Sint Maarten/Saint Martin

Day 5  Thursday, January 24, 2019   St. Maarten

We enjoyed our excursion on this Dutch/French island, another beautiful day. It was called Made in St Maarten, and included stops at a restaurant to watch food prep, a rum distillery, and a perfume factory.

Our arrival at the port in Philipsburg was not until 10 am, so we had breakfast at Margaritaville and explored around the ship on deck 8 ("The Waterfront"), where we got this selfie as we approached the island. We went to our room to watch our final docking through our big forward window. We also enjoyed a drink in the atrium before departing on our tour.

The map shows where we docked in Great Bay. Our tour first went directly west to a restaurant just north of Pelican Key, where Janet had spent a week at a time share in about 2007. We then drove to the rum distillery in Cole Bay, not shown on the map but located at the southeastern side of Simpson Bay Lagoon (NE of Pelican Key). Finally, we crossed into the French side, through Marigot, and up to Grand Case to the perfume factory.

As we headed into Philipsburg, we soon came to this roundabout sculpture scene called The Salt Pickers. It commemorates the many salt ponds that used to be on the island, and those who harvested it. They no longer harvest salt, however.

Here's a view across Great Bay as we drove westward. Yes, the Escape is huge.

I snapped this as we drove past one of many examples of the damage leftover from Hurricane Irma in early Sept, 2017. It had winds up to 180 mph, and it killed four people in St. Maarten.

From my bus window, we looked down on Cay Bay. Pelican Key is just beyond that hill.

This view is of Simpson Lagoon, Cole Bay, and to the far left is Pelican Key.

One of many colorful houses on our drive to Pelican Key and the restaurant.

Here we are at Topper's Restaurant (owned by Topper's Rhum). The chef demonstrated cooking three dishes -- Colombo Chicken, Plantain Salad, and Banana Flambé. However, we had to sit a LONG time before she got started because she wanted to wait until all the food and drinks our group ordered were served. Yes, they passed out menus for us to order stuff, even though we had only recently had our big breakfast on the ship (and their menu was pretty pricey). Most people, not we, did order something, so it seemed forever before she got started.

One issue was that she did not use a microphone, and she was fairly soft spoken, so she had to repeat everything several times after moving through the group to get closer to everyone. This added to the length of this part of our excursion.

Hahahaha. Janet and I voted this the funniest picture we took on the entire cruise. In the front row, this mother-daughter combo maintained their super-excited expressions for the entire presentation. Later, when we saw them during the day or on the remainder of the cruise, they looked exactly as excited and happy as here.

Her finalé, the banana flambé. She said it was the best we would ever taste because she put extra of everything into it, especially their Topper's Rhum. After each of her three dishes, we would get a tiny bite of it. Overall, this presentation went on too long for our liking, and was too detailed for me, as far as all the ingredients and their quantities. They had said we'd have time to wander after the demonstration, but we didn't.

On the drive to nearby Topper's Rhum Distillery, we passed dwellings that weren't so glamorous. 

Repairs from Irma damage were still underway in so many places.

Then, on just a narrow street in the thick of things, we backed into an industrial park, and that's where the distillery was. After visiting the many glamorous bourbon distilleries in KY, this seemed rather bland.

Janet is looking forward to the free sampling!

Here comes our tour guide to explain the history of rum! And the story of Admiral Nelson's Blood. He was a hoot, and we could understand him well because he was Canadian. It was funny how much of the history was what we had just learned during our musical comedy in NYC with Cody and Morgan (Spirited History of Drinking). He passed around a fresh and a dried stalk of sugar cane to show how much heavier the fresh one was, and therefore why they always wanted to process them as soon as possible with all the moist sugars intact.

After the lesson, we went out into their factory to taste our six samples. Topper's is mostly known for its flavored rums. We tasted four of the flavoreds (40 proof), their plain (80 proof), and their plain spiced (80 proof). Janet did not like any of them, while I liked only the spiced. Upon returning home and checking my spirits-rating website (Proof 66), we saw that all these rums had very low ratings!

 While most of our group seemed to be buying souvenirs, we only posed with them.

Our bus then headed north and we soon crossed into the French side, and here is the border crossing. We did not need to even slow down, much less stop. The French part is larger than the Dutch. Our guide, who was French, told of how the laws and customs of the two can be very different (the French more socialistic), but also how they come together for many celebrations and holidays. 

Just a photo out the window as we continued northward.

Then we arrived at the Tijon Perfume Creation Experiences (what a glorified name!), begun in 2007. The man in this photo, and his wife, were from Zürich, and we had visited with them during the earlier two stops. (They said how they hated our ship because it was way too large.)

Here we are inside. Her presentation was interesting, about perfume's history and how they are made. They had a little museum, and samples, but I don't think too many from our group bought anything.

There's the fun-loving mother and daughter again! We also had more annoying moments from the "stalker", who wanted to show off his culture and knowledge by interrupting to brag about this or that. He then bothered the cashier by yapping at her for the remainder of the formal presentation.

This display shows their 300 oils they can draw from to make their perfumes.

This distiller in the lab, about 100 yrs old, was still operational.

We continued in a counter-clockwise drive to see the eastern side of the island, and this is a shot of the Atlantic Ocean at Orient Bay.

Just after crossing the border back into the Dutch side, in the town of Belvedere, we came to this roundabout with three statues. I researched it, and they were created in 2009. This one is Tata The Bus Driver, who "was best remembered for transporting students to and from school. He was also known as the bus driver who made sure there was discipline on his bus. Tata transported several persons now holding government function" (quoted from a website). One of the others was Alec the Butcher, "father of 42, best known for farming and selling fresh meat." I would have said he should best be remembered for having 42 kids! Finally, "Lalie was known for providing fresh bread, tarts and shelter to those in need."

After returning to the ship, we enjoyed special beers in the District Brew House and read, then had dinner in the Manhattan main dining room. Our special show for the evening was Phil in the Headliners Comedy Club, and wow, we laughed hard the entire time. We ended the evening listening to more JR on the piano.

This was the fifth day of the cruise, but the first when the housekeeping staff had enough extra time to make their towel sculptures. We liked our little ellie.