Grandeur of the Seas - Day 9 - St. Maarten (Part 1)

Today was our earliest scheduled port arrival of 7AM into St. Maarten so we were already docked by the time I woke up this morning. This was our third visit to St. Maarten, the first was on the same Celebrity Solstice cruise as St. Kitts. We had the rare treat of being in port until 10PM so we were able to do a daytime excursion (Dad and I split up - he went to ATVs and I did the glass bottom boat ship excursion) and then in the evening we took a sunset catamaran ride. Except for our itineraries that featured an overnight and our visit to Dublin where we couldn't leave when we intended because of winds, I don't think we've ever had a port stay that long. It's such a nice change of pace to do an evening tour. The second visit to St. Maarten was last year's Oasis of the Seas where we chose to just get off and walk around the port area. That visit was while the port was just starting to rebuild after the hurricanes and many of the shops were little stands and pop up huts. This time, I found an RCL tour that was right up my alley, the Royal Fun Family Food Tour. I reserved this tour during a sale for $94 which was also covered under our OBC. Dad wasn't interested so I got to fly solo on today's excursion. I've done ship excursions solo before and felt perfectly safe, not sure I'd book a private tour just for myself however.

Minor rant about the placements of outlets in this cabin - I really wish they had a US outlet on the floor level or at least on the wall by the door as Norwegian did so that I could have a secure place to charge my electronics with bulkier plugs. I had to channel my Dad and MacGyver my own solution for fitting the camera battery charger plug into the outlet on my bedroom vanity since it was higher than the start of the mirror.

To keep the camera battery charger pressed into the outlet, that's my tablet charger propping up my hairbrush enough to push against the middle of the battery charger.

There were two time options for this tour, 10AM and 11AM so I went with the 11AM knowing that we'd be sampling plenty of food and timing it with lunchtime would work out great. This left me plenty of time in the morning to head to Chops with Dad for breakfast.

Over medium eggs - toast was hit or miss. If they remembered to bring it, it was rock hard. Asked for only lightly toasted and it was at least edible. I think next time I'll just ask for a slice of untoasted bread.

After breakfast, we were curious to see what the 9:15AM trivia really was because the inside of the Compass said it was "Popular Brands" Picture Challenge whereas the back schedule read "Name the Mammal" Picture Challenge. Turned out to be Name the Mammal run by Mark so we sat there staring at a handout of several black and white thumbnails trying to place the animal. You'd be surprised how many animals look like anteaters! One of them ended up being a picture of a shrew and somehow that became an inside joke in several situations for the rest of the cruise. I wanted to get through the 10AM morning trivia before heading on the pier to meet my tour so I used the brief break in between to run upstairs and get everything I needed. "The Troublemakers" won again but passed on their prize so we ended up with more highlighters. Dad headed up to the Solarium pool while I headed directly out onto the pier for my tour.

What I didn't realize was that the family standing under an awning right by the ship was my tour so I walked all the way down to the shops and back when I didn't see anyone else. We were soon joined by a few other couples for a total of 8. Our guide, Annalise was relieved that the family wasn't part of the 10AM tour because that session was packed and there would have been no room for their adult son's wheelchair. Their son was able to climb a couple steps with their help but I don't think this shuttle bus could have accommodated someone who needed a full wheelchair lift. Everyone but me opted to make a restroom stop before we got started so it was nice to hang back and chat with Annalise and the RCL shore excursion rep that was waiting with us. We were supposed to be a group of 9 but #9 never showed up.

The shuttle bus was the perfect size for our small group with 2 seats along one side and one seat along the other side. Only downside was the addition of spare fold down seats that could fit in between if needed but when folded up, they made the space to climb in and out of the two seater side very narrow. I should have just sat on the single seat side as it was more often the best side for pictures too. We also had Anke tagging along who was Annalise's mentor so she was helpful with information and cracking jokes. Anke had come up to the Baltimore/DC area in the past to see the historic sites so she had tons of questions for us cruisers from Baltimore as well.

