DAY 4: ST MAARTEN

I had sat the alarm for 6am and wanted to make sure that we were up in plenty of time to shower, get ready and then have some breakfast. I messaged Courtney to see if the other clan was alive yet. Her and Kolin was up and getting ready to get in the shower and get ready.

I decided that I had enjoyed eating at Flamingo for breakfast the day before so much that we would try it again...especially since the entire ship would be up and trying to eat prior to getting off in port.

We arrived up at Flamingo and there was not one person there and I didn't see any food. Sigh. I guess either we missed it or they weren't open on the days we were in port. That's too bad because THAT is the day that it would have been most helpful to be open since it's one of the busiest mornings at breakfast on the ship. (After returning for the day, I checked the dailies and it said they didn't open until 8am...crappy since the busiest times would be before that).

Down to the buffet we went. I didn't complain too much since this meant I would get my waffles with the yummy sugary whipped topping that I had missed the day before.

While we were eating, Courtney showed up and ate with us. Kolin was still getting ready and she said Kendra and the rest were just getting up.

We waited....and waited....and waited and never did see the rest of them at breakfast. We headed back to the room to grab our packed beach bags for the day and tried to call their room. No answer. So normally on every other cruise, we would always manage to eat and then meet at a certain spot on the pool deck outside of the buffet. Kendra usually eats in the same place every morning too so that we know where to look for them. However, I had not ate breakfast with them yet, so I had no idea if this cruise was the same or where that "spot" might be.

We never did see them anywhere on the pool deck and it was getting late. Way after the time that they said we could go to shore. We were due to arrive at 8am, but we arrived around 7am and was able to get off the ship by 7:30ish. Time is wasting. Of course Courtney is in a panic because she is not with Kolin.

I really struggled with what to do. It was now 8:30. I know that Kendra and the family always rely on me to research the perfect spot to go to and they follow my lead. Without me, they are pretty lost and don't know what to do. Of course I pretty much knew for sure that she probably didn't know what the name of the beach was that we were going to. But time was wasting and we decided it was best to just head out, get off the ship, walk S-L-O-W-L-Y down the pier in hopes they would come running up behind us, then find a central location to wait and watch everyone walk by until we hopefully seen them.

Sakari got her picture taken with the turtle (and various other characters, but this was the only one that turned out with her smiling) and we made it to the end of the long pier. Ok, time to find a spot to sit that was centralized enough to see everyone leaving the ship.

I seen a huge building with steps and headed that way. The closer we got, the more I realized...there was Kendra, Kolin and family. Sigh. They said they had been off the ship since 8am waiting for us. She had a bet going with Kolin about us getting off the ship. Kolin said I would leave her and get off the ship. Kendra said "no way is my mommy leaving me and is still probably wondering the ship looking for us." I guess Kolin won.

Away we headed toward the area to catch the cabs. I snapped a few pictures along the way but decided to hold off on a majority of them until we returned.

Here is the outside of the taxi stands. It's a pretty good system and it makes me wish all the ports had something like this. It's a covered area that runs along the turn around street area where the cabs circle to pick you up.

There are signs that say where to sit or stand for where you are going. Simply find your sign and wait for your cab going there.

They also make it very clear on the pricing.

The taxi's move in and out so quickly that we didn't have time to sit and wait. I barely had enough time to snap any pictures as the rest of the family immediately got into a taxi van and were waiting on ME this time around. :D

On the way, we discuss our plans with the cab driver. We were getting dropped off at Mullet to spend the morning there and then walking over to Maho to watch the planes come in the for the rest of the time. He said he would pick us up at Maho when we were ready and gave us his card. (I'm really not sure what we were supposed to do with the card unless he expected us to have one of the bars call for him to come pick us up.

To read my reviews of both Mullet and Maho, click the following tabs:

We arrived back in port safely with no incidents (and no vomit coming from the rear seat section).

They had this display out in front when we first got out of the van. Our last name is Baker, so it was appropriate.

It was time to get my shopping on. I sat out to try to find friendly people.

I managed to find some magnets and surprised Sakari with the 2 that popped and moved. She had no idea that I had bought them and was excited when I gave them to her.

I found the perfect shirt I wanted. Did I find friendly service? Not really, but I didn't find rude or mean people either. So I was good.

