Caribbean Cruise Part 2 - St. Thomas and St. Maarten

Instead of reading about our usual RV traveling, you've just landed in the middle of a Caribbean Cruise! We're actually on day 4 of a nine-day trip in the Southern Caribbean. If you're not too sea-sick, come along to the next two port stops--St. Thomas and St. Maarten. 

When booking a cruise, you always envision those beach days with the turquoise water and sunny blue skies. But in reality you could run into some rain. That's what happened to us in St. Thomas. But it was the stop that we were the least excited about because we have been to St. Thomas before. We had less planned this day, so the rain impacted us less. When we pulled into the port, we could see that it was already raining on the island.

St. Thomas is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, but its location so far from the mainland means that things can be expensive. As much as we are lamenting the high price of diesel at home, at least it's not the St. Thomas price of $5.79.

We are frugal travelers, so of course we are not doing one of the expensive shore excursions that the ship offers. We've decided that we want to go to a local beach, and we learned there is public transportation to Coki Beach on the north side of the island. After much research we found the "dollar ride." Imagine a flatbed truck with bench seats and a canopy overhead. If you want to sound fancy, it can be called a "safari bus." Locals use them to get to jobs and the market, and we had read where we should be able to find one. On our walk from the ship, we found a retired American couple who are living in St. Thomas, and they verified our instructions for riding the bus. So when it pulled up we asked the driver if it was a dollar ride going the direction we wanted, and we hopped on. We were the only people on the bus that weren't local.

It was an adventurous ride through the rolling hills of St. Thomas. It was a little slower because we made stops at places like grocery stores and hospitals. But we knew to get off at Louie's Market on Smith Bay and paid our dollar to the driver. It's a half-mile to the beach from here, and of course it started raining again as soon as we started walking. 

While it's not great beach weather, that meant that it wasn't crowded today. We met a young couple from our ship that were ready to leave when we arrived. They had paid an expensive taxi fare to get here, and it had been raining every since. But we talked them into staying, as the weather was supposed to clear shortly.

Besides, you're going to get wet snorkeling, so who cares if it is raining? We had heard this was a good snorkeling beach and we did see some colorful fish.

We talked to a local couple that always bring a supply of dog biscuits to feed those colorful fish. They gave us a big biscuit and told us to put out little pieces to bring the fish to us. This is probably against some official policy, but they were also selling bags of dog biscuits at the little shop on the beach. We really did have a great time feeding the fish at Coki Beach! Those colorful salt-water fish were right in our faces as we snorkeled around the rocky areas on the sides of the beach.

We shared our biscuit with the young couple from our ship and another family. It changed a rainy bummer of a day into some unique fun. So even though rain wasn't in the plan, we still enjoyed the beautiful scenery on St. Thomas.

The water was perfectly clear, and we got a little dot of blue sky on the horizon before we left. We didn't have to fight the crowds, and the day was almost free with the help of the dollar bus.

We walked back to Louie's Market, and caught the dollar bus back to town. We got a tour of the north and east sides of the island, and had the canopy to protect us from the rain that started again on the ride back. Everything was wet, including the lovely St. Thomas blooms that Denisa was admiring.

We were glad to get back to the ship to dry off and get ready for dinner on this wet day in St. Thomas.

We were blessed that the next day brought sunny skies, as our ship docked at St. Maarten. Right across from our ship was a tall mast ship with a much shorter passenger list. That would be a great experience, but is a significantly more expensive way to explore the Southern Caribbean.

This island is one country, but it has two different spellings. The southern side of the island is where we docked, and it has a Dutch spelling--St. Maarten.

This south side of the island is where most of the residents live and work, and the Dutch claim the deep water port where cruise ships dock on a regular basis. Our ship offered expensive shore excursions, but once again we found a less expensive option that fit us better. We found a local company--Bernard's Adventure Island Tour--that offered a five-hour tour for $60 per person. We made the four minute walk from the ship to check in with Bernard's. While they had some big busses in the parking lot, we were glad to see that we would be touring in a van with another family of three.

While our driver gave a running narrative of this 37 square mile island as we drove by sites, our first stop was at the southern tip with a view of the sea.

While the family in our group opted to stay in the air-conditioned van, we headed down the trail to find that this is home to a big group of iguanas.

These reptiles have no idea how lucky they are to enjoy beautiful turquoise-water views from their perch on top of the rocks.

Then we headed north, where we were welcomed to the French side. Now the name of the island is spelled Saint Martin.

Another stop showed us that some of the beaches on the north side can be quite rocky and deserted.

We stopped at the Iguana Park, where locals entice the iguanas to hang around by feeding them. They had greens available for purchase, that were attached to the end of a stick. But other tourists were already using the sticks to feed the iguanas.

We much preferred to find our own iguanas in a more natural habitat. This guy was hanging out in the water . . .

and more were stretched out in the trees.

With only five people in our tour, we had the flexibility to decide what we wanted to see and how long we wanted to stay. While the family of three had a different agenda than us, we both agreed that a stop at a pretty beach would be nice.

We were blessed with blue skies that really showed off the turquoise water today. We were also blessed with a beach so far from the cruise port that we saw only a handful of other people. We have wandered into another of God's wonders.

