2014-April 14, Monday---St. Maarten  (10am-9:30pm):

Finally---a day in port!  Ken prefers the sea days, but I prefer port days!  We had been here once before and had gone to Dawn beach to snorkel that time.  Not the best snorkeling, but I've read there isn't great snorkeling on St. Maarten, so we decided to do one of the ship excursions to Orient Beach this time just to chill out and enjoy the beach.  

  That wasn't until 1:45, so we headed off the ship a little early and looked around.  We found a ferry right at the port that went back and forth to the main town area until 6, so we decided to buy the day pass for $6 or $7/person and ride the ferry over.
The ferry dock.

2012 Noordam 11 night cruise

11 night Southern Caribbean Cruise

After our last 2 November Caribbean cruises in less then ideal weather conditions, you would think we'ld learn not to cruise the Caribbean in hurricane season!  But we persisted and gave it another try.  This time we did our longest cruise yet---11 nights on the Noordam and had almost perfect weather the whole time!   We actually booked this cruise while we were on the Eurodam last year.

I chose this cruise , (Holland America's Noordam) mainly because it went to St. Lucia.  I've always wanted to see St. Lucia.  The cruise also included stops in St. Maarten, Barbados, Dominica, Martinique, St. Thomas, and Half Moon Cay.  It was very port intensive, which I loved---6 port days in a row, another port later.  Ken's more of a sea day fan, but he held up pretty well.

2012 Noordam ship

2012-11-5,6, and 7  Up to and including our first 3 nights:  Sea days

2012-11-8  St. Maarten 

2012-11-9  St. Lucia

2012-11-10  Barbados

2012-11-11 Martinique

2012-11-12  Dominica

2012-11-13 St. Thomas


After 6 port days in a row, the next day was a welcomed sea day!  Even though I'm not a big fan of sea days, the day of rest was nice.  Althought my plans for sleeping in didn't go so well.  Somewhere in the Caribbean waters I encountered what I assume was sea lice---invisible to the eye, larvae or jellyfish or other stinging ocean critters that attacked me---and I ended up with an extremely itchy rash.  I had this happen before on a couple of our trips to Hawaii (out of about 20 trips to Hawaii), so I wasn't surprised.  Apparently they don't bother everyone---like Ken---but they sure like me.  Took about 5 days for the extreme itching to subside.  At least it happened near the end of our cruise.

2012-11-15 Halfmoon Cay

his was Ken's 4th cruise, my 10th.   Other than my first cruise (when my Dad almost drowned), I haven't had a bad one yet (not counting weather).  I really enjoyed seeing the new places and revisiting the ones we've been to.  We enjoyed it so much we even did the onboard booking for the ship board credit for the next one.  The $200 ship board credit for booking onboard last year and the $100 OBC for having CCL stock came in really handy this year.  After gratuities of $12/day@ , the Canelleto dinner, and a couple other items we bought onboard, we only owed $56 when we debarked. 

Now to start dreaming about where to go next!





2012-11-8 St. Maarten:

On our 3rd full day, we were in St. Maarten.  I had been here once before and had done the island tour then.  Although it was an interesting tour, I was ready to hit the water.  Ken doesn't really care what we do as long as it doesn't take much money or energy.  We're not ones to book many excursions through the ship, so I researched and came upon Dawn beach as the best place to snorkel here.   I'd read snorkeling isn't the greatest on St. Maarten, so wasn't expecting much more then a  beatiful beach and warm water.  I wasn't disappointed!  We walked off the ship and to the well organized taxi area of the port to the sign that said Dawn beach.  There we paid $7@, but I don't remember if that was rt or each way.  Regardless, it was much better then the ship excursion prices.  To get back, all we had to do was tell him when to come back.  There was also a dispatcher there that called him when we were ready to come back a little earlier then we originally planned.  There were people there offering to rent chairs and umbrellas for a few dollars, but we knew we'd be in the water most of the time and declined.  One vender came by when we were getting ready to leave, but he was pleasant even though we didn't buy anything. 

The water was a bit cloudy near the shore, but cleared up quite  bit near the reef.

 Snorkeling wasn't great but still entertaining. 

 nice to see some healthy coral

 and a pretty beach

 There were lots of chairs for rent, but we planned to spend most of our time in the water so didn't rent a chair.

 off to the far side

 another view of the loungers

 looks like radishes---but I know they don't grow on trees.

beautiful colors

Here's one of the few squid we saw.

 Not sure what this guy is--blue striped snapper?

 I believe this is a moon jellyfish.   Saw quite a few of these guys here and elsewhere.

 Back at the port, there's a pretty nice little area of shops and restaurants.

and heading back to the boat.

Noticed there was a boat taxi to the main town, too, but we didn't have time to check it out.  Maybe next time.

2005 Feb.---Disney Wonder Cruise (7 nt), Let's try again!--St. Maarten; St. Thomas; Castaway Cay

2005 Feb.---Disney Wonder Cruise (7 nt), Let's try again!--St. Maarten; St. Thomas; Castaway Cay

Feb. 2005- Disney Wonder 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise:

Disney Wonder!

After the disastrous Disney Magic cruise the year before (where Dad attempted drowning, as he called it), I emailed Disney Cruise lines to see if they were aware of what happened on one of their sanctioned excursions. One of the things cruise lines boost about using their excursions is the "safety checks" they make on the providers.  I figured they needed to "check" this group again.  About a month later, I received a coupon in the mail for Buy One, Get One Free on another Disney Cruise. They certainly weren't obliged to do that, but we appreciated it and took them up on their offer to cruise with them again. This time, we elected to go on a 7 night cruise of the Eastern Caribbean and enjoyed an ocean view room.  (To check out that disastrous cruise, click here: Disastrous 1st cruise  )

2-5-2005 embarkation day:
  
2-6,7-2005 Sea Days:

2-8-2005 St. Maarten:

2-9-2005 St. Thomas; St. John USVI

2-10-2005 Sea day:

2-11-2005 Castaway Cay:

 Our week ended too soon and soon we were getting off our cruise.

I wouldn't mind cruising on Disney cruiselines again, but I think the price will probably keep me from doing so. But this was a very good vacation. Thanks, Disney! Thanks, Dad! Thanks, God, for keeping us safe this time!

2-8-2005   St. Maarten:

Our first port was St. Maarten. It has the world record for being the smallest island in the world to host two nations---Sint Maarten on the Dutch side and St. Martin on the French side.  It is a 37 sq mile island that features all the charm of the Caribbean.  

We did a ship excursion around the island

 Our tour stopped on at the French capital of Marigot for a couple hours.

 There our excursion also took us on a glass bottom boat trip. I wasn't too impressed with the glass bottom boat part

 heading down the pier to our boat

 the water wasn't all that clear and the only thing we really saw was the few colorless fish by the scuba diver feeding them.

 Now I know where Santa goes after a busy holiday season!

 After our boat ride, we had about an hour to roam around.  There was a shopping mall right there, so we walked through it quickly.

 Back on the bus and back to the Dutch side of the island.

View of Marigot from Fort Louis

 More of Marigot

 We got off the tour bus by the boardwalk in Philipsburg. 

 walking along the boardwalk

 beautiful area

 The beach and water here is beautiful! 

 Lots of interesting looking buildings near the beach, too.

 There is a boat ferry that runs from Philipsburg to the port, but it's only about a mile walk back, so Dad and I elected to walk.  It was an interesting walk.  At one point it looked like we were walking past an old boat graveyard.  Made for some fun photos of rusted metal parts.

Back at the port and the port shops. 

I was rather impressed with this island. There were lots of hills and beautiful beaches.