I appreciated that not only did Annalise check with each participant as we first met if they had any allergies or dietary restrictions but she also asked before our first stop at the Amsterdam Cheese Shop whether anyone didn't drink alcohol. This first stop offered sparkling wine to enjoy with the cheese samples. A handful of us raised our hands about not drinking and were provided with plenty of free flowing Fanta orange soda and water bottles. During the ride over, Annalise gave us a lesson on how gouda cheese is not pronounced "good-ahh" but really "Howda." It was funny when the shop employees still said "good-ahh."

Our small group sat around a table in the back corner of the shop and got a private lesson on several different types of cheese which we all got to sample. I was quite surprised to even see a pesto cheese. This was meant to be our appetizer course of cheese and wine. While we snacked, tour member Kay got picked to be the sous chef and helped take shredded piles of three of the same cheeses and add them to a pan of noodles. Our cheese teacher layered each cheese over a third of the noodles so that we could later taste each noodle and cheese combination after the shop owner took it in the back to melt the cheese (or did the magic TV swap out).

We did get to try each cheese and noodle combo individually but my spoonful of pesto cheese was one giant clump that I couldn't get apart to eat the rest of before she was dishing out the third choice.

Just as we were at the tail end of our tasting the finished product, a large tour group came into the small shop and Annalise did a great job keeping the crowd at bay when they tried to come infringe on our sampling. She also gave us time to shop and pulled each tour member aside to a separate register so that we didn't have to wait in the long line with that other tour group. We were assured by the shop employees that any cheese we bought here would be okay until we got back to the ship and then would keep in our cabin fridges safely so I bought Dad a small wheel of his favorite "howda" for $14. Several of our tour mates bought bags of souvenirs as well and I was super tempted to get some of the Dutch treats. Anke was quick to help stow everyone's shopping bags on the racks above our seats when we returned to the bus joking that everyone should feel free to forget their purchases at the end so they can have snacks later.

We ended up in a long traffic standstill delay traveling between our first and second stops due to some police activity up ahead. Annalise and Anke traded off commentary and jokes while pointing out our great opportunity to see the multiple neighboring smaller islands in the distance. A little further up the road before we got stopped again led to a small empty roadside stand that had a whole group of lizards wandering around it.

 Gives new meaning to encountering a roadside gang

Our next stop was to Sky's The Limit, part of an open air food market that reminded me of a mall's food court. Tons of seating all around but you just walked up to the counter of whatever restaurant stand you wanted and place your order. The whole place was super busy but our guides had taken care of reserving two booths for our group. The two sets of couples took the back booth while I joined Kay, her husband, and their son Scotty in the other booth. Normally the provided "main meal" here also included plantains but this time the plantains were replace with potato salad since they didn't have the plantains available.

Above is Annalise and Anke helping retrieve our plates as soon as the johnnycakes came out of the fryer. Below - the back of the venue looks hazy because of the wafting smoke coming out of each stall.

Everyone got a tray consisting of two pork ribs, a chicken breast, a little bit of salsa, a cup of coleslaw, a cup of potato salad, and a johnnycake. Everything was tasty, cooked through, and the meat was nice and tender. Only downside was being in the open air and the heat and the smoke wafting from each restaurant's grills brought around tons of flies so we'd be swatting away flies every few bites.

Our last stop for dessert was to the Carousel Gelateria. The place was owned by a gentleman from Italy and he had designed the entire venue to look like a carousel. We were first led into the back where all the machines are stored and got a lesson from the owner himself on what each machine does and how much it costs. Then I got picked to be the helper this time. The owner poured a mix for chocolate gelato into the machine and had me scraping it off as the machine pushed it out the front into the bin he was holding underneath. It was such a fun experience! I felt like I was one of those people on Chopped who always end up putting their random ingredients into the ice cream maker and then they're crazily trying to scoop it out like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory. Unfortunately in my rush I didn't bother to show the kind lady who I passed my camera to how to use it so no pictures of me in the act. On the bright side, it kept me from getting a chocolate covered camera. I got so caught up in the moment I started talking in Italian to the owner and he was cracking up laughing. Once the machine had finished dispensing, he smoothed out the contents and gave everyone a tiny spoon to taste. I'm not normally a straight chocolate girl believe it or not but this was so delicious and creamy. You don't normally get to taste test gelato you just made though walking into your local Baskin Robbins.

