CruisinUngs

Yayyayayyayayyayayayayyayay!
(That is all ?)

Walking around the ship I noticed the Halloween decorations are up including balloons for the party later tonight.






In the afternoon hours I saw several people beginning to appear in costumes.  At least I think they were costumes.

Day 6
Today was a lazy morning - mostly spent in the stateroom or on the balcony.  I wasn't really in the mood for breakfast, so I didn't go. Despite my willing it away, and washing my hands like 50 times a day, I was developing a sore throat since maybe day 4. Today, I pretty much lost my voice and with it, my ability to order drinks.  It's a little bit better today, but I sound like a squeaky frog when I try to enunciate haha.
I had my heart set on lunch at the Brass and Bock pub for lunch - my mission: try the poutine.  I'll have to say, @Lovetocruise2002 it was pretty good. The fries were nice and crispy, the gravy was on point... BUT They didn't have real cheese curds!  It was more like some melted cheddar on top... had it offered the proper curds, I would have given it at solid A... but unfortunately this lack of curds dropped the grade down to a C.  I still enjoyed it, but I was expecting some nice "squeak on your teeth" cheese curds to bite into.

I also had the beer cheese soup which was absolutely amazing.  It was really spicy too. 

My wife got the nachos...  they were ok, but more like a thick fried flour tortilla than corn chips.
We had reservations to see We Will Rock You at 2:30 today, so we made our way to the main theater to get good seats.  After 6 days of attending shows and events, we've learned that you need to get there at LEAST 30 minutes early on Anthem if you'd like to have a good seat.  The show started on time, but very shortly after, the lights came back on and it was announced that they were having technical difficulties... after about another 30 minutes, the cruise director came out and said that the issue was with a health issue with one of the performers, but thankfully she was ok, and the show resumed.  We all thought it was the best show of the three main shows offered.  Great band and good singers.
After the show I did some walking around and tried to go to some spots I haven't visited much on this cruise. 

Next, I found myself sitting at the solarium bar for a bit this afternoon and squeaked out my orders for kraken lava flows and other various drinks.
Tonight was karaoke in the music hall, and we all decided to go down to the windjammer for dinner.  It was formal night, and I wasn't feeling like getting out of my t-shirt and shorts.  The Windjammer was a really good decision because they were featuring Indian food.  I'll tell ya - the butter chicken was next level good.
Tonight was karaoke in the Music hall, so we staked out some good seats for that.  After Karaoke, the band "The Royal Swedes" performed.  They were really good. 

Tonight was also the Hush dance party.  Watching people silently dance to different music is always entertaining, but there was an adult comedy show in the royal theater coming up soon.  I went back to my stateroom to try to sleep this silly cold off while the ladies went to the comedy show which they said was really funny (I don't know what happened to G!) 
Hush dance party

I'm feeling a bit better today. My voice is still froggy but I've been sipping on tea and lemon hoping that helps!
* side note - Voom isn't as... Voomy on day 7.

Day 5 continued
We hopped off the ship around 11:30 and walked around the port area a bit.  Pirate Republic Brewing company is just a short walk down the street, right before the straw market. 


 
 They offer a 3 beer flight for 8 dollars (You can only choose from the first 4 beers).  I had the Captain Kidd’s Kolsch, the Gold & Haze of Piracy and the Island Pirate Ale - all were very good. 

Afterwards, I had a pint of the coconut porter which I remember from last time we visited was my favorite, and it certainly didn’t disappoint this time.
A little more walking around, and we were ready to get back on the ship and hop in the Solarium pool which thankfully wasn’t very crowded.  After the pool, my wife and I had Johnny Rockets for lunch - it was very good, and the milkshakes included in the refreshment package and above were a nice treat.
Dinner tonight was in Jamie’s Italian. The food and service was excellent!  The waiter suggested that he bring out all the appetizers including a hybrid veggie and meat board for all of us to share. 

For entrees, the ladies both had the lasagna, I had the carbonara and G had the salmon.  The waiter even brought out an additional pasta entree for us to try. There was no way we were possibly finishing everything, especially since we knew dessert was coming.  Again, the waiter brought out a board filled with everything, and again everything was out of this world delicious. 

