Ah - beautiful St. Maarten! We enjoyed our coffee on the verandah again (good thing room service is FREE!) and got ready for our tour of the island with some beach time afterwards. But, the sun showers were omnipresent all morning - we had some spurts of clear blue sky, then sun showers, and finally, a full out storm. Quite unfortunate - we were really looking forward to beach time. Oh well...
We booked a non-Disney excursion for a tour of the island. Our driver was "Leon the Lover" and he was very knowledgeable about everything - and he made us chuckle a few times also! We picked up a couple of souvineirs at the outdoor flea market on the French side, and took Leon's suggestion not to go to the beach, based on the storm clouds over the Atlantic side of the island (near Orient Beach) so we came back to the ship for lunch. Consider the Story's pretty bummed out at this point.
Aside: Leon kept telling us that Orient Beach was not all it was hyped up to be, and the locals prefer to sunbathe on the other side of the island, not the Atlantic.
After lunch, DS of course went to the Club, and DH and DD went for naps. I went back ashore after the massive storm ended to shop for just a few things. They had GREAT pirate t-shirts for the kids - perfect since Pirate Night is tonight! (Do you think the shops know this?
)
Got all our pirate gear on to head to dinner. Pirate night is so much fun!!!! I was tropical only, but DH, DS and DD had pirate hats, eye patches, earrings, a hook, and DS's new skull t-shirt, so we were all set! Had dinner early, then thought we could see a movie until the pirate party - so as not to exhaust the kids.
The Chronicles of Narnia was playing in the Walt Disney Theater. Looking back, this was not a good idea. It was a great story, but a little too graphic for our kids (5 and not quite 3) so there were times they were both scared and covering their eyes.
Headed to deck 9 for the pirate party at 9:30 and just as we got a great spot in front of the stage and the dancing started, the kids wanted to go to bed. Now I'm so upset - this was one of the highlights of last year's cruise, and they just didn't want to stay up for the deck party. Oh well - we went back to the cabin and the kids went to bed.
But the evening ended on a better note - we could perfectly see the fireworks from our verandah. I'm a sucker for fireworks - loved them since I was a kid. So this made up (a little bit) for missing the deck party.
Went to bed thinking tomorrow in St. Thomas will be better...little did I know what I was in for...
You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the next report. I'm tired, post-cruise depressed and trying to do laundry before houseguests come this weekend (what was I thinking!!??
)