We were told to keep hold of our tasting spoons because we were then invited to go into the main shop area and pick 2 scoops of whatever flavors we wanted. I went with straight cookies and cream as I couldn't find 2 different flavors that sounded good together.

Once we had our gelato bowls to enjoy, we were invited to head out back through an open walkway where there was a real working carousel inside a small room. We were encouraged to hop on for a carousel ride while eating our gelato and everyone went for it but me. All I could imagine was landing gelato on myself and getting dizzy while we were spinning around so instead I stayed on solid ground taking pictures of everyone else enjoying the ride.

I just hope the carousel is in better shape than this boat we saw docked behind the building:

Everyone had full bellies so our ride back to the ship was more subdued. The views on the way back to the ship was just as beautiful.

I didn't even notice the guy swimming when I took this picture of the sailboats. Does it make anyone else want to play Whack a Mole?

And the prettiest ship we spotted on the way back

We did have to hold up our cruise cards as security checked in our bus before letting us back into the port. I was tempted to check out the shops, now almost all back in regular buildings again, but I didn't want to keep the cheese out too long. 

Above is the sign we saw driving back into port and below is the sign you see within the port shopping area. 3 trips to St. Maarten and I'd never spotted the exit sign. It also took 3 trips and being in the shopping area in the middle of the afternoon to finally get a picture of the welcome sign without people posing in front of it.

And for comparison sake - I took the same photo of the Grandeur docked here that I took of Oasis last year.

When we came back to the ship last year in this port, they had barricades set up halfway forcing people to snake through this little yellow building full of x-ray machines.

We went through the building as directed but noticed that several passengers were simply ignoring the queue and instead heading around the barricades and slipping in via the opening to use the same gangway we used when we came out of the building. There was another gangway all the way up at the end of the pier which had the ship's x-ray machines to pass through but if you went in this gangway and had skipped the building, you would have gotten away with never scanning your bags. We asked the next cruise activities staff member we saw that afternoon and he first said if they didn't go through the yellow building, then their only option was to go all the way to the end and go through the ship's x-rays. We told him that some people weren't doing that, choosing instead to walk in through the opening and he was concerned enough to tell us that he'd be reporting such a flaw. Today, I noticed that the little yellow building remained closed and everyone had to walk to the end and go through the ship's x-rays.

Once back in the cabin and the pleasure of air conditioning, I told Dad how nice a tour it was and how he would have had no problem eating the food provided. He now regretted not joining me. He had enjoyed his pool time except for forgetting to take off his shirt before getting in. Ahh well, that's when the shower clothesline comes in handy.

Today's suite treat plate of the day was a cheese plate repeat

When our two original trivia teammates didn't show for several sessions, we befriended a group of ladies and one of the ladies' husbands that were traveling together. It turns out that one of the ladies even recognized Dad from when they both worked for the government. They told us a story of how they were walking around the shops and one of the shop owners had called out enticing them to come in and bring their bodyguard as poor Don was the only guy with them. Dad had shared his bruise story with them and they urged him to make an official report regardless so that if something should be needed down the road, it was on record. While I was gone on tour today, Dad went down to guest services to make such a report. Guest services had no idea how to do such a thing and had to call in a manager who had to figure it out himself. Dad asked that the report also be shown to John and Katrina as it happened during their department run activity and the lack of response from Jeff didn't sit well. Dad was assured that it would be brought to their attention.