We couldn’t possibly finish it all, and the waiter boxed up my wife’s favorite, the cheesecake with meringue for her to take back to the room.
After dinner, I put my halloween costume on, and we headed down to the haunted house that they had set up in the Music hall.  The crew did a great job - they got a jump and little scream out of my wife, so job well done!
The halloween party was in 270 at 10 PM so we made our way over. They had a halloween themed projection on the screens at 270 which was really cool.

The party started out with a costume contest with three categories - scariest (which I entered), most creative, and funniest costumes.  So many people dressed up for tonight, I was surprised to see so much participation.  I was a finalist in the costume contest, so that was pretty cool!  My costume was a take on the plague doctor.

It was starting to get super crowded, so I decided to head up to the room change clothes and find a bar that was still open and not crowded.  G and I ended up at the Schooner bar until they closed.  We then found that the party had moved to the Music Hall where a DJ was performing club music.  G and I hung around there until about 3 in the morning getting the most out of our drink packages - ahh vacation.
Today is the first of two sea days, so I'm thinking we're just going to take it easy and relax.

I know what you mean, really gets in the way when you're trying to have a drink! 

It’s hard to capture with my IPhone, but the views from 270 of Nassau and Paradise Island are amazing.

Thanks!  I’m the only one from our group that did.  I’ll try to gauge the crowds and see if I don my costume or not.  It has a mask, so it’s not the easiest tho g to wear around haha.

Congrats to all those who are cruising this month! Have fun on the Group Cruise!
November 2018
3 - Auto (Rhapsody of the Seas)
4 - Floski (Oasis of the Seas)
4- BobNoxious (Freedom of the Seas)
5 - Renee Siao (Navigator of the Seas) Update: We won’t be visiting Boston, New York, and Port Canaveral. Instead, we’ll be visiting Bruges/Zeebrugge (Brussels), Belgium, Le Havre, France, and Gran Canaria, Canary Islands. 
9 - Matt (Symphony of the Seas)
9 - RBRSKI (Mariner of the Seas)
11 - betatke1480 (Oasis of the Seas)
11 - Dcruiser (Oasis of the Seas)
12 - davelliott (Mariner of the Seas)
16 - davelliott (Mariner of the Seas)
17 - Matt (Symphony of the Seas Royal Caribbean Blog Group Cruise)
17 - CGTLH (Symphony of the Seas Royal Caribbean Blog Group Cruise)
17 - hallyluhopper (Symphony of the Seas Royal Caribbean Blog Group Cruise)
17 - melski94 (Independence of the Seas)
17 - RBRSKI (Symphony of the Seas)
17 - Susie (Anthem of the Seas)
17- princevaliantus (Jewel of the Seas)  
18 - SouthernYankee (Adventure of the Seas)
18 - WAAAYTOOO (Navigator of the Seas)
18 - mikebarr (Liberty of the Seas)
19 - bcarney (Serenade of the Seas)
19 - RatedPG (Serenade of the Seas)
19- betatke1480 (Enchantment of the Seas) 
22- eaglesfaninfl (Brilliance of the Seas)
23 - mworkman (Navigator of the Seas)
23 - spiralqueen (Enchantment of the Seas)
24 - J_Keeble (Symphony of the Seas)
24 - henrysea13 (Adventure of the Seas)
24 - SouthernYankee (Adventure of the Seas)
25 - CruisinUngs (Anthem of the Seas)
25- Ray (Freedom of the Seas)
25 - Steph215 (Anthem of the Seas)
26 - NS8VN (Independence of the Seas)
26- Chitown Traveler (Mariner of the Seas)

Is that lifeboat falling off of that Disney ship? Lol

Coco Cay looked great and your pics are awesome.
Happy Halloween! You guys bring any costumes? 

Day 3
Today is our last port before the crossing – Malaga. Due to the abysmal weather, we aren’t venturing out. It’s just not worth catching a cold with still more than 3 weeks of vacation in front of us. We’ve already got a trip to Spain on our list, we’ll visit Malaga then. We estimated many people would be on excursions today, so we thought we might give Windjammer a try for breakfast. Brilliant idea, now I’m really sold on Royal Caribbean – they have English bacon! Best breakfast item in the world.
 
