St. Maarten Adventures

Thursday morning we woke up to this view from our balcony of St. Maarten.

As usual, we got ready and got off the ship to see the island.

David was especially excited about this port because St. Maarten is the home to Sunset Beach a.k.a. Airport Beach.

Dully named because this is what happens at Sunset Beach all. day. long. The island's airport is known as one of the world's craziest to fly into because it is so close to the coast. At this beach people lay out all day long and watch plane after plane land. This one below is small and those planes come and go all day, but a handful of times the big 747's fly in and out and those are crazy to watch! More on that later.



This beach is extremely small and cramped due to the airplane watching crowd, but a must if you come here. This bar on the beach has the times of all the plane arrivals listed on a board so everyone knows when to watch.

David and I checked the board and had a few hours before any big planes were going to land so we headed north a little ways to check out Mullet Beach which is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the world. It was gorgeous, but I still liked our beach in Cancun better.

My main qualm with this beach was the nudity. We were in the Dutch side of the island (not the French) so I didn't think this would be a huge problem. I was wrong. Yes, the beach was beautiful, but there was also beautiful topless (and practically bottomless) girls on this beach. A couple young girls camped out right next to us and then they promptly almost completely undressed so we left and walked down the beach to the snack shack. Seriously. I don't get the whole being naked in public thing. It was/is weird. Usually the topless people are old and gross, but not here. Hot. Naked. Girls. There, that should get me into some great google searches!

This is the awesome snack shack on this beach. If you go here definitely go to Rosie's. We got the coldest, best soda here then I saw some people's food they ordered and I HAD to get some.

It was BBQ by this guy in the trees off to the side of the shack.

This was the only food we ate off the ship on our entire trip. BBQed ribs with dirty rice and salad with fried plantains and avocado. So yummy.

Plus the shack has a great view.

After lunch we headed back to the Airport Beach to watch the planes again. This picture shows just how close the end of the runway is to the street and beach.

When planes came in it seriously looked like they were going to crash into the beach LOST style!

This was the best plane of the day. A 747. It was soooo loud. Quite an experience. I had a crappy video of it, but I think I accidentally deleted it from my camera (Sorry David)!

I just had to take this picture because it looks like this guy doesn't have any pants on and he's standing in the street.

I took a panoramic pic of a plane coming in and this is what came out. This is all the same plane. I thought it was cool.

All around the beach and road are these signs and for good reason.



We watched this plane behind me take off and it was nuts. The engines are facing the beach so all the sand blows super hard and people have been known to fall backward.

I didn't get any pictures of the take off except this one of everyone waiting for the engines to start. It was crazy. Way fun.

After that we took a cab back to the ship just in time for...COOKIE TIME!

That night was the 2nd and last formal night on the ship.



I can't even remember what this was, but it was good.

This was the best! Baked Alaska.

Petifores.

This night there was another late night buffet, but it was a dessert extravaganza! Yes, that is really what they called it and for good reason. It was such an extravaganza. Seriously. There was 4 HUGE buffet tables each adorned with an ice sculpture with all sorts of desserts on it, 2 chocolate fountains, a cheese table and a huge ice sculpture slide for drinks. See all below.

Petifores, cheesecakes, jellos, mousses...

White and milk chocolate fountains and fruit...

4 kinds of creme brulee and doughnuts...

Crepes with caramel and toppings...



Beverage ice slide.



Yeah, we pretty much tried everything. This isn't even all the plates we used.

So ridiculous and delicious at the same time.