Stacey woke me early today. We're arriving in Philipsburg, St. Maarten and should be docked at 8am. Stacey has ordered room service to give us a head start. I think I'd have rather had more sleep, but she goes for a shower and gets me to listen for the room service to arrive. It does a short time later. We finish that quickly and I get ready so we can head down to the movie theatre, where we are to meet our tour group at 8:30am.

As we head down, outside we can see 2 other cruise ships coming that dock beside us. There can be as many as 7 ships in dock at once here, we are told. Our ship, the Disney Fantasy is in first, followed shortly by the MSC Divinia, and then the Norwegian Getaway, both large ships roughly the same size as ours.

Our tour moves along after a few hiccups. There's 210 people taking the same tour so it takes a bit to get going. We haven't been having the best luck with tour groups, and today wasn't much better. Some people just have no consideration for others, and really aren't providing good examples for their kids or training for them. Just the way the world is going. Maybe Stacey and I are becoming grumpy old people, because lots of little things were just irritating today.

The bus gets going after some delays. It seemed like we were one of the last groups to get going and were dragging all day. The weather was once again too warm for me, just right for Stacey, and it's only 9am in the morning. Could have used stronger a/c in the bus as well, for my taste.

St. Maarten is an island divided in half and ruled by two nations, Holland and France. St. Maarten, the Dutch side we start on is quite pleasant, if looking older. The streets are very narrow, and our large tour bus seems very close to the cars parked alongside the roads. The driver did very well. Sure glad I wasn't driving. There looked like there was only one narrow road out of town towards the French side of the island, but we came back a different way, so there must be at least two. Probably only two. St. Maarten is a hilly island, though not volcanic. There are no rivers or lakes on the island. They have desalination plants and use the water for washing and cleaning and cooking, but drink bottled water. No fruit or vegetables are grown on the island. The tour guide says that they get 40 inches of rain per year, not enough for growing them, so it all is imported. Gambling is legal on the Dutch side and there are 14 small casinos here. It's not allowed on the French side. It looks as though there are only 2 main streets in Phillipsburg, the capital, and town we port in here on the Dutch side.

The bus makes the winding trip through the hills towards the French side of the island, where we will stop at the French capital, Merigot, for a short 45 minute break. It's mostly old and run down looking buildings and homes on the way along the narrow road. There is a lot of traffic as well, lots of small cars to fit the small road. Maybe it seems busier than it is because there is only 2 main roads to follow in a loop around the island? Our guide tries her best to be informative and tries to be funny as well. She's more informative than funny, but it's ok. The lack of cool air and the winding road isn't doing much for me, but we get to Merigot soon enough. There is no border between the nations, just a monument at the border on both roads along with their respective national flags.

The approach to Merigot seems a little more ritzy compared to the Dutch side, with a larger marina visible and larger looking houses built up on the hills with views. A few other islands are off in the distance, and our guide points them out as necessary, including St. Barts, a well known beautiful resort area.

We are dropped off at what seems like near the center of Merigot. Not much to see here. Some street vendors all selling the same thing, hats and colorful shirts and a few restaurants, more outdoor food stands I would call them. There is what the guide describes as a shopping mall, but we look inside and it's tiny. Not much to see there. We try to wander up some streets away from where we are dropped off, but we quickly run out of time and space. Narrow streets and sidewalks and lots of traffic, with old and small shops selling odds and bits, some for tourists, some for locals, but nothing really standing out to us. The water and boats nearby look nice though.

We're delayed in leaving, again, due to some inconsideration of others, and the bus moves on to a 30 minute stop at a carousel and ice cream shop. Tourist trap alert. Someone is getting a kickback here. There's 4 other buses already here when we pull in and I'm more amazed at how they've squeezed them into such a tight area to park. We stay on the bus. Nothing for us here. Most interesting things for me are seeing McDonalds, Burger King and KFC and Subway on the island, way out here. Strange seeing them here.

Finally, there is one final 5 minutes picture taking spot from a viewpoint on a hill. We take pictures, mostly from the bus and head back to Phillipsburg. We're given the option of getting dropped downtown for shopping, which some do, or going back towards the port. We decide to go back to the ship to eat and cool off before heading out again to browse around. A quick lunch, and we're back out there in the heat.

We hop a water taxi for $7 each which takes us from the port to downtown. It's a return ticket as well for that price, though it looked after like a walkable distance, maybe 15 minutes I'd guess. Nice blue water across the bay and beautiful white sand beach along the front. We follow the road, browsing in shops from where we are dropped off, along the front, back one street, and back towards the way we came. See some interesting stuff, but out of our budget, so we just grab the free stuff and move along.

The public washrooms were a little confusing. It looks as though you aren't supposed to flush the toilet paper. Instead it goes in a small garbage can beside it. Ewwww.

We get back on a water taxi and are back on the ship just before 5pm. I got to the theatre for Guardians of the Galaxy…for the fourth time this trip. Or is it the fifth? Mostly, I went because I knew the theatres are chilly and I needed to cool off. Stacey drops off our stuff in the cabin and goes up on deck to absorb more heat. Funny, isn't it?

After the movie, I call Stacey on the portable cabin (wave) phones to let her know I'm out. She invites me to her "spot". A quiet place on deck 11 forward. It's not so quiet. A singer has started a deck above her and there's a few people around now. The sun is down, but it's still very warm out. At least Stacey is happy. Back to the cabin to get ready for dinner…pirate night. I don't really want to get dressed up, but I do. I'd look out of place if I didn't, since it looks like most of the ship is in pirate outfits tonight.

We arrive on time for dinner, but last of our table to arrive, and catch up with what they all been doing today in port. I order a drink for Stacey and I that we had on the Wonder during the Panama cruise that we liked. The assistant server came twice to ask me again the name of the drink, before the server came and asked Stacey what was in it. The bartenders hadn't heard of an English Rose. Fortunately, she had written it down in her phone. It was good!

After dinner was the pirate show and followed by fireworks, but Stacey was tired and wanted to skip it and go to bed. I worked on the blog and watched Beauty and the Beast for background noise….missed most of it. Maybe one day I'll get through that movie and see the whole thing. We had been warned to keep our balcony door closed during the fireworks for safety. I was going to stand out there, but decided not to when I saw how close overhead they were. I'm sure I'd have been fine, but didn't want the possibility of smoke coming in the room and setting off a smoke detector. I did notice a couple of ships come close when we were about to start the fireworks. I'd heard about ships doing this, to give their guests a show from the "cheap seats", so after our fireworks were done, I stepped out onto the balcony to see if I could see what ships they were. One was too far off to see much in the dark other than it was there and lit up, but the other was much closer. As I was deciding on whether to grab the camera to see if I could zoom in on it, I started seeing fireworks rise from this other ship. What the….?? I thought only Disney did that?? Then I realized that it was another Disney ship, come near to give a double show. It was still a ways away. You could see the fireworks, but couldn't hear them at all, unlike the ones on our ship. I think it was the Disney Magic, the original Disney Cruise ship. That's why our Captain is actually called Commodore instead of Captain, due to the fireworks being considered an armament, the ships are considered battleships and therefore a Commodore, in charge of the fleet is needed. That guy is our Captain.

Well, that's enough for today. Got another early morning for St. Thomas, the US Virgin Island tomorrow for a shorter port day. I'm just hoping for a cooler day.

Night all.

WYWH

Kim =) and Stacey :)