While trying to flee from the rain by using the corridors to get from aft to fore, we noticed a lot of halloween decorations on cabin doors. Kind of strange to us, but we really love it. Really looking forward to Halloween with so many Americans – it’s not a big thing in Germany. By the way, I’ve kept my promise – Schooner Bar is my new blogging spot to facilitate hubby’s use of the drinking package. Not that it would be necessary, a quick calculation showed we’d already made up for half of what we paid by the end of day 3. Even if drink fatigue starts some time in the future, we’ll have made the packages pay already (and I’m certain drink fatigue won’t be an issue for hubby ?).
 
After our depressing first try with trivia on day 1(Michael Jackson music quiz – we hadn’t planned on participating but were late finishing our drinks in Boleros and just thought why the h*** not), we gave visual trivia national flags a go. Luckily we teamed up with a couple from Belgium and got 13 out of 15 right –we didn’t even come close to winning. Apparently some people know the flags by heart, including Tonga and Aruba. This was followed by an impromptu surprise trivia – scored 3 out of 15 – no worries, best score was 8 or something. On to the pub quiz where we scored 14 out of 21. At least we’ve learned to take the provided answers with a grain of salt, we’re still not able to prove some of them no matter how much research we do. Guess the use of unsourced wikipedia articles is at an all time high with the cruise director’s team ? Trivia isn’t really a thing on German ships but we like it – even though we sometimes have to resort to leo.org for translation purposes. Doesn’t help much to write down the German answer if the team checking your sheet doesn’t speak the language ?
 
As trivia makes hungry (it’s a sport after all), we headed to Park Café for a light lunch. We really love this venue, especially the create your own salad option and the Kummelweck. With all the heavy rain it was easy to get a seat and you had no lines at all. On to the next trivia in Schooner Bar – unfortunately just the two of us as the venue was packed and we couldn’t find our teammates. I don’t recall our score but short answer is we didn’t win. Schooner still was packed afterwards so we moved to Playmakers for more games of Connect 4 and some IPA. The goal is to try out each IPA available – current favourite is Stone IPA. Fast forward to dinner which was at Jamie’s and will be discussed in its own post.
 
Spoiler alert: dinner again was quite big portions, so we decided to walk some of it off on the running track. Looks like our torture devices handle walking on a moving ship completely differently. We both use Garmin vivoactive3 for torture devices (aka fitness watches) – still hubby’s device recorded not only his movements but also added the ship’s movement – while mine did subtract part of the ship’s movement! Quite unfair if you ask me… looks as if Royal isn’t the only company with a questionable IT department.

 
Highlight of the evening was 1977, our first Royal production show. And wow, we were so amazed. As Twangster already said, it’s difficult to give it the credit it deserves in words or pictures. The drones were so cool, especially from a technical standpoint. Brilliant costumes and stage design and impressive ice skaters if you factor in the movement of the ship. The show might be lacking a storyline, but we didn’t mind one bit!






That's a quick change!







 
The end of the show coincided with our passage through the strait of Gibraltar so off we went all the way to the aft on the running track. We were quite surprised that nobody seemed to care but well, each to their own. It was quite a sentimental moment to me as it marks the moment I’m leaving Europe for the first time (if you don’t count one day in Agadir, Morocco on a shore excursion). With that it was time for bed.
Spain/GIbraltar

Morocco


Not sure if it wanted to catch a ride or chase us away?

 
Side note:
13k steps
Hubby might have spotted the elusive Twangster bot – we’ll have to wait for his day 3 blog post to be sure. We didn’t want to disturb a few hundred people by shouting across the venue for confirmation ?
PS: Was finally so annoyed with the way this board handles uploaded images that I switched to using imgur. At least I can now decide on the correct order of things.

Day 4 - Coco Cay
We woke up early and decided to skip conventional breakfast today. The cruise director stated the previous night that the Captain should have  us ready to tender early, and he did. After donning our swim gear and grabbing a cup of coffee, we were in line for the tenders.  On Anthem there are two tender locations, one aft, and one forward.  We were in the aft line when a crew member suggested we go forward as the first tender was there and it had plenty of space.  So we heeded his advice and headed on up.
We were indeed the first tender to make it to the island.  We immediately hopped on the cart to head to the bungalow area.  Once there, we checked in with the concierge and into our assigned bungalow by 9:15 AM.


You can tell I need some sun...

