Day Seven ~ St. Martin

We set the alarm for 7 today for our 8 am arrival in St. Martin.  We woke up at 6:50 and were already pulling into port!  We backed in, which I loved since we're on the aft.

Pre-breakfast and journaling and pictures on the balcony like usual.

 We had breakfast in the WJ. It was the normal chaos that the WJ is.  It is laid out nicely.  It is the passengers that make it such an anxiety ridden experience!

We ended up sitting at a table with people since there was nowhere to sit.  These people are originally from Niles.  So many people local, or from local.  We also saw Dave and Joan at breakfast.

We came back to the room to pack up, change and head out.  First stop....towels adn water.  Then off the ship and pictures!

The Serenade (another Radiance class ship) is in port with us today.

It rained while we were walking off the pier, then stopped.

We headed to the taxi stand to grab a taxi to Orient Beach.  We were planning to go way to the other end to Palm Beach.  I have read amazing reviews about this place form Jane on Cruise Critic, so we decided to check it out.

We waited for other people so we could fill the taxi.  Three of the people were older ladies from the Serenade.  They decided to join us at Palm Beach, also.

It started raining on our way there, and it was raining HARD when Olive, the taxi driver, dropped us off.  We made arrangements for him to come back at 1:45 to pick us up, and stood under the little tent they had until the rain stopped.  When it did, the skies were blue and the weather warm and sunny, albeit VERY VERY VERY WINDY!  So windy that our silverware was blowing off the table at lunch.  The surf was very rough, and Doug loved that.

Anyway, we walked around the building to the front and was expecting to see this amazing place like we had in pictures.  But it wasn't.  It was totally under construction and the tables were set up under a make-shift tent.  The hurricane that came through on Nov. 7th totally destroyed the place.  They are in the middle of re-building and will be finished mid-Dec.

We didn't let any of that stop us.  We picked a couple loungers and an umbrella and settled in.  The chairs and umbrella are free if you eat lunch at their restaurant.  So we made reservations for noon.

My view from my lounger, a la Jane~max'smom~on Cruise Critic.

There was an incredible amount of sea grass on the beach.  They usually call somebody to come sweep it up, but the tide was SO high that morning that they were unable to do that.   The surf was washing way up where we were.  It was still a great beach day!

We decided to try getting in the ocean.  It was incredibly rough.  It was too rough for me, so I relaxed on the beach while Doug played in the waves.

The ladies that tagged along with us offered to take our picture.

I bought a bikini to wear to the beach on this day, which is completely out of my comfort zone.  I've been overweight most of my adult life, and 3 years ago lost 102 pounds.  Things don't look like I wish they did.  But I am trying to be comfortable with my body the way it is.  So I wore it.  It could be worse I suppose.  You cannot use Spanx to hide things in a swim suit lol.

So about 11:30 we ordered drinks (Frozen White Russians...yum) then headed to the make-shift restaurant for lunch.  This is a French place, but they will convert the price from euros to dollars.  They have a really nice menu of meals, but we ordered burgers and fries.  After lunch they offer you a shot of rum, which they flavor themselves.  First she gave us a shot of five spice.  Yum!  We asked to sample others, totally expecting to pay for them.  We had vanilla banana and also ginger passion fruit and then Doug had another vanilla banana and I had another five spice.  They didn't charge us for any of those!  But they did have bottles to sell at $20 each, so we bought 2.  Our entire day was $97 (plus a tip).  Not bad for chairs, umbrella, lunch, alcohol.

Here are some shots of the construction going on.  It didn't hinder us from having an amazing day. We will definitely visit here again.  We practically had the beach to ourselves, and not too many people walking up and down selling things, and the ones that did were not at all pushy,

While we were lunching, Oliver came back.  He wanted to come early so we knew he wasn't going to forget us.  He was very interesting to talk to.

Oliver dropped us at Front Street so we could go to the Guavaberry Emporium.  We sampled and bought a bottle of almond liquor.  I browsed a few other shops then we decided to go back to the ship.  Doug didn't realize how long of a walk it would be, and we decided to not take a taxi.  It was 15 or so minutes to walk, and it was hot, and Doug's knees were killing him.  I felt so bad that we didn't take a taxi.

So we made it back to the port, and Doug rested while I bought some t-shirts.  Then we headed back to the ship. We got to the top of the pier and Doug took another of my favorite pictures.

And it started to rain again.  Pretty hard.  The whole time we were walking to the ship.  It felt really good since it was SO HOT!  It stopped right before we got to the security check.  Walking into the cool ship while soaking wet is COLD!  Doug went up to the room and I checked our alcohol.

We went back to the room and ordered snacks from room service and showered.  I went to the Solarium Bar to get mudslides for our final sail away :(  We are sad to be heading north...which is the wrong direction lol.  But happy we have 3 more sea days.

We decided to eat in the WJ tonight.  We were so tired after 4 port days in a row and didn't want to dress up and the menu didn't look interesting.

We did pictures and had dinner, which was awful.  Not much selection.  Mostly I had dessert for dinner lol.

Before dinner Doug had a meeting with Edgar, the manager of guest relations, about our toilet issues.  He was very apologetic and he made things right for us.  Time and again the service on this cruise has been amazing.

We collected our pictures after dinner and saw a man yelling at the photo gallery employee.  The employee handled it beautifully.  I couldn't believe the scene this passenger was making.  They called security, and within minutes there were security officers on each deck of the centrum.

I wasn't feeling well this night.  Too much sun and rum and not enough water and I was exhausted.  Doug was tired, too.  We came back to the room at 8, and we were sleeping before 9.  All this relaxing vacation stuff was wearing us out LOL.  Thankfully tomorrow is the first of 3 sea days, and the weather is supposed to be amazing again!