While the other family opted to spend their time at a cafe eating appetizers, we spent our time walking the entire expanse of the beach. We made it all the way to the rocky ledge where the beach ended.

The other end of the beach ended in a small boat dock, and a long row of shops and restaurants. When cruising, we always eat a big breakfast before we leave the ship. We also take a few snacks to keep us from getting hungry while we are out exploring.

That doesn't mean that we won't stop to eat a local snack while we are on an island. Our next stop was the town of Marigot--the biggest town on the French side of the island. So we immediately made a detour into the French bakery.

We chose the most decadent triple chocolate cheesecake, and called that lunch.

On the French side of the island, the welcome sign that says "I love Saint Martin" is abbreviated like this:

The coast at Marigot is surrounded by restaurants and little shops, and the family on our tour was happy to spend their time shopping and eating. Our driver pointed out the fort at the very top of the hill, but he definitely didn't recommend climbing the 92 steps on this hot afternoon to see it.

But of course, that's exactly what we did. After climbing all those steps, Mark climbed on top of the highest point of Fort Louis just to be sure we went as high as possible.

From the top we got the best views of Marigot and the sea. The wind at the top was whipping the French flag, and Denisa was having to hang on to her hat.

Why would people stay behind to go shopping, when a little climbing will get views like this?

We found more iguanas hanging out on the walls of the fort, and eating the berries from the trees.

We are liking our tour of Saint Martin!

If you google "top things to do in St. Martin" it will surely bring up Maho Beach. It is a lovely little beach with the most popular beach bar on the island. You can see Mark on the beach with the Sunset Beach Bar in the background.

But what makes it famous is its proximity to the largest airport on the island. The end of the runway is right past the sand, and any incoming airplane will fly right over the heads of the people on the beach. Our driver knew to bring us here in the afternoon, when more and bigger airplanes are arriving and departing the island.

We had to take the tourist picture where it feels like you can almost touch the bottom of that airplane with its landing gear ready to land in just a few feet.

But the real fun comes when one of the big planes take off. They take their place just on the other side of the chain link fence as they prepare to speed straight ahead down the runway. We learned that you find a place behind those big jet engines and hang on to your hat. We have found that videos don't work well with our blog platform, so we can only tell you to google Maho beach airport to find a video that shows the breeze that comes when a jet engine takes off that close.

It was a fun stop at Maho Beach, and our tour-mates took a picture of us before we left.

We made a couple more stops around the island, and our driver gave us time to take pictures of the views.

We had a good long day on St. Maarten/Saint Martin and we saw the sunset over the island as our ship set sail.

We're out on the deck of the ship, so blessed to be enjoying this Caribbean cruise, and two more port stops. And yes, we're heading to the back of the ship for Mark to get his ice cream before bed time.

 

Let's Go on a Cruise--with a stop in the Dominican Republic!

We've spent the last nine years driving around the United States and Canada in our motor home. When traveling full-time in an RV, we didn't have much reason to travel using other modes of transportation. But we had some airline miles that had to be used or they would be lost, and our beloved motor home is sitting on a consignment lot so we can't RV travel. So we found a 9-day cruise on a great sale, and used our miles to fly to Miami. Let's go on a cruise! We chose the 9-day Southern Caribbean cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line's ship "The Gem."

We love cruising, and over the years we've been on nine different cruises leaving from seven different ports. But the last one was around a dozen years ago. A lot has changed in the travel industry in those years, so our cruise skills needed to be updated. We did remember that you want to arrive in your departure city the day before, to be sure that delayed flights won't make you miss the boat. We arrived in Miami the day before, and stayed in a less touristy part of this touristy city. Then we figured out how to ride the free trolley system that linked the Coral Gable Trolley to the Coral Way Trolley to the cruise port. We are frugal travelers so we are always looking for free or cheap options. Even though it was slower, it saved us an expensive taxi ride and gave us a little tour of the city. Yes, we had to walk another half-mile further to get to our cruise terminal--but it was free!

We left our suitcase at the port to be delivered to our room, and boarded the ship. We had views of the Miami sky line as we started exploring the Gem. You can tell that our room isn't ready because we are still wearing our backpacks.

 It didn't take us long to find the soft-serve ice cream machine, and Mark had his first cone just minutes after we got on the ship.

The cruise industry has changed, and NCL is proud of their "any-time-dining." Supposedly that means that you can eat wherever and whenever you want. But if you decide you want to eat at the most popular times, you might have a considerable wait to be seated. So we booked a reservation for one of the dining rooms at 5:30 each evening. That gave us time to eat before going to the early show. The two of us were often seated at a table for four, and we enjoyed meeting other travelers that were sometimes seated with us. At least on NCL, the days of sitting at the same table of eight with the same people and same servers every meal is gone. 

While not all ships have complimentary ice cream, Mark is excited that the Gem does. We're still waiting for our room to be ready, and he's having his second serving of ice cream. This time he's enjoying the hand-dipped ice cream in a bowl.

After a day at sea, our first port was at Puerta Plata, a city in the Dominican Republic. We pick a cruise based on the port stops, and this Southern Caribbean route gave us many ports we have never visited. The Dominican Republic is a new country for us.