At this time in the morning, even though the sun was shining down, the water was freezing!  Once you "ripped the bandaid off" it wasn't horrible - just get everything wet at once.
On day 3, my wife noticed in the cruise compass that they offer a Swimming with the Pigs excursion. The excursion said that it lasted an hour and a half and left at 12:30. Even though we already had a bungalow, we all agreed that this was an experience we couldn't pass up. I never saw this excursion online in the cruise planner.  Come to think of it, a lot of excursions offered on board were never offered in the pre-cruise planner online... 
Our lunch was scheduled to be delivered to our bungalow between 11:30 and 12:00 so we knew we'd need to scarf it down pretty quickly to make our swimming pig excursion. Lunch arrived at about ten minutes til noon.  My wife had the chicken tacos, and the rest of us had jerk burgers.
With that, we headed back to the excursion desk to meet up for our swimming pigs tour.
We took a quick 5 minute boat ride to "Treasure Island" where we saw the crew coaxing pigs down the ramp to the beach area.

The swimming area was fenced in, and there were about 8 pigs that were willing to swim with us for apples.  After some brief instructions on how to hold the apples away from your body (pigs do bite) we were able to get down in the water.  Side note - if you do this excursion, I HIGHLY recommend water shoes - the area down to the beach was solid rock and it killed my tender bare feet.



We swam with the pigs for about 45 minutes when one of the crew members who was snorkeling came up with a small sea turtle!  They called him flappy.

The crew was very funny and entertaining.  All in all, it was a neat experience and we all had fun.
We were back to our bungalows around 2:15 and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and relaxing.
The last tender back was at 4:45 and we opted to come back around 4.
Pier Progress:

 


After swimming with pigs, we decided to quickly shower and hop in the solarium pool - since pigs sometimes have accidents (which the crew quickly attends to) we figured the extra chlorine from the pool won't hurt ?
After yet another shower, we headed to Izumi fro dinner at 6 since my brother in law really wanted sushi.  The rest of us got ramen. After dinner we sat in the Schooner bar for some entertainment.  It was a long, fun day in the sun and we were all pretty wiped out so we retired to the room by 10 PM
 

Great review! Can’t wait to hear about Coco Cay and your mystery excursion...

With sail away approaching I realized I needed to get ready for my Hairspray reservation so I ventured up to the Solarium bridge wings to see what I might be able to see of Malaga.  The rain had almost stopped so I snapped the best photos of Malaga that I would get on this visit.  




A local fishing boat was returning to port.  They must have been tossing the remainder of their bait because the birds loved this boat.

With that I ventured down to the theater to line up for Hairspray.  I had a specific part of the theater in mind and I would need to be near the front of the line when they opened the doors.

Guess I'll try the normal one in the next few days just to make sure I don't like it.
Thank you so much! Happy I'm not embarrassing myself here. I'm born and bred German by way of what is now Poland (Silesia), but learning English was quite easy to me. In exchange I'm really bad at math ?

I was really stunned when I read that you are not a native English speaker.  I had created a hypothesis that you were a transplanted [to Germany] English speaker.  WOW !  Your English is better than 99% of Americans' - especially your grammar, which is a hard nut to crack even after a lifetime of English language education.  Unfortunately Americans aren't taught grammar anymore (along with American history, cursive writing, civics and about a thousand other subjects...no offense to any of our beloved teachers on this blog !).  Congratulations on your excellent communications skills.  I am quite in awe.

Day 3 continued
Breakfast in the Solarium Bistro was a bit more organized and a lot less crowded- they of course didn't have EVERYTHING that the Windjammer had, but it was pretty close.
My inlaws decided to stay on the ship today and relax, so just my wife and I were getting off today. We decided to get off of the ship around 12:30 to give ourselves plenty of time to hail a drive share service and get to Kennedy Space Center to meet our friend there between 1:30 and 2.  There was a long line to get off, but it went rather quickly, and before we knew it we were on land!  We looked at both Uber and Lyft, and Lyft was a few dollars cheaper, so that's what we chose!  Once we requested a ride, the gentleman was at the curb at the port in less than 3 minutes.  The ride to Kennedy Space center only took us about 20 minutes, and cost around $32.00.  We arrived just a little past 1:00 PM.

