Philipsburg, St. Maarten Port Reviews

I loved seeing the airplanes landing right over the beach. As a young Embry-Riddle student, this was amazing.

We are going in aug of 2023z How do you get to maho beach ? My son wants to see the planes come in. There will be 5 of us going. Any info Is greatly appreciated.

We did the called the Flying Dutchman. It was not the greatest of experiences. The chairlift up was nice with great views. Once you get up top the have 3 smaller zip lines you take 1st. The views are simply beautiful but the harness they put you in is not good. My wife and I thought we were going to loose parts of our private parts. This was so uncomfortable you just wanted to get to the other side to stand up. They take that off of you thank God and you walk up to the main zip line. We are praying we don’t have to experience that again and the good news is this harness is extremely comfortable. You sit right down in it like a chair. We thought this was great until we went down the mountain backwards. No matter what we tried to do to turn around nothing worked. It was a big let down. This was happening to others

Visited: Mar 07, 2020

Read full cruise review

Independent Excursion: Billy Bones Boat Charter All-day speed boat tour around the island with snorkeling and lunch included. AWESOME day!! Good snorkeling spot at Creole Rock, nice beach at Tintamare Island, delicious bbq lunch at Grand Case. We even saw a small airplane land right over the top of us at Grand Case (not Maho Beach), which was unexpected. Boat was a blast, bouncing across the waves. Crew was excellent. * Would highly recommend *

We took the water taxi on our own to Great Bay Beach. $7 for an all day boat pass. Chairs/umbrellas for rent were $30 with a bucket of beer. TIP: pass the first booths selling tickets to the water taxi and buy them at the dock itself. We waited in line behind 30 people only to learn this!

We did the open top double decker bus tour and really enjoyed it

Water taxi is convenient. Decent shopping.

Love St. Maarten. Again, many stores and businesses were either gone or had not yet reopened. Our favorite beach side bar, the Blue Bitch, was up and running. It was great to be back there enjoying their specialty cocktails and relaxing near the water. It's good to note that a portion of the profits from their "Blue Bitch" clothing sales go toward aiding the St. Maarten animal shelter and assisting in their spay and neuter programs.

Visited: Feb 28, 2022

Read full cruise review

Unless you're buying jewelry at a discount, take an uncrowded extra "sea day" & avoid this port. French side is a nude beach, which is more like a nude SuperWalmart on a Saturday at 9 in the morning anywhere in America, if they herded everyone out into the parking lot and made them strip. I now understand the term "ugly American". I have yet to walk onto a clothing OPTIONAL beach and NOT walked away wishing it had been clothing MANDATORY ‼️😬 Dutch side: One of the nastiest and dirtiest places in the Caribbean. Excursion notes: 💥💥💥Do not take the Great Bay Beach excursion, as it is easily walking distance from the ship for FREE! 💥💥💥Avoid the Dutch Blonde Beach wine and cheese excursion! Avoid at all costs‼️🚫🍷🧀🚫 (obtw, the wine tasting on Beyond is great) Decent wine & cheese pairings were destroyed by a horrible host, eaten alive by self-absorption, who never shut up for one second and spent 2.9 hours of a 3 hour event bragging about his life story about how he became a Malignant Narcissist, which is neither noteworthy nor impressive. Dr. Love-Myself talked 99% more about how he made his own (disgusting) beer, than either wine or cheese, about which he knew less than nothing. It took far too long between the next teeny tiny amount of wine to come, apparently so the King Pontificator could tell the frightfully uninteresting story about adding an escape room onto the worst bar and restaurant in st maarten to fleece the tourists even more. Just look at the pictures I took: there is twice as much cheese on a big mac! Oh man i hate an excursion host who tries to upsell you CONSTANTLY ‼️‼️‼️‼️😬 Are we clear on this?

We did the open top bus tour of St. Maarten. Our tour guide, Ava and the bus driver, Les were excellent. Very friend, safe and knowledgable with St. Maarten history. However, we had 4 stops and we only had 20 minutes ate each stop. Felt like were were being herded in and out quickly. We had to rush around the Gouda Cheese store to try samples, browse the store and then wait in long lines to pay. The same at Topper's Rhum store. We have been to St. Maarten several times, but our friends had never been. By the time we were through with the excursion, we just wanted to relax. I think we would have gone to the shopping area near the ship, but it would have been nice if a shuttle could have taken us over there versus getting a taxi. I know the locals need our business, but I think more of the guests would have gone over and spent money in the shops. Please add an actual pharmacy in the shopping area right by the ship.