Since we are an airplane lovin family, when we found out our cruise ship would dock at St Maarten it really wasn’t a question as to what we’d do there
Go to the beach where everyone gets sand blasted by jets!
Of course we’d be reasonable and stand off to the side when the jets take off.
Rishi was the best cab driver ever! $20 for the four of us to get to Maho beach and $20 back to the port. Better than $8 / person we were expecting. We saw SO MANY broken and sunk boats (and even an upside down airplane) carnage from post-Irma. As Richi said, we in PR felt bad for them when Irma hit and then they felt bad for us after Maria.
He drove us to the smaller but much cooler restaurant Driftwood, on the eastern part of the beach, rather than the busier side most people go. He stayed there until we were ready to go. I can’t tell you how much peace of mind I had knowing we didn’t worry about being stranded. He even let us change the kids’ clothes in his van because there were no bathrooms.
We looked at the airport schedule ahead of time so knew when to look to the skies. So cool!
There are no more 747s coming in but Delta’s inbound from ATL was big enough for us! And when it left it sure did blast us with sand even though we thought we were off to the side. I brought a fair bit of St Maarten sand home in my hair.
The waves were huge so we didn’t swim much. We had a great time. I think the guys at the beach also had fun lookin at the topless lady suntanning.
If you’re looking for the classic relaxing Caribbean beach to decompress and forget about your woes, this ain’t it. Everybody on that beach is there to see the planes and take their selfies. The delicious mojitos at Driftwood restaurant are icing on the cake.
There weren’t any restrooms available and the waves were a bit rough so when we went in we held tightly to our kids. Many adults were getting knocked around.
Looks like an awesome trip, thank you for sharing!