Latte Lover
<font color=green> in charge of the credit cards a
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2003
- Messages
- 1,335
St Maarten continued...
Maho Beach is absolutely awesome! For those who don’t know, there’s a tiny strip of beach, a narrow road and then the end of the airport runway. It’s the 4th most dangerous runway in the world, apparently. The runway is very short, being squeezed in between the beach and the mountains.
We excitedly leapt from the mini-bus and raced to the best spot; the best spot being directly under the planes as they come in to land.
Waiting...
We scanned the sky for planes and were thrilled when we spotted a tiny dot in the sky coming towards us. It was amazing! The planes roared in, just skimming over our heads and landed just a few metres behind us. It was great fun and we took lots of photos.
The last plane was the biggest, or certainly the lowest, but I failed to get a picture of it due to hiding behind a big rock.
A lady on the beach told me we had arrived just after the really huge plane had come in, which was a shame, but what we saw was awesome.
We stopped a few times on our way back to The Magic to take photos.
We got stuck in traffic on the way back. The small towns and villages really only seem to have one road running through them so there was no way around it. Our driver, though, had a devious plan hatched with the other mini-bus drivers. A driver further up the line of traffic would leave a small gap in front of him so we could whizz up the wrong side of the road and cut into the gap. It was a bit hair-raising at times, but worked brilliantly. We must have saved at least 30 minutes this way.
Our guide dropped us at the Port (you could be dropped in the town if you wanted) and we browsed a couple of shops before walking back to the ship, taking photos on the way.
Back on board, Tony and I went up to deck 9 for a late lunch of paninis and tacos, then Tony and Gary went in the pool and the rest of us sunbathed and read our books on the comfy loungers.
Dinner tonight was themed “Pirates in the Caribbean” and our allocated restaurant was Parrot Cay which is the best one for this.
Our meal tonight included Clam chowder for Tony followed by short beef ribs with mashed potato and then white chocolate cheesecake (from the kids menu!). I had yummy crab cake (my favourite), followed by hazelnut -encrusted mahi-mahi (lovely and moist) with rice and a light curry drizzle and then a banana and chocolate crepe.
Gary and Ellie had ribs too, and the boys had fish nuggets. Nat also had the mahi-mahi and Joh chose beef with fries. We all enjoyed our meal and this was one of my favourites.
Towards the end, the servers did a kind of parade with limbo dancing with all the children.
We finished our meal quickly in order to get up on deck for the Pirates Party. Singing, dancing and characters were all part of the show and that was then followed by fireworks.
There was also a pirate’s buffet, but we were all a bit full from dinner and the queue was huge anyway, so we gave that a miss. Tony managed to get hold of a giant turkey leg however.
Later on, Joh joined fellow-disers Wendy, Char and Peggy for a spot of Karaoke at Rockin’ Bar D.
Not sure when these were partaken, but they look so good I had to include them!
It was a really wonderful day.
Tomorrow: St Thomas.
Maho Beach is absolutely awesome! For those who don’t know, there’s a tiny strip of beach, a narrow road and then the end of the airport runway. It’s the 4th most dangerous runway in the world, apparently. The runway is very short, being squeezed in between the beach and the mountains.
We excitedly leapt from the mini-bus and raced to the best spot; the best spot being directly under the planes as they come in to land.
Waiting...
We scanned the sky for planes and were thrilled when we spotted a tiny dot in the sky coming towards us. It was amazing! The planes roared in, just skimming over our heads and landed just a few metres behind us. It was great fun and we took lots of photos.
The last plane was the biggest, or certainly the lowest, but I failed to get a picture of it due to hiding behind a big rock.
A lady on the beach told me we had arrived just after the really huge plane had come in, which was a shame, but what we saw was awesome.
We stopped a few times on our way back to The Magic to take photos.
We got stuck in traffic on the way back. The small towns and villages really only seem to have one road running through them so there was no way around it. Our driver, though, had a devious plan hatched with the other mini-bus drivers. A driver further up the line of traffic would leave a small gap in front of him so we could whizz up the wrong side of the road and cut into the gap. It was a bit hair-raising at times, but worked brilliantly. We must have saved at least 30 minutes this way.
Our guide dropped us at the Port (you could be dropped in the town if you wanted) and we browsed a couple of shops before walking back to the ship, taking photos on the way.
Back on board, Tony and I went up to deck 9 for a late lunch of paninis and tacos, then Tony and Gary went in the pool and the rest of us sunbathed and read our books on the comfy loungers.
Dinner tonight was themed “Pirates in the Caribbean” and our allocated restaurant was Parrot Cay which is the best one for this.
Our meal tonight included Clam chowder for Tony followed by short beef ribs with mashed potato and then white chocolate cheesecake (from the kids menu!). I had yummy crab cake (my favourite), followed by hazelnut -encrusted mahi-mahi (lovely and moist) with rice and a light curry drizzle and then a banana and chocolate crepe.
Gary and Ellie had ribs too, and the boys had fish nuggets. Nat also had the mahi-mahi and Joh chose beef with fries. We all enjoyed our meal and this was one of my favourites.
Towards the end, the servers did a kind of parade with limbo dancing with all the children.
We finished our meal quickly in order to get up on deck for the Pirates Party. Singing, dancing and characters were all part of the show and that was then followed by fireworks.
There was also a pirate’s buffet, but we were all a bit full from dinner and the queue was huge anyway, so we gave that a miss. Tony managed to get hold of a giant turkey leg however.
Later on, Joh joined fellow-disers Wendy, Char and Peggy for a spot of Karaoke at Rockin’ Bar D.
Not sure when these were partaken, but they look so good I had to include them!
It was a really wonderful day.
Tomorrow: St Thomas.
I could just go for one of those cocktails.
St. Maarten looks really nice!
I like the one of Daniel holding the Magic.
