Port De Plaisance Hotel Philipsburg

Arrived in sunshine and moored opposite the Oasis of the Sea. This cruise ship is on its maiden voyage and is massive – it carries 6500 passengers and 3000 crew! We took a taxi with three other women from the boat to Copuyec Beach. After travelling fro ages through the eternal St Maarten traffic jam we reached a beach with no loungers, shades, snack bar or anything. It was totally remote and not fit for our purpose ...

... a community feeling to it, especially because we visited in the low season, hurricane season. The steets were very quite, many shops were closed and not many tourists were visiting the island overnight.

We stayed for 2 nights and almost didn't made it back to St. Maarten because a hurricane was passing close by and the seas were too high for boats to run. So we ended up taking a plane.

... up to Pic Paradis (the highest point on the island) and instead, whiled away an unproductive and unpleasant afternoon at the Hidden Forest Café. Long gone are the days of fearless gallivanting. I guess you can say this vacation was truly a different experience, as it should be when traveling with an infant.

Suffice to say, we had an amazing time, despite all the bumps in the road to ...

... of the crew on the boats and followed our captains commands as we did our assigned tasks. My wife and myself had moderate tasks to perform, but others had more difficult tasks. We were assigned our crew positions because we are in our 50's we assumed. It worked for us.

We started our race with the other boats and our boat was in 3rd-place most of the time. With the final leg of the race approaching, we were still in 3rd-place. Our captain called for a strategic and bold ...

There is an attraction here called "The 12 Metre Challenge". It's a business that owns four boats that formerly raced in the America's Cup competition, including the "Stars & Stripes" which, under a skipper named Dennis Connor, won the cup in 1987. My bar is kind of the local ...

St. Martin has two main attractions for tourists: beaches and shopping. We chose the latter. After all, we had our special offers that we paid $25 for...we were entitled! Just like at St. Kitts, there were changes on St. Martin since we were there in 1999. Then, our Windjammer cruise started at St. Martin, and there was no big cruise ship pier. Everyone had to be tendered in to the pier downtown. Now, there is a ...

... some stalls where locals were selling tourist trinkets and other handicrafts. We looked around and bought a few things but Shea was really looking for a hat to cover her head. The sun was really beating down on us today! There wasn't really much else to see and do here in Marigot. We took a few photos of the harbor, the fortress on the hill, and some silly photos of ourselves with a canon. Still looking for a hat, we went into the West Indies ...

... escapes me), including the folk group of singers, dancers and musicians that woke me up with their spanish riffs and lingo. Almost missed my connecting flight paying US $5 for 4 AA batteries. That flight was wicked. The AA plane took off so fast my belly started to quiver like I when I was infatuated lol. I managed to get out of the airport quickly... get this... no customs. St. Maarten is 100% duty ...

... the whole day at the beach watching the planes takeoff and land. The highlights of the day included a MD-80 takeoff, a A340 go around and landing, and a Boeing 747 landing.

... y partes de la isla tenian un caracteristico olor a materia organica en descomposicion. Bah, olor a St. Marteen le deciamos. Como puede ser q la gente hable maravillas del caribe cuando tiene este nauseabundo olor? Paso rapido igual, pero el momento inicial fue duro.
St Marteen esta dividida en la parte holandesa y la francesa. Nosotros parabamos en la francesa, mucho mas chick y sin casinos. Ademas del hotel, tengo la vivida imagen de una de las playas mas hermosas de ...