Our friend arrived shortly after, and upon the suggestion of the lady selling the tickets, we opted to take the bus tour first.  This tour takes you through the restricted areas of KSC and some of the highlights are seeing the VAB or Vehicle Assembly Building - a huge 526 foot tall building where they build the rockets and launch towers.
Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)

Launch Pad

We also drive by the SpaceX rocket assembly building and the launchpad that they lease from the space port (I believe the guide said that SpaceX has leased that building and launch pad for 20 years).  We also drove by several launch pads including those that sent the Apollo missions to the moon.
The bus tour then concludes at the Apollo/Saturn V exhibit.


Once back at the main visitors center, we ventured into the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit.  This exhibit opened in 2013 and houses the Space Shuttle Atlantis - it's quite a site to take in, and pictures do not do it justice.  It's something you need to experience in person.


Unfortunately we were running out of time as the Space Center closed at 6:00 PM. I had never been to Kennedy Space Center, and would definitely recommend going if you have any sort of interest in space travel - it was very informative, and we all had a great time.  
Our friend was kind enough to drive us to a dinner destination that he suggested - Dixie Crossroads restaurant in Titusville Fl which is a popular seafood destination.  I'm not a big fan of seafood, but I knew they'd have some killer chicken tenders, and they did!
All aboard was at 9:00 PM, and we arrived back at the port shortly after 8:00.  We had 9:00 PM reservations for Spectra's Cabaret.  I thought it was a very well-done show and really showcased what the 270 venue could offer - I would definitely recommend this show over The Gift. 

The cruise director announced after the show that there was an adult comedy show at 11:15 PM, so we decided to take it in.  The comedian did a great job, but I was pretty darn tired afterwards, so with that it was bed time.
 
Today is Coco Cay!  I'm excited.  We have a beach bungalow, and we also booked a last minute excursion that I'm really excited about!  I will blog about it later, but for now I need to get coffee and get ready to tender!

[I've now worked out how to insert photos in to the body of the post rather than have them all at the end, so I will do that to break up the text a bit]
Day 5 – Sept 20 – San Juan
Another early start, this one pretty dang early due to the arrival time of 7am in San Juan.  Since when was vacationing so tiring?  Back up to the WJ for breakfast due to the convenience for a quick breakfast.
Our plan for San Juan was to self explore and mostly visit the forts.  We were planning on trying to hit both forts in the one day before all-aboard at 1.30pm.  We were off ship before 8am but knew that the forts didn’t open until 9am.  So first we headed towards the cemetery next to El Morro since it looked like a sight to be seen and I imagined it wouldn’t have opening times – it didn’t.

Due to the time we decided we would attempt San Cristobal first as we figured by the time we walked there it should be bang on opening time.   We Followed a path from the cemetery and when we came round a corner we saw the view of a mix of colourful buildings which I was sure I recognised from the video for the Despactio song.  We hadn’t planned on it and I had no idea that it had been filmed so close to Old San Juan.

We walked through the La Perla area before cutting up on to the main street.  We got to San Cristóbal about 15 minutes before it was to open so we took a seat while we waited with others doing the same.  Right at 9am a park ranger came down to open up... or so we thought.  Turns out San Cristóbal wasn’t going to open today so everyone is turned away.  It was certainly annoying but it was just lucky that we had gone to San Cristobal first rather than rush round El Morro to then go and get turned away later in the day.
So we turned and headed back the way we came back towards El Morro. We spent a good couple of hours looking around El Morro and I found the history of it all very interesting.  In hindsight it was good that San Cristobal was closed as it meant that we saw pretty much all of El Morro rather than trying to rush round both.


After leaving El Morro we tried to find our way down to the pathway below the wall.  We managed to meet the path at the main city gate which was convenient since that was the main reason I wanted to walk the pathway.  We followed the path round until it came to an end and then we cut up the hill to search out Barrachina.  We knew it was very tourist-y but seeing as it was our first time in San Juan it seemed only appropriate to enjoy a couple of Pina Coladas at the birthplace of the Pina Colada.  They were certainly welcome after a hot day wandering the city.
We headed back to the ship a good hour before all aboard but felt like we had got a lot done in that short time.  Similar to yesterday we headed straight up to the WJ for some lunch and then I headed to the Solarium pool.  Another Pina Colada for me at the Solarium bar while we sailed past the once-daunting El Morro fort.  I wonder what an old Spanish soldier garrisoned there would think if they saw Allure of the Seas sail past!

