Cruise Day 4

Saturday February 26

Philipsburg, St. Maarten     -     11 am     -      7 pm

“Snorkel amidst the exotic fish and majestic coral reefs in the undersea world of Shipwreck Cove. Egrets, plovers, pelicans and herons are among the wildlife found via kayak tours of the beautiful saltwater lagoons. Discover the dazzling colors of hundreds of butterflies on the ever-popular Butterfly Farm. With a little training from local sailing professionals, you can even navigate a race on an America's Cup course onboard the world-renowned sailboat, Stars and Stripes.”

Arial Sky Explorer & Flying Dutchman (SXM-024)

Port: Philipsburg

Tour Length: Half Day (Approximately 4 3/4 hours) $149.00

Tour Description

• Travel by coach to the historic Rockland Estate, located 30 scenic minutes from the pier.
• Board the Pirate Sky Ride chairlift for a gentle ride up to the summit of one St. Maarten’s tallest peaks.
• Admire incredible 360-degree island vistas from the platforms up top and get your orientation for the thrill ride to come.
• Take a deep breath, then take the adrenaline plunge down the Flying Dutchman zip line to the base.
• After you stop hyperventilating, explore the plantation house before the return drive to the pier.

Enjoy a gentle, scenic ascent to a St. Maarten mountaintop on the Pirate Sky Ride chairlift, then go flying back down on the Flying Dutchman, world’s steepest zip line! It’s sure to be any adventure-lovers dream experience. You’ll travel by panoramic coach from the pier to the Rockland Estate, a restored 1700s plantation house containing a museum that tells the powerful story of Trace Wilson, born into slavery here in 1818. High above this historic venue is Sentry Hill, one of Sint Maarten’s highest elevations at 1,125 feet. You’ll take a scenic 30-minute ride up to the summit aboard the slow-moving chairlift, then have time at the top to explore the Crow’s Nest platforms that showcase 360-degree island views, along with vistas of neighboring Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Barts and Anguilla – and perhaps even out to St. Kitts, Nevis and Monserrat. But your full-adrenaline thrill awaits: after a brief orientation, you’ll be launched down the mountain at speeds up to 56 mph on the world’s steepest zip line, attached to a flight line in a secure harnessed chair. The plunge carries you down 1,050 feet in elevation over a 2,800-foot run, in seconds. Afterwards, you’ll likely be speechless awhile.

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The above is from our itinerary as always. Today was our first port stop. The ship was to arrive at 11am and of course you could set your clock by it. It was fun seeing land come into view. I don't know what time it was. Either 9:05 or 10:05 am. I could not set the time on my phone for a while. I finally did but I don't know whether it was before or after I took these photos.

We had lots of time until our first excursion was supposed to start and we thought we might not get lunch so we decided on a good breakfast. I took the special and it was nice. I thought I take a photo of the sign so I can look the recipe up.

You got to admire the captain and crew. He put the ship in backwards.

We were to assemble for our excursion at 11:15 am, were taken by bus to the Rockland Estate Plantation and went with the chairlift up the mountain. It was a 4-seater so we were with another (nice) couple. The ride takes about 30 minutes and we had a lifely conversation. 

At this station we get off and onto another ft chair li to the left.

Arrived on top. The view was incredible and we walked around a bit. There were signs everywhere to tell about the islands we could see in the distance all around.

This is towards the harbor and we could see our ship (or half of it) all the way on the left. 

I went up mainly because I like views from high up. 

This is the zipline station.

You were supposed to sign in to a list so they could call you if you were next. James sure wanted to do it. I contemplated. I know these things are safe. Not to worry. But I don't really like speed. And I wanted to take pictures and a video of James. I also thought that the ride down on the chairlift should be nice since we didn't see that going up. Everything was in our back then. So I decided to not do this.

James had given me his hat to take down. But when he saw how things were going we decided he probably should take it. I was on a balcony above and let it fall down. It didn't fall staight down (wind) so he stepped aside to catch it and caught his leg on a rough wooden bench. Well, as always it started bleeding. He took his hanky out and he had to keep dabbing it. I went to the little bar right there and asked wether they had a bandaid. Oh gosh, it started a commotion. "Somebody hurt"! The young attendants were so nice and took care of him right away. I was glad because he could forget about it and enjoy the ride.

There were 4 cables and always 2 people went down at a time. James is all the way to the left with a nice young girl next to him.

I had taken a video but that I only can put in when we are back home again.

I then walked around to do some more admiring going towards the start of the chairlift.

Of course the upper one first.

Then the lower part. I was a somewhat disappointed. I had seen all and more from atop and it ended up almost boring ... because I regretted not having done the zipline. The good part was though how quiet and peaceful the ride was.

Back down again I found James and we had a beer. Just enough time for it until the first bus back to the ship.

Since we didn't have lunch we went to the 4 o'clock tea at the Horizons Bar. We had little sandwiches and sweets but James was disappointed. The tea was not proper. 

And then, there wasn't really much time until dinner anyway. Can't quite remember what we did in-between. 

Dinner was really nice and we had "our" table again. It was a different waiter this time and he was funny (not meaning to be, ha-ha). We had a good time. Something happened that we never do. We both had excactly the same for all three courses.

The homemade crab cakes were the best I have ever eaten. 

Curried lamb, supposedly India style because it came with nan. It was nice but I didn't think it was that Indian. The meat melted on my tongue though.

And then of course at 9:15 the show in the Marina Lounge. We didn't think we would like it because we find comedians mostly crude and just too obscene for us. We decided to sit in a place were we could discretly walk out. But Darrell Joyce was really funny and we did enjoy it. 

One never knows.

We did decide to skip the Karaoke in the Horizons and did some reading before calling it quits for the day. And as you can see below, I was able to catch up with blogs. 

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On another note: I got a "complaint" because there was no blogs. Even though we have complimentary internet it is spotty and I can't get my photos from my iphone to my computer (because they have to go up into the cloud from one and come back to the other). It took me two days to come up with a trick to manually do that. But of course there is a lot of entertainment to enjoy all day too....... 

Another interesting fact:

The ship has the maximum capacity of 1250 passengers. We heard that on this cruise are 354 guests. That explains why we didn't see that many people as usual when we left Miami. We wondered. 

Of course this whole pandemic thing is awful for the cruise lines but it is nice for us not to be so crowded.