St. Maarten Ultimate Island Tour and Cruise

I booked the Ultimate Island Tour and Explorer Cruise through Norwegian for $31.10 after my $50 Free at Sea discount and my 10% Latitudes discount. I booked this tour because I wanted to see the French side of the island.

I found my meeting spot on the pier.

St. Maarten is 37 square miles–16 Dutch and 21 French.

Christopher Columbus discovered the island on November 11, 1493. November 11th is Saint Martin’s day on the Catholic calendar which is why the island was named St. Martin/Maarten.

The estimated population is 80 thousand but they lost many during covid so that number is not accurate.

We saw the salt picking statue on the earlier tour. They would let water in from the ocean and after a couple of days it disintegrates. That was when the salt picking happened. They don’t mine salt anymore. Tourism is the top industry now.

We are now entering the French side of the island.

This building is an example of hurricane damage from 2017.

There are a lot of French bakeries on this side of the island.

In the distance you can see  St. Barts which is an area for millionaires. As a Saints fan I know Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas own property there.

This is an expensive neighborhood.

This is a restaurant with a great view.

Planes from this small airport only go to the French islands.

This is a village.

That is a French school.

Houses in this area are all on the beach.

Our guide’s favorite hotel is La Petite Hotel.

This is a river that dried out a long time ago.

Some of these boats are here for a regatta next month. Some people just buy or rent boats to live in.

This is a stop. We have 45 minutes here. There’s a lot of shopping. There’s a French bakery. There’s a fort. I’m going to do the fort and the bakery.

The fort is up there.

I have reached the fort.

I’m heading down to the bakery.

That’s pretty ironic.

The bakery is in sight. We have 25 minutes left.

I got an eclair and a water.

I was the first one back on the bus. You have to turn the water bottle upside down for it to fit in the cup holder.

We had one extra person and one missing person. Someone got on the wrong bus and someone was late. We left eight minutes late.

I could’ve spent more time at this stop. There were a lot of shops. This is a market on our way out.

This property is owned by a family who got rich selling rum to the U.S. during prohibition. 

We are crossing back into the Dutch side.

We are crossing over the Simpson Bay lagoon. 

This is the smaller airport on the Dutch side.

We are crossing a draw bridge.

Next we have a boat ride around Simpson lagoon. It’s one hour with free rum punch, Coors, and Carib. We’re going by the big airport.

We are passing by the big airport. I was hoping we’d go around where you can see them landing over the beach but we did not.

Little Cay is an island that separates Dutch from French water.

I had two glasses of rum punch and two Caribs on the boat ride.

We are in the bus and heading back to the port.

Traffic man lost an arm when a truck hit him.

These new small houses are starting at $1 million.

The ship is in sight.

That concludes this tour. I really enjoyed this tour. It’s probably worth the full price but it was great for me at $31.