After chilling out for a bit in our room we headed back down to the Champagne bar again before dinner for some martinis.  Since we enjoyed the novelty of drinks before dinner yesterday, it seemed only right to do so again.  Dinner again was in the MDR.  I had duck terrine and lasagne which was excellent.  R had potato soup and beef stroganoff.


We again headed up to windjammer for dessert however.  As good as all the desserts were they never quite made it back to Key Lime Pie standard.  Finally it was back to the room for some Thursday Night Football and then bed after a long day. 

You see what's happening here?  I'm "stalking" your posts/questions about the Serenade cruise.  Saves me the trouble of having to ask the questions myself. 
 

Day 2 - Ice Skating Show "1977"
No cruise is complete without checking out the ice skating show.  Royal has put a lot effort incorporating technology into entertainment and "1977" benefits from this trend.  They've amped up the projection technology on Symphony.

The show starts out with dozens of drones hovering over the ice and flying in formation as each changes color independently at times and as a formation.  You can't capture this in still images, you have to see it live.

All the little purple and blue lights are individual drones.













A very memorable part involves fast wardrobe changes for one skater incorporated into the routine almost before our eyes. 
Impossible to display in still photos, another thing best viewed live. 
While the storyline strays a little at times when taken in it's entirety it is a great show to watch.  Oh yeah, they made it snow during one part of the show.  Amazing. 

Day 2 - Sea Day
Moving South and West as we somewhat hug the coast of Spain.  Windy today, top decks closed.  The ship is handling great, minimal movement.
After staying up into the wee hours of the morning on my photo shoot last night I slept in today.  Up in time to make the Windjammer for breakfast.  It's a been a while since I've sailed Oasis class and I've got to remember there are other options for breakfast.
Lazy day, just the way I like them.  I didn't take a lot pictures as I am still exploring the ship.  Plenty of sea days to come for me to take pictures when hopefully it won't be as windy.
Random thoughts and observations
As offered before we boarded due to the large numbers on board, the Diamond/Diamond Plus area incorporates the "Entertainment Plaza".  The Diamond Lounge, Jazz on 4 and The Attic.  They have been pretty busy during happy hour times.  The Attic is the only venue with a walk up bar where the other two have wait staff walking around taking drink orders.  Staff at each door check cards.
The latest version of the Royal app incorporates a personal calendar.  It now displays entertainment reservations but not My Time Dining or spa reservations.  
Being so close to the Abyss slide is interesting.  When someone slides down it makes a sound.  Four dongs followed by a whoop sound.  Often people scream.  While the patio door does a good job blocking most sounds, those make it through.  I might make it a ring tone, it's burned into my psyche. 
No water bottles were in my cabin from C&A.  Some sparking wine and a beer based on my preferences.  Today a bottle of Chandon was dropped off in ice with two flutes.  Nice.  
When I boarded one of the letters in my cabin addressed my transfer to Serenade after this cruise.  It will be provided by Royal.  I was planning to use Lyft or Uber so Royal offering to provide the transfer is very much appreciated. Loyalty does pay.
The thermostat in my cabin was on high when I arrived.  I had to turn it down from 'bake' last night so I could sleep.
My account in the Royal app fixed itself overnight.  I can now see my folio and charges to my account in the app.  
I dropped by the loyalty desk.  Based on points I qualify for a glass block on this cruise.  My Adventure points just posted Friday.  He didn't have me down for a block and thanked me for stopping by.  He'll add me to the list.  Over 280 glass blocks being handed out this cruise.  They'll go out for delivery to our cabins day 5 or 6.
I skipped lunch today.  I'm still burning off the calories I picked up on Adventure not long ago.  If my belly gets any bigger I might need to start picking out names.  Well past a baby bump, I've entered the third trimester.  At this rate I'll qualify for and become a rock start in the belly flop contest by the next cruise. Where's that gym?

