Cruise Day #21: St. Maarten

(Note:  Sorry there has been a delay in posts.  For the last couple days on the ship, the internet was just awful---and I couldn't even get emails to send to Hadley with the new content to post...and then Hadley went out of town to spend time with her family (Hope you're having a great time, Hadley!!)....so we decided that I would just wait and post the rest of our trip blogs once we got back into the USA---which means that, yes, sadly we are off the ship and have begun the process of getting home....but I don't want to talk about that...just yet!! LOL)
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LAND HO!!!  Yep, we arrived at land, on the 21st day of our cruise, at the island of St. Maarten----a Caribbean island that is split nearly evenly with half of it being Dutch and the other half French.  It is, apparently, the smallest island nation on earth that is split between two separate countries.

Our magnet here shows an image of one of the main buildings in the port area in St. Maarten....and Jason cut and paste the character Stitch (one of Disney's most tropical characters) into the shot to welcome us to the islands!  (Later in this post you'll see a picture of me and Jason sitting basically exactly where he placed Stitch on our magnet----once again it was fun to see our magnets coming to life! LOL)

As it was a land day, we were not going to lay about the ship as we had the previous 5 days.  We had to be up early because we had an excursion booked on shore.  The excursion was called "Downhill Rainforest Trek" (or something similar) and it had been marketed as a high activity level (remember, we were looking for more activity and/or hands on experiences in our TransAtlantic ports than sight-seeing like we'd done on our Adventures by Disney through the Mediterranean).  I'll say from the outset that the excursion was OK...but was certainly not among the BEST things we have done on this trip...but even still...it did get us off the ship, out into nature, working up a sweat and with some nice photo opportunities. (Note:  i was also specifically disappointed that we did not see more animals on the trek because the description had implied we might see wild tropical birds, iguana and perhaps even some monkeys----but instead all we saw was one large "African snail" and a couple common lizards......I guess that's the risk you run when you visit actual nature instead of a zoo or the Animal Kingdom, huh? The animals may or may not be home or interested in visitors!!! LOL).

Anyhow, our excursion involved a bus trip from the port (on the Dutch side of the island) to an old plantation on the French side called "Loterie Farm" which is now a nature preserve with hiking trails, a ropes course, zip lines, etc. (although our excursion only included the hiking portion).  The bus ride from the port was OK and we got to hear our tour guide, a very nice native of St. Maarten named Paulette, talk a bit about the history of the island and point out points of interest (like a "european style beach"---meaning nude---and the house of Mick Jagger set way up by itself in the hills).  Once we arrived at the farm, we were each issued a walking stick, transferred off of our bus and into an open air jeep that took us on a VERY bumpy ride up the hill (Paulette was clear that it was NOT a mountain---it wasn't high enough LOL) to the highest point on the island.  We had some amazing views from up there and then we began a 2.5 mile hike downhill through the woods on a trail back to the farm.  Here are some photos we took while on this adventure:

Once we were done with the hiking, they gave us a drink (with or without local rum---we chose without, but it was still good because it was a fresh fruit blend with mangos grown locally) and took us back to the port.  It was almost lunch time by the time we got back to the port, but we decided to do a little shopping in the port area first.  We needed a magnet, of course, for our collection...but we were also potentially in the market for something else special-----rings.

Jason and I have been wearing matching sterling silver rings for about 7 years----we had them carved at Disney World within the first year of being together.  They were inexpensive but they are nice and they have sentimental value----and they are carved with the number "143"...which is "secret code" for "I Love You" (...and, actually, I have been using "143" as shorthand for "i love you" for years---ever since my days as a camp counselor in college at a camp for kids with special needs in northern Michigan called Bay Cliff where we used the phrase "143" all the time.....of course now many more people in the world know this lingo because it's the title/subject of a popular R&B song on the radio...and has apparently been adopted as "text lingo" for "i love you" as well LOL).  Anyhow, we have been talking for a while now, however, about wanting to get nicer rings----rings that, for now, could simply serve as commitment/engagement rings but that might one day become our wedding rings, as well (when NY &/or the US decides to make us full and equal citizens and allow us to marry...or if/when we decide to go and do it in another jurisdiction where it is legal like Canada or Massachusetts).  Because buying nice jewelry is often much cheaper in the Caribbean islands, we decided to do some window shopping. 

We did see some nice rings that we liked----both in titanium and white gold---but we decided we really liked the contemporary and non-traditional look of titanium rings better (because let's face it....Jason and I are anything but "traditional" LOL).  Unfortunately, they didn't have matching rings in exactly the same size (mine would have been too large and they wanted me to wear a "spacer" inside it...which I wasn't too keen on)...plus, even though they were aggressively trying to make a deal for us....we were still a little hesitant about the cost...so we decided to pass.  The shopping itself  and trying on all those rings was nice/fun, though.

We then decided to head back toward the ship and happened to meet up with Kimberly and Johanna and another cruise friend named Kimberly, too, out in the port.  They took a picture for us in front of the building and sign from our magnet for the day:

We had a very nice lunch with these ladies and then we headed up on deck to swim for a bit and to play games in the sun.  We did that for a few hours until it was time to go and get ready for show and dinner.  The show tonight was an onboard vocal concert by Jodi Benson----the original voice of Ariel, the Little Mermaid, and of Barbie in Toy Story 2 and 3.  She was really lovely to watch and listen to...had a great sense of humor and a very congenial style...and it was very cool to hear this iconic voice sing some of the amazing songs that she and/or Disney have made famous (by now hopefully you've picked up on the fact that I am a sucker for good Disney music! LOL).

Tonight was also pirate night aboard the ship (so no ties).  So we donned our pirate costumes (different than the last ones we wore on the Med cruise---but these ones I made, also, and were intentionally a bit more colorful....and in the color scheme of Tigger and Roo (our favorite characters)----orange and blue!!) and took some fun character photos:

We had our pirate dinner and then were back up on the top decks for the pirate dance party and fireworks.  (Note:  the first picture here is of two of our favorite cast members up on stage leading the pirate dance party----Dave from Australia and Melanie from the US...they are both really amazing!):

....and once all the pirate revelry was over...we were sweaty (from dancing AND the Caribbean was HOT HOT HOT!!! LOL) and tired...so off to bed we went in preparation for our next port of call:  Tortola!!

Oh....and of course we had a towel animal, or pair of them as the case may be, awaiting our return...they were particularly cute this evening!!

Good night and "sea" everyone in Tortola....where we'll be swimming with dolphins!! :)