Really it’s not that adventurous… We haven’t encountered any pirates, and our ship detoured to avoid a tropical storm, so we haven’t even had any weather other than heat and humidity. And a nice 20kt breeze as the ship sails along, all but imperceptibly motionless from the inside.
There are advantages to being on the world’s largest cruise ship.
After a few days at sea we arrived at St. Maarten. Our room is on the 17th floor. That dock is waaaaay down there.
The view of the ship from the dock is impressive though.
We walked all the way around the bay to “downtown”. Unfortunately it’s really been devastated by weather damage from years back and the economic downturn more recently. Lots of closed shops and hotels, not very much rebuilding going on. Beautiful beach though, and a great view back to the ship.
We didn’t explore beyond the local city. On the way back though we stopped at the cheese shop, this being the Dutch half of the island, and bought some amazing Brie and Stroopwafles.
Arriving back to the ship we found our towel animal collection had grown.
Went to the steakhouse for dinner, which was amazingly good. Bevin got a steak the size of her head, or perhaps larger.
A quick night’s sailing brought to St. Thomas. Back in the US!
Walked the mile or so to downtown and poked around. Very Pirates of the Caribbean in it’s architecture, and definitely in better shape that St. Maarten was, but lots of shops closed up as well. Hard when tourism is such a big part of your economy and it’s been gone so long.
Everything has been great. Great food and entertainment on the ship, great weather, and a ship that’s just under 1/3rd full means everything is very comfortable and not crowded feeling.
We’re hanging out in the lounge drinking iced tea and rehydrating. Boat should be departing in an hour or so. Another day at sea tomorrow!
Fab pics (and commentary). Thanks for posting!!