We stopped at islands back to back…St. Thomas then the next morning at St. Maarten. I didn’t know much about these islands until we booked the cruise. And even then most of the research I did was on the Royal Caribbean website, but I found it pretty darn interesting. Most of the islands in the Caribbean were islands ran by pirates back in the day. So knowing that we were stepping food on the real Pirates of the Caribbean stuff was pretty cool!
But St. Maarten has some awesome history. If you really wanna know more about it go here. But basically half the island is owned by the Dutch and half the island is owned by the French. We arrived on the Dutch side…and wanted to get out and see as much as we could since our excursion for the day was bringing us to the French side for some shopping and beach time.
Hopped on a water taxi…and I was in AWE of the turquoise water…it was BEAUTIFUL!
We found a little “main strip” which was pretty quiet since we got off the boat so early. We were looking for a place to get some breakfast, but were bombarded with locals trying to get us to rent seadoo’s, beach chairs, umbrella’s, buy alcohol, get our hair braided…whatever. That was kinda annoying but apart from that…the water was AMAZING.
We found a cute hidden Inn right on the beacj..which used to be the Governor of St. Maarten’s house…so we ate breakfast there.
Our view from where we ate our breakfast…awesome huh?!?
We walked around a bit…didn’t do much…Yosh got in the beautiful water. I didn’t…and I’m not sure why…it would have been the place for my IDEAL picture…BUT…we didn’t get it.
This was my favorite beach…and oddly enough we didn’t spend much time there. IF we ever came back…I’d sit my booty on a beach chair and enjoy some sun there…next time!
But we had, what we thought would be a cool excursion…we were hoping to get to see the French side of the island as much as the Dutch side. BUT that didn’t exactly happen. Our bus guide showed 40 minutes late, our “tour” was generic and not impressive, our time on the French side wasn’t exciting since most shops were closed for lunch, and members of our group were late, which gave us less time at the beach. All was pretty annoying…BUT we tried to make the best of it and got some shopping for our family in!
I noticed that YEAH they have beautiful beaches…but most of the inland areas we saw were pretty ghetto. Just such a different kind of lifestyle!
Driving over the Dutch/French boarder…no guards, no booths…just keep on driving.
So we got to the French side…and it was very warm, humid and my Hubs wasn’t in the mood to be shopping at a swap meet…BUT hey..whadda gonna do.
We ate at a cute little French restaurant while there…and the boys decided it was an awesome time to try some escargot. I decided NOT to…and Kyla wouldn’t dare (since she recently had an allergic reaction from them).
The menu was in English and French…and was priced in the Euro (which we had to pay the Euro amount…was crazy expensive!)
We then got to go to another side of the island and get some beach time in. Kyla and I read out dirty romance books (Fifty Shades of Grey) and the boys tried snorkeling again.
And the French spell it St. Martin on their side…so we had to do another pic to show that!
Another beautiful island. The locals seemed a bit more pushy on this island BUT I will say the beaches were everything I ever imagined! When I picture exotic in my mind…I got to see what I pictured!
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