Thursday, January 3, 2019

New Years – 2019 - Day 8

Saint Maartens/St. Martins –

This island is a 37 square-mile island and is the smallest landmass in the world governed by 2 nations with the side we dock at being Dutch and the side with the best beach being French.  The Dutch side is also where the best shopping is.  They actually have 2 different currencies and use 2 different languages on the island along with English and dollars.

This is one of our favorite islands because of the great beach, Orient Beach.  It was literally wiped off the island during the hurricane a year ago.  Everything was destroyed and swept out to sea or tossed inland.

We were here in March and they had started to rebuild but it was still 80% destroyed.

Today, they have rebuilt a lot of the island.  People on the island told us that most of the Dutch side was already rebuilt; however, the French side was taking longer as the country of France is actually involved in a lot of their decision making.

We left the ship at 9:30am and took a taxi to the beach and rented beach chairs for the day and the weather was perfect. 

Lunch was a grilled Mai-Mai with a salad and fries and at Pina Colota

We left the beach at 2:00pm and took a taxi back towards the ship and were dropped off in the port town where we shopped for a little bit before walking back to the ship.

We got some snacks from the café and relaxed on our balcony before cleaning up and going to the casino for a session with Tim and Barb before the show.  Ed lost a little and Barb didn’t play

The show tonight was a comedian and he was really funny.

Then we all went to dinner in another new restaurant and it was outstanding.  We were pleased that Cameron the Guest Services Manager was able to join us for dinner so that was fun.  He reports directly to the Hotel Manager and we have known him through Jeff and Vera first for a number of year.

Next of course was the casino where Ed lost and Barb tried to cheer everyone on.

The good news is that we are still ahead – not a lot but ahead!!

Tonight we head for home and will be spending two days at sea before arriving in Fort Lauderdale.
Going to the beach

Our ship is the middle one with the blue hull

Going out for the evening






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