We were one of four different ships in the port this day, so we knew it would be busy. The big tour busses were lined up, ready to take bus-loads of ship passengers on canned tours around the island. Even though this is the easiest way to see the sites, this is not our style. It's crowded, it's touristy, and you have no control over what you see and how long you see it. It's also very expensive.

Another option for ship passengers is the man-made beach area just outside the port. It included a lazy river and beach volleyball, and would be a cheaper way to spend the day.

This area is called Taino Bay, and it was very nice. But it's not our style either. It is man-made and feels very fake. To spend the day here means that you had been in the Dominican Republic, but you really hadn't seen the island at all.

Our style is researching the best things to do in a day, and then figuring out the options of how to get to those places. We decided that this was a walking day, and we headed out of the busy port area toward our first point of interest. We had printed out our maps at home, and we were planning to first make the uphill walk to the highest point of the island. But taxi drivers kept yelling at us that the area wasn't safe to walk, and their prices to give us a ride kept going down as we continued to walk. We finally made a deal with Jose, who agreed to drive us to all the places on our list for a fixed price. That will save us some time and miles on our legs, so our walking day turned into a taxi day.

The first place on our list was Teleferico Puerta Plata Cable Car. Getting a taxi ride to the cable car allowed us to beat the big bus tours and long lines that can happen on a day with four ships in port. We bought our $10 tickets for the cable car that whisked us up to the highest point in the Dominican Republic.

We had read that the ride to the top wouldn't be worth it on a cloudy day, but we were blessed with clear skies that afforded a view that stretched all the way to the horizon. We could see our ship parallel parked in Taino Bay as the city of Puerta Plate stretched out in front of us.

This ride to the top also brought us to one of Dominican Republic's national parks--Isabel de Torres. A map of the park showed the trails and highlights that we would see. It looks like we are still going to get some exercise on this port day.

We stopped in at the church at the top . . .

and then headed down the trails.

The park is sprinkled with colorful photo-ops, and we took a picture at most of them.

We are in the tropics, and we saw flowers that are normally grown as prize house plants in the United States. But here they are growing wild in the gardens in the national park.

It was a beautiful place to start a beautiful day in the Dominican Republic.

Jose promised to pick us up in an hour, which was really a perfect amount of time for the cable car ride and walking through the gardens. Because we were here early in the day, we didn't have a line for our trip back down on the cable car.

It was nice to have an air-conditioned taxi ride down the hill and into downtown Puerta Plata. It was the right decision to hire Jose for the day! The next stop on our list was a chocolate factory tour. Jose delivered us to this little shop that gave out free samples of chocolate, and the tiniest goblet of chocolate wine.

Then he walked us to San Felipe Street, which is better known as "Umbrella Street."

Having our own driver also meant that we had our personal photographer to take the iconic picture on Umbrella Street.

Just a block away is another item on our list--Paseo de Dona Blanca.

The Pink Alley is a popular tourist stop where everything is painfully pink.

Dona Blanca is the inspiration for this very pink alley, and Denisa spent some time on the bench with Dona while we were there.

We always visit local churches, and the Cathedral of St. Philip the Apostle was the biggest in town.

Fortaleza de San Felipe didn't look so far away on our map, but once again we were glad that we had a ride to get to the fort instead of walking on this warm day.

One of the pictures that Jose took at the fort has our ship in the background. So you can see that we have traveled almost full circle back to where we started this morning.

This is an interesting area on the coast, and we can easily walk back to the ship from here. So we paid Jose for his transportation early, hoping that he might be able to get more fares from other cruise passengers on this busy day in port. Then we meandered around the plazas along the coast.

We're only including the more picturesque spots around Puerta Plata in the blog. But we have to report that while we were off the normal tourist path, we saw plenty of garbage strewn around. 

It's not a sparkling clean place, and sometimes it was hard to take a picture that didn't include garbage.

Denisa loves a good lighthouse, so this big gold tower was obviously on her list. But when we got closer we found that it was locked up and in disrepair. It could be such a neat tourist stop with just a little upkeep! 

That was our overall opinion of Dominican Republic--it could be such a neat tourist stop with just a little upkeep. But after a port day, we have determined that we won't need to return to this country. It shares the island with the country of Haiti, which is going through some serious unrest that makes it unsafe to visit. While we never felt unsafe on the Dominican Republic side of the island, by the end of the day we were glad to have had our local taxi driver chaperone.

We walked back along the coast and through the man-made Taino Bay area with its many photo ops.

As our ship pulled out of the port, we could see the mountains that surround the city of Puerta Plata. It looked like the top of the cable car was in the clouds this afternoon, so we were lucky to get our cloudless views this morning.

We sailed past the rocky shore line that housed the fort and the lighthouse and waved good-bye to the Dominican Republic.

We are really enjoying our ship. We're finding that the Gem has a great outdoor walking track that encircles the entire ship. That helps to walk off all those calories we are consuming in the dining rooms--and at the ice cream stations. It also makes for a nice place to watch the sunset (on the way to the buffet for a night cap of ice cream for Mark).