St Maarten Family Vacations - A Two Country Island of Beauty |
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St Maarten is a wonderful island full of beauty and history. St Maarten / St Martin is the world's smallest island inhabited by two countries. St. Maarten is governed by the Netherlands Antilles while St. Martin is part of the French West Indies. You also can easily move back and forth form the Dutch to the French side with no problems at all.
Our visit to St Maarten was a part of a cruise. Our cruise ship, The Carnival Glory, docked at the A.C. Wathey Pier & Port Facility. There is duty-free shopping at the port facility right as you leave the cruise ship. This provides quite a variety of shopping, but to get the full St Maarten family vacations shopping experience, you need to visit Front Street - the mecca for duty-free shopping!
St Maarten Family Vacations Island Tour
In St Maarten / St Martin, we decided to take a full island tour. Since there were all five of us, there were many things to take into consideration - the girls wanted to go shopping, the kids in general wanted to go swimming at the beach, and I wanted to see the airplanes land at the Princess Juliana International Airport..... so, a full day island tour was the answer.
We went to the main taxi line right outside the cruise dock. There we spoke with a cab driver who agreed to give a full island tour. Since the airport was tops on our list, and the day was early, we started our tour on the other side of the island because most of the large aircraft come in after 1 PM.
Our tour started to the east towards Oyster Pond and Orient Beach - The beaches on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island have more waves, and the water is a litter choppier. It was rainy the day that we visited, but the beach is beautiful none the less. We stopped at Oyster Pond for a few pictures.
| A view of downtown Marigot |
Our tour continued around the island through Grand Case, where we drove through a quaint little town of local restaurants.... all on our way to a short stop in the French capitol of Marigot.... where we stopped for a little souvenir shopping. From Marigot, you can take a ferry to the British island of Anguilla - the ferry runs every 30 minutes or so during the day.
Princess Juliana International Airport Flights
Our St Maarten family vacations stop at the airport turned out to satisfy several in our party. The Caribbean Sea rolls right up to the airport runway, so the kids got to swim, and I got to watch the planes land. It was a match made in heaven!
| St Maarten airport and beach | Large plane landing at St Maarten airport |
It is just amazing for me to be able to watch these planes land - it is almost like you can just reach out and touch them!
Top attractions in St Maarten
Make your St Thomas Family Vacations extra special by checking out Trip Advisor's list of the top attractions in St Maarten/St Martin.
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