Philipsburg, St. Maarten Port Reviews

We love St Maarten. Out on our own, no excursion.

Visited: Jul 04, 2019

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We always do the same thing in St Maarten, beach in the morning, (go left from the water taxi, the beach isn’t as crowded at that end, and if you go in the morning it’s really not crowded, but still nice and hot to suntan and swim). Then we go back to the ship for lunch, and come back to shop around in the afternoon. I did find the shops on front street much more aggressive this year then other years though, we’d already done our shopping in St Thomas, so just came back to check out the port shops when they got to be too much. Take the water taxi if you want to go back and forth like we did, it’s $7 a person for the whole day of back and forth.

Visited: Jan 27, 2019

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St Maarten is a beautiful island- but did get hit the hardest by hurricane Irma. The view of Great Bay Beach from the top of the ship was stunning! We spent an hour before our excursion just soaking in the scenery!! We took a 2.5 hour Island tour by bus. It was a really nice tour and I am glad I got to see the island and learn the history- however it didn’t go exactly as planned and unfortunately it messed up our plan for the day. It was scheduled to leave at 9am which was perfect so we could come back, get lunch on the ship and then spend the rest of the day at the beach and shopping. Unfortunately our tour was rescheduled to 11am because there was a carnival going on and they were expecting things to clear by 11. We’ll that didn’t happen. We started out at 11 and sat in stand-still traffic for 1.5 hours before making my headway on our tour. By the time we arrived back we ended up with only 1 hour to spend at the beach. So it was a good tour, just the timing was disappointing and our beach time cut WAY short. St Maarten is a really interesting island though and I am glad I toured it. The people there are lovely and so grateful that we continue to visit. I was happy to buy souvenirs from there to help their economy. One last must-do is get a Guavaberry Colada!! Soooo refreshing and delicious! And lotsa rum!! A real treat! The booth is just in the middle of the cruise terminal.

Visited: Apr 21, 2019

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Booked Rendezvous beach through NCL. Great rib lunch. Drinks and chairs included. Carlene our tour operator was super sweet with great commentary of the island on the way to the beach. Beautiful private beach. It was quite windy and wavy. We had several elderly passengers in our group who had difficulty getting in and out of the water. The airport is behind the beach but didn’t seem intrusive or distracting. BTW went by famous Maho beach I have two words, very small and crowded.

Amazing! We took the Best views sky ride excursion. A ride up a mountain in a ski lift type seatto the highest peak in St. Maarten, where we had a 360 degree view of the island. It was stunning. Not to mention, a great value at $50 per person!

Visited: Mar 16, 2019

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Took a boat excursion and watched the airplanes land and take off. Crew was very friendly and accommodating.

Visited: Feb 16, 2019

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Loved it, did our own thing! Lots of activities and was able to find vegan food!

Visited: Oct 13, 2019

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Beautiful place, but they are still recovering from the hurricanes. Some buildings still have boarded up windows and damaged roofs. They are building new shops that look like they would fair better in a hurricane. We didn't do an excursion here, just spend time shopping (lots of shops open) and on the beautiful beach. Duty free store has some nice deals on booze!

Visited: Apr 21, 2018

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The only thing we did in St. Maarten was jump in a taxi and go to Maho Beach

Visited: Jul 27, 2019

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Beautiful Island. Love Maho beach, the airplanes are awesome. Lots of things to do. Swimming, eating, geocaching, and shopping. This was a great port.