm a car guy, but I buy used with the exception of 1 truck 10 years ago because I can't typically commit to a vehicle for more than a few years. I'll make a longer commitment to a bottle of shampoo than I will a car...

[joand452]

 

Is this what's left of the Sunset Bar and Grill? :( Right in front of the airport? We've been there a few times -- fun place to sit and have a beer while watching the crazy people stand at the fence(s).

 

Was it just an empty lot you went to for the iguanas? It was called the "Iguana Farm" on our tour with Bernard. Rumor after that was that Disney had purchased that lot, as well as neighboring land and were going to build a proper farm for the iguanas! :'):'):') Good one! Love the bright green iguanas.

[harryfat1]

Harry, I'm enjoying your review very much. DW and I are taking the Oasis in April ( which will be a drastic difference in taking the Empress last year) we stop in st Maarten. I am not typically a fan of ships tours and was considering renting a Jeep for the day. Being that is has been almost 20 years since I was last there I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on getting around the island on your own vs. a tour.

 

On an unrelated note, why am I not surprised an accountant drives a 22 yr old Camry, haha. I'm a car guy, but I buy used with the exception of 1 truck 10 years ago because I can't typically commit to a vehicle for more than a few years. I'll make a longer commitment to a bottle of shampoo than I will a car...

 

Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, Oasis will be "just slightly bigger" than the Empress, you will barely notice the difference...;p

 

There's the trade off of going on your own versus guided tour. If you know exactly where you want to go and is comfortable driving around the island, doing it on your own gives you the flexibility to go wherever and stay as long as you want. A guided tour is more for people who are new or unfamiliar with place and have someone take them there and explain what they are seeing and why. It depends on what you want.

 

For many finance people who are not into cars, it's just a mode of transportation to get me from point A to point B safely without having to stop at point C. I care about cash flow and since the sucker is paid for many eons ago and costs very little to insure, it's great car to commute to and from work.

 

Have a great cruise on the Oasis.

[harryfat1]

 

Is this what's left of the Sunset Bar and Grill? :( Right in front of the airport? We've been there a few times -- fun place to sit and have a beer while watching the crazy people stand at the fence(s).

 

Was it just an empty lot you went to for the iguanas? It was called the "Iguana Farm" on our tour with Bernard. Rumor after that was that Disney had purchased that lot, as well as neighboring land and were going to build a proper farm for the iguanas! :'):'):') Good one! Love the bright green iguanas.

 

No, the Sunset Bar and Grill is at Maho beach. It's still operating. I will show picture of that maybe by tomorrow.

 

They stopped doing the iguana farm awhile back. Now it's just a road side stop with maybe 3 or 4 buses get together and the tour guides feed them food to bring them out.

[harryfat1]

Few more beach pics:

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Toward the end of the 1.5 hour time frame, we felt some rain coming down. WTH? Looking up, there wasn’t a cloud directly above us. It was fairly windy so the rain stops must be from the clouds on the side and blew the water toward us. That sent everyone scurrying away from the beach looking for covers.

 

Of course, as with all these minor tropic rains, it stopped quickly. But by then we had already packed up so we just hung out by the shady trees toward the back of the beach waiting to board the bus. While waiting, some fancy dancy speed boat drove by to the beach area. Check out the 4 motors in the back. This sucker looks like a serious speed boat.

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

OK, we've been here for 90 minutes. It was time to head back to the bus to move onto the next stop.

 

Some last minute pics of the area before we wipe the sands off of our butts

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JamesEM]

For many finance people who are not into cars, it's just a mode of transportation to get me from point A to point B safely without having to stop at point C. I care about cash flow and since the sucker is paid for many eons ago and costs very little to insure, it's great car to commute to and from work.

.

 

Harry: I agree, I drive my vehicles until the wheels fall off.

[harryfat1]

More free refreshment options from the Mailman’s cooler. I opted for Sprite this time – wanted something sweet after being out in the sun for awhile.

 

 

 

Saw more building damages

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Few more iguana pictures along the drive. Mailman said as it's mating season, the male iguanas display their colors to attract the female. They climb up high on top of the trees to display their "mojo", so to speak. Of course, this is where I miss my mega zoom camera...

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

So we made it to the French capitol, Marigot.

 

I remember this place from many years ago as we took a taxi directly here and climbed the hill at the top where the fortress is and looked down at the waterfront. It was crazy hot as it was in August. Can’t see myself doing that nowadays.

 

Don’t know if it was Christmas Day or post hurricane damages but the area is very quiet. Only saw couple restaurants open as we walked around the water front. There were some local vendors selling stuff and my wife bought a new hat there while we walked around. Oh, yeah, most importantly, they had public rest room as we didn’t see any at our section of the beach.

 

The stop here was 30 minutes but it was way too long for what is there to do around here on a Christmas Day. Maybe there will be more activities in later weeks or months but they could have just made this a 15 minute stop that includes rest room break and some basic shopping and use the extra time at Maho beach as we ran out of time there.

 

This is the area where we climbed up

 

 

Saw some people doing that on Christmas Day. But it is different weather to do it in August versus December

 

 

 

Shopping mall not open

 

[harryfat1]

Nobody around this side of Marigot on Christmas day

 

 

 

One good thing about no one else around is you don't have to wait in line to take a picture like in Labadee. The whole sign is there for you to take as many pictures as you like

 

 

Saw another group of people not from our our walking around

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

The only places that were open were the street vendors. My wife bought a new straw hat

 

[harryfat1]

Last set of pics from Marigot before we leave for next stop

 

Time to visit uncle in prison on Christmas day to see if they can grant him special parole for the holidays (aka shopping)

 

 

 

 

Took a picture of the moon from above. Reminds me of the CCR song. Gotta give a shout out to these boys as they are from northern CA:

 

 

[harryfat1]

Oh, found another set of Marigot pictures to pass along as I was sorting through the Maho pictures to upload. As I said before, with my wife's SLR at Florida time zone and my cell phone at island time, pictures get all messed up when we combine them.

 

Anyway, few more pics

 

 

 

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

Harry - Do you know if Sarafina's restaurant in Marigot was open? I heard rumors that it was severely damaged. This seemed to be the standard place to stop for lunch on a Bernard's tour in the past. They had great sandwiches and outstanding macarons.

[SenatorsFan]

Harry - Do you know if Sarafina's restaurant in Marigot was open? I heard rumors that it was severely damaged. This seemed to be the standard place to stop for lunch on a Bernard's tour in the past. They had great sandwiches and outstanding macarons.

 

I was just wondering about that, too. We stopped there with Bernard's in March and had a delicious croissant and some chocolate cake. :)

Heather