Is that lifeboat falling off of that Disney ship? Lol

Day 4 – Sept 19 – St. Maarten
It was our first port day so we had another early start.  We returned to the WJ for breakfast and went ready to go straight to the gangway after we had finished.
Once we were off the ship and headed straight for the meeting spot for our tour.  On the recommendation of @KLA we had booked Tour 1 offered by Bernard Tours.  Today our tour guide was ‘Action’ Jackson.
The tour started off on the Dutch side and had a couple of quick stops for pictures.  As others have reported there is still sadly a lot of hurricane damage on the island.  Also, due to many of the tourism-related functions (i.e. airport, cruise port, many hotels) being on the Dutch side, this side has received much more support than the French side.
There was another stop to feed and take pictures of some iguanas which was cool.  The set up is that there is a stall selling some snacks (for humans) and they have a mat where the iguanas hang out waiting to be fed.  They’re not chained up or even in an enclosure.  The guys will give you a stick with a leaf attached to the end and the iguanas will come up and munch the leaf allowing you to get some photos.  There’s then a tip jar if you have opted to feed them and take photos.
There was another quick 20 minute stop at Orient Beach however we mostly used this as a toilet stop at the beach bar there and a chance to take in some views.  The weather had been a bit cloudy so far at that point but the sun was starting to come out making the water come to life with those Caribbean blues.
The next stop was in Marigot on the French side and we had an hour to self explore.  R and I hiked up the steps to check out Fort Louis.  There are a decent number of steps up to the fort and it was very hot but luckily it was nice and breezy once we got up there.  It was good to see a sight that was not officially on the tour and I’m glad we did that rather than spend the whole time looking round the market. There are some very good views from up there.
Once we came down we got a fresh coconut at one of the stalls and browsed other stalls where I picked up a spare pair of sunglasses.  Up to this point I had thought that I had left my good sunglasses at home and although I had a cheap pair of aviators with me as well, I prefer a wayfarer style when just walking around, hence the purchase.  Another spoiler coming, it turned out my good sunglasses were in R’s suitcase which she of course never fully unpacked so we only discovered them later in the cruise – grr! : )
The next stop was the famous Maho beach.  Luckily our visit coincided with a couple of jet plane arrivals which was very cool to see.  When selecting this tour I knew that this was one of the stops, but I wasn’t sure how likely it would see some landings.  I got a couple of videos however after waiting around for the biggest one of the day that would have best video, in my haste, somehow I managed to put my phone on to timelapse mode instead of normal video.  Therefore instead of a 1 minute video with sound, I had a 3 second silent video with an airplane going at the speed of light.
After Maho beach the stops were complete and we headed back towards the ship.  We browsed the stores briefly at the pier and I picked up a St. Maarten Christmas tree decoration – another vacation tradition.
Overall it was a very good whistle-stop tour of St. Maarten/Martin.  It is impossible to overlook the remaining damage and the continuing recovery but it is good that cruisers are still coming in their droves.  It sounds like the hotels are just starting to re-open so hopefully longer term vacations will resume soon, but from what I saw the island is still perfectly set up for cruisers.
Once back on the ship we headed straight for the WJ since we were both very hungry.  I then headed to the Solarium while R stayed in the room to chill for a while.  It was quieter at the Solarium presumably because we had been in port and it was later on in the afternoon by then.
Once back at the room we slowly got ready for dinner.  I suggested that we try to go down early tonight and get a drink before dinner rather than last minute scrambles to make it on time.  Somewhat surprisingly we did manage to do that.  We visited the champagne bar where I had a Bellini and R had a chocolate martini.  It struck us that casually having a cocktail before strolling along to a nice meal really was out of the norm for us and we enjoyed it.
We were once again in the MDR once again and Joel and Kadek seemed excited to find out how we had enjoyed our first port day.  I had a pepper soup and chicken Parmesan.  R had ceviche and jerk pork. We headed back to the room after that after a quick stop off at the jogging track to do one lap before bed.  Tomorrow is another early start in San Juan so it was early to bed once again. 

(Looks like order of photos got reversed below for some reason)
Photo 1 - Some hungry iguanas.
Photo 2 - Looking up to Fort Louis.
Photo 3 - Fort Louis pano.
Photo 4 - A gloomy tricolor.
Photo 5 - Duck!
Photo 6 - Green pepper soup appetizer.
Photo 7 - Entrees.

Is that lifeboat falling off of that Disney ship? Lol

Is that lifeboat falling off of that Disney ship? Lol