What country are we in?

Today was Sint Maarten, St. Martin. In this port, we'd worked with a local guide, Tony Dublin, to provide a 5 hour taxi tour. We'd be joined by two couples from our cruise critic roll call. Late yesterday, I received an email from one telling me that 1/2 had broken her knee and they'd have to cancel. I asked if they were able to continue the cruise. No reply. The pricing was based on a minimum of 6, so if only four went the price would go up. We hadn't heard from the other two, and didn't meet them at the gathering, so if they didn't show, we'd have the whole price, unless we could recruit our table mates. We couldn't, so if it was just us, oh well.

We did a room service breakfast, and because we had concierge rooms, we got an expanded room service menu. Yesterday, we'd ordered a bunch of stuff, but today, we decided that a cold cereal breakfast plus some bacon was perfect. We learned that if you order cereal, you do need to order enough milk for it. Then, Beth put her tea bag in my coffee, so another call to replace. At least I made the order taker laugh.

We then made our way down to where we agreed to meet. We were pleased to see that not only did the people who hadn't cancelled show up, the people who did were there too. Turns out her knee wasn't broken, so if she didn't have to do serious walking, she could do the tour.

We then headed off the ship, and it took them a little while to get off, since, because she'd been taken to a hospital yesterday, she had to be cleared to leave the ship in port. They'd cleared her, but there was no record of it or something. After a few minutes, the clearance was recorded, and off to meet Tony.

He took us all over the Island, explaining much about the history, the culture and other interesting facts. We did see a lot of the well known beaches, including Orient Beach and the small communities there.

We also visited a farm that is a day resort. They have a restaurant, gift shop, pool, hiking trails and activities. They are thinking of making it a hotel with rooms, and if they do it will be a very nice place to stay. We then went to Marigot, the capital of St. Martin. We stopped to walk around and visit any of the shops or restaurants. We went to Sarafina, which is considered the best pastry shop around. We had fruit beignets which were delicious.

From there, back to the dutch side. We made several stops for the view, and also visited Maho beach, known for being right by the airport runway (you might recall a woman died from a jet blast a few weeks ago). We didn't time it right for a big plane, but did see a small one come right over us. A few more stunning views and our tour was over.

We then shopped the port a little bit, but really didn't see anything we needed. Then back to the ship. Since it was almost 3 and we'd only had a snack since breakfast we headed up to lunch. Turns out that the buffet ends lunch at 2:30, which to me seems early considering people often come in from excursions later than that. They had what they called afternoon snacks, which was basically pizza, pasta, sandwiches and salads. I tried a burger from the grill and wasn't too impressed. We ate with our fellow cruise critic and tour participants, and had a nice time.

We finished around four and headed downstairs for some relaxation time before dinner. I went up to the sky lounge to watch the sail away. Dinner was the usual lively affair, and we pretty much closed the dining room. Two of our tablemates want to attend a homage to Miles Davis, and so the rest of us went to the casino. I don't gamble so it was just to hang out. We stayed for about an hour just watching, while Steve (our tablemate) decided that Beth should meet a high roller. We spent some time talking about whether the ring on his left hand was a wedding or signet. Well, actually Steve talked about it. After that to bed, another fun day in the books.