St. Maarten // Third Port on Oasis of the Seas

Our third and final port was also a repeat for us, St. Maarten. We like St. Maarten though so it's all good. On our honeymoon, we took an island tour with Bernard's Tours. This is an incredible way to spend a day and see the highlights of the island while adding in beach time and shopping time too. But as with St. Thomas, since we had already done that, we opted for a DIY day in port.

We took the water taxi for $7/person unlimited round trips to Phillipsburg. I heard rumor after we got back that you can walk it in about 10 minutes. Had I known that, I would have saved my $14. We wanted to wander around the town a bit before we settled in on the beach. 

Old Street - Sint Maarten

There are lots of little souvenir shops and they all mostly sell the same things. What you can and should get here is guavaberry liquor. Pretty darn tasty! We also picked up some Coconut and Banana Vanille rum. One of the salespeople told us because it's homemade (?) that you don't have to declare this on your customs form. I don't really think that's true but we were nowhere near our limit anyway. 

Originally, I wanted to go into Marigot and visit the market and French section but the cab there was something like $25 (same for the return) and the beach was calling me. So was lunch. I had an amazingly fresh fish sandwich at a beachside restaurant while John had a burger (I think). When in the Caribbean, eat as much fish as possible!

There is a long, narrow beach here at Great Bay. Most places charge the same for chairs and an umbrella so we picked one that looked good. I can’t remember what we paid now but it was definitely less than $20 for both chairs. We got a bucket of 6 Carib for $12 and we were set!

Carib is far superior to Corona

The water was, as usual, amazing. There were a lot of people in our little section of beach but it was easy to find space to swim. 

This part of the beach also gave access to one of the grossest bathrooms I’ve ever used….including Europe. You could not flush toilet paper so there was a trash can next to the toilet for that. YUCK! I was also told I was beautiful by a Spanish guy while waiting in line. He asked me where I was from and then said I was beautiful. Also, I was only wearing my bathing suit. That was kind of creepy but I was a good foot and a half taller than him so I figured I could take him.

After a few hours, we decided to board the water taxi and head back to the ship. We stopped and had a guavaberry colada before boarding. Mmm! It was a pretty easy port day but the weather was beautiful and we did most everything we set out to do.