We all took our pictures at the St Maarten sign.

Then we started to head back toward the ship. They skies were getting a little gray and it looked like we might get a shower.

More pictures along the way back to the ship. 

This is where we found Kendra and the rest of the family waiting for us when we got off the ship. 

A pretty little bird that was just singing his heart out in the bushes.

Here's the funny thing...Kendra is always late and always dragging behind. For some reason she managed to get way ahead of us. It was if she was in some race to get back to the ship. It was still very early and we didn't even need to get back to the ship quite yet. So it was weird. I figured she would have stopped at every shop along the way but she didn't.

We found her waiting on us by the rocks waiting to get some pictures of the ship in the background.

Notice her new zebra wrap and matching bag? There was a lady that was selling these along the beach at Mullet and she ended up buying one. It was a pretty nice sized bag with a matching bag inside, pockets on both the inside and the outside and the wrap as well. All for $20. She decided she would no longer have to carry her "luggage" in to port with her. (She had forgotten her beach bag at home....you know, since she wasn't even packed or anything when it was actually time to leave for our flight).

Yep, Kolin has recovered.

As you can tell, Brayden sat down and decided he wanted to be in every picture and there was no moving him.

We did end up getting a bit of a sprinkle, but nothing major. It lasted a good 2 minutes if that and then the sun shined again.

We were welcomed back with cold washcloths and a drink and it felt so good.

Miss washy washy was standing at the entrance to hose us down of all the bad germs and parasites we might have picked up during our stay at St Maarten.

We all headed to our rooms to shower and change.

I decided to just head out to the balcony for awhile and reflect on the day. The hubby snapped a pic of me deep in thought.

I stayed until we pulled out of port. We were docked with the Disney Fantasy.

Good bye beautiful St Maarten.

Pilot boat was leaving us so I guess it was time to get showered and get dressed for the rest of the day. I knew we were a little hungry and thought we would head up to the buffet to see if there was anything appealing.

Shower fresh, wet hair, no makeup and a little burned after today.

I was really looking forward to some pizza and fries. Of course, this would probably be the only day I couldn't find any. Just my luck. So I settled for other things.

See the cheesy blob at the bottom? It was cheesy potatoes. They were absolutely YUMMY. I would later run in to Kolin who did nothing but talk about the best potatoes he had ever had. I told him I had them too. He would continue to search for these cheesy potatoes for the rest of the cruise and never once did we find them again. 

Now Courtney is one of those that is always STARVING, then she picks at her food and says she's done. You know she was hungry when she had an entire plate and ate every last bit of it. She was so proud that I had to take her picture.

The sun was starting to set.

After eating we dropped Sakari off at the kids club. Tonight the theme was Pirates. I know from all the previous cruises that this means they dress the kids up in hats and do their face and they parade around the ship singing. We always love to catch them in the act and get pictures. I ask the lady at the kids club when they would be leaving (8pm) and where they would be going along the route. She said she really didn't know yet and it depended on how many kids they had.

They had the kids club decorated every night with some type of theme. It was always cute.

We headed to the Bliss for awhile and watched them practicing the dance moves to Michael Jacksons Thriller. It was fun to watch and by watching, I managed to learn a good 90% of the moves. They had planned on doing a flash mob at the 80's party tonight and by golly I was planning on participating. hehe Kendra had mentioned going to this to learn it, but as always, she was too late getting there.

Around 8pm we headed to the atrium area since we know that they kids always parade in this area. However, we never did see them and there was something going on there and it was extremely loud. Maybe that's why they didn't come down there. We walked the steps up and down floors trying to find them. At one point we headed outside of deck 8 and we could hear them singing. Where was it coming from? We look up and we could tell it was coming from the buffet area or somewhere close to that up on a high deck. Man!!! We had missed it. By the time we got up there, they were already back at the kids club. Darnit.

We went up to the photo place to see if we could find any pictures. We managed to find one in the mob of never ending pictures of the hubby walking the plank.

We knew tonight was going to be the 80's party. I absolutely love the 80's and consider it probably the most amazing time in my life. I love the music, I love the dancing, and I love the big hair. hehe big grin.

We had been planning on the 80's party for some time now (us girls) and had been working on some outfits, makeup and hair. We were ready for this.

We went and picked up Sakari at the kids club and headed back to the room to get ready. She was a little upset that she didn't see us along her pirate route. I told her we tried to find her but couldn't. I told her I would take a picture of her pirate face.

Sakari just naturally poses when you take her picture. She has been doing this (put your hand up by your face thing) for awhile and now automatically does it whenever she knows you are ready to take the picture.

I told her pirates do not look like that. They are scary. So this is what I got instead.

I started getting ready and fixing my hair up on the side with a huge big teased POOF. Yep, it pretty much looked just like it did back in the 80's.

It didn't take me long to get ready since I was a pro at doing this once upon a time. Once I was ready, we headed off to Kendra's room where...you guessed it, she was still getting ready.

Kendra had bought me an outfit for the Glow party, but I decided I would wear it tonight instead.

Man the place was packed!!! It was definitely standing room only.

We headed toward the front of the deck (or would that be the back lol) toward the big screen tv. I did previously read that this was the best spot to view the fireworks that would happen later that night.

The party got started and the CD, Joel, was rocking the house.

Here's a video of some of the party.

The fireworks was to start at approximately 10:45pm and it was a lot later than that when it actually started. The anticipation was building and we couldn't wait. I had purposely not told Sakari about it and wanted to surprise her, but she found out (Brayden). But I'm still sure she had no idea what was about to happen.

We absolutely LOVED the fireworks. It was played to 80's music and synchronized to the music. So great job NCL.

I'm waiting for the video to upload and have had to start it over several times. So...I'll post it when it finally works.

After the fireworks, we danced and danced. Then they cleared the back of the stage (by the tv screen) and said they had "guest stars" coming out. I have no clue what this was about.

They had people dressed up (I think staff) impersonating singers. I will say, it was horrible. I couldn't wait until it was over actually.

First was what was supposed to be Bon Jovi. Now I'm sorry, I always thought Jon Bon Jovi was hot, even in the long hair days...and these guys made me want to puke in my mouth.

Then they brought out Madonna singing like a virgin. Um....ok, yes this is a guy.

Then came someone that was supposed to be Tina Turner. I'm sorry, she didn't dance like Tina, didn't look anything like Tina, her hair wasn't even like Tina's and she sure didn't have Tina's legs!!! Here's the kicker...she didn't even know the words to the song! At least all the rest were lip sinking. I mean come on. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of her (or either I did and deleted it).

Then they had KISS. At least they had on full face mask so you couldn't tell if they knew the songs or not.

FINALLY it was over and I can get back to dancing. What a waste of time. I know it was all in good fun, but it really wasn't enjoyable for me.

Joel got the party going again.

I was getting worn out and I knew that we had to be up early in the morning for our arrival in St Thomas. I waited and waited and waited for them to do the Thriller flash mob. At first they said it would be at 11pm, but 11pm had come and gone a long time ago. I don't remember what time it actually started, but it FINALLY did and I jumped right in. I handed my hubby the camera and away I went....only my hubby WATCHED and didn't tape. Seriously? Uh.

As soon as the dance was over back to the room we went to pack for tomorrow in St Thomas.

Sakari's towel animal for the night. How did they know she loved dinosaurs? She can name almost every type there is. For Christmas Kendra bought her a HUGE box off craigslist (and when I say huge, I mean huge). It has every type of dinosaur, every color, every size...and comes with the play land with mountains and everything. She loves her dinosaurs.

I believe it was this day when I was packing for St Thomas and we were deciding what to wear the next day that my hubby discovered he had a bunch of clothes missing. He ask why he had very little clothes and why I hadn't packed everything he laid out on the bed for me to pack. Now I know darn well that I packed everything he laid out. He made mention of a certain shirt (and I knew exactly what shirt he was talking about) and said it was no where to be found. I do remember 100%, that I packed it. I can also tell you that I did NOT pack anything in the side outside pockets (you know, the one that was torn off?). So, I'm sitting here wondering how some of his clothes could go missing like that when they were packed inside. Did someone open the luggage and steal some of his clothes somewhere between saying good bye to them at the airport in Columbus to arrival on the ship when we picked it up at Customer Service (remember, it wasn't in the "missing" pile of luggage but the customer service rep knew exactly where it was). Hmmm :confused:

So this is the end of Day 4...and my soda in the fridge is STILL NOT COLD!!! :(