St. Martin or Saint Maarten (Dutch or French?)

Our final port of our Caribbean cruise was St. Martin.  We opted for the 3 hour tour.  Our bus left late since another cruise ship was taking forever to disembark and get their bodies to the bus.  Plus a family with a 3 year old got on the bus and the kid practically screamed the entire time since it was his nap time.  All of us on the bus were not happy with the family.   Agree that children are unpredictable and you do not bring them on a bus where you cannot "leave" for the next 3 hours.  Pick the beach excursion where you can shop and relax on the beach all day.  Other than screaming toddler it was great.

 I thought our yard was large for a push mower but this guy takes the cake.  And below is just a typical house that we saw along the way.  Not your "view from the ship" ocean view villa.

 Our guide was great telling us some of the history of the island plus a few jokes along the way.  Apparently she and the bus driver own quite a few of the nicest houses on the island.  About an hour into the tour we stopped for our Sea part of the See and Sea tour.  We were going to take the half submarine boat.

 It was really neat because we took the boat out to a reef that was re-building after one of the hurricanes and a diver jumped in with fish food to lure the fish close to the windows for us to see.  We were also treated to seeing a sting ray and sea turtle (but they were far away so their photos didn't work out).

 A little over halfway through our tour we stopped in a city on the opposite side of the island from our ship for a 30 minute at your leisure shop/explore.  We sat at a local bar and had a beverage.

 Luke had this beer and I had a Coke.  Twisty island roads and hills plus the little boat ride brought back some icky feeling. p Cost $2.50.  For both!  If we knew how cheat it was we'd have tossed back a lot more in that 30 minutes.

 Our last stop of the day overlooked a few of the inlets/harbors of the island.  Amazing views but absolutely nothing in the area (hello skyline bar???).

 If you are looking to build a place there is space available.  You can see the roads to the town houses in the background.  Not that pricy to own/buy but the airfare to get there on a regular basis would probably do you in.

 With time after our tour we exited the bus and opted to pay for the water taxi from the shopping district back to the boat.  We had 3 hours before we had to be back on the boat.  We walked along the boardwalk, checked out a few shops and settled on having lunch.

 It was quite toasty out on this particular day.  Outside the restaurant was a man singing and playing the kettle drums.  We enjoyed the atmosphere and our lunch.  But there is food on the ship?  Yes, but it is buffet food and I much prefer non-buffet food.  Plus we tried some local Jamaican' Jerk chicken flavored thing.

 We took a stroll in the warm waters of the ocean before boarding the water taxi back to the ship pier.

 Items purchased in St. Maartin--food and drink (we are not shoppers--unless it is Disney).

 Cheap drinks near the boat so Luke tried a local/Caribbean beer (very Corona-ish) and I indulged in a margarita before heading back to the ship.  While we enjoyed our trip to the Caribbean we were ready to get back to the mainland (at least I was) and visit Disney with all the holiday decorations (dream and drool for me!)

 Not sure if the video below will work but if it does it's of our wait staff entertaining us after dinner one night.  They danced this particular night and another night.  On our last night they sang to us.  So much fun and entertainment to be had on the Carnival Dream FunShip.