JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Port Excursions

[dndgirl]

Ooooo!  Parrot show – that’s great!  Since we aren’t leaving out of Miami, I won’t be able to get to Parrot Island.

[autojim]

Hm. The Bird Show is now at the Butterfly Garden, not Paradise Point (the skyride/tramway).

http://www.butterflygardenvi.com/butterfly_garden_003.htm

Looks like it’s walking distance of the cruise dock (Havensight Mall is the Duty Free Hell Zone next to the docks). The tramway is a short distance further down the road, easily walkable (I’ve done it many times).

For that matter, we’ve walked into “downtown” (MOAR SHOPPING!!!1!!), too. It’s a bit of a hike, but not hard to do.

[Chaosdreamer]

Yay!  People who’ve been to these islands before!  Here’s what I posted in the “All About the Ship” section:

St. Maarten & St. Thomas are both new to me.  Based on various
Cruise Critic and Tripadvisor reviews, I will probably be most
interested in doing a land-based tour of the island that includes a
beach stop or two (e.g. Godfrey’s or Bernard’s or Joyce Prince) or a water-based tour of the island with some snokeling thrown in (e.g. Soualiga or Fury or Random Wind). 
I love planning for vacations so I’ve got more info but should I be
posting that stuff in one of the other threads since this one’s suppose
to be “All About the Ship”?

BTW, other than Coco Cay, which we will have all to ourselves, we’re going to have lots of company at our ports:

2/11, Coco Cay – 1 ship = Freedom of the Seas 3634 passengers

2/13,
St. Thomas – including FOS, 4 ships w/13578 passengers total(!); other
ships = Carnival Glory 10am-6pm, HAL Eurodam 8am-5pm, NCL Epic 8am-4pm

2/14,
St. Maarten – Celebrity Summit will be in port with us from 8am-6pm,
which means 5584 combined passengers between the 2 ships

I like to take a general/survey tour with a local the first time I visit a new island.  If I can time it right, I would love to join the trip to That Yoda Guy’s shop/museum.  I’m also thinking about getting a cabana or caba-nette if they’re not all taken by the suites and higher Crown & Anchor members (alas, I am just a lowly Gold) but I’m perfectly fine with forgoing the extra cost if we decide to ban together and scope out a piece of the beach for the Sea Monkeys to claim.

[CindyLouWho]

@autojim I motion that we change every map of St. Thomas to say “Duty Free Hell Zone” in place of Havensight Mall.

Also, with that many ships in port, I think one of them will have to dock at Crown Bay and not at Havensight (Havensight holds three ships). From what I’ve read, it will probably be the Eurodam.

[autojim]

I still have my P-Touch labeler…

Yeah, smart money would be on Eurodam at the Crown Bay docks (never been there…). One of the big boys at Havensight will probably have its stern “hