Seven years ago we sat on the beach at Phillipsburg St Maarten and watched the cruise ship passengers pour off five massive cruise ships. We were travelling independently in the Caribbean and vowed that we would NEVER EVER be one of those passengers. No, you would NEVER see us hoarded into groups and given 5 hours in Port to "see" a country. Whoops! - here we are arriving in St Maarten as cruise passengers on the very large MS Noordam. OK there is a reason and...

Flying into St. Maartin from Jamaica was a rather difficult task. First when we arrived at the airport we found that our first flight (to Kingston,Jamaicia) had been cancelled and we would be bussed to a different airport. Then when we arrived in Kingston, deja vu, we had to be bussed again as it was a different airport to our next flight. Eventually we caught our flight and arrived on the Dutch side of St. Maarten island which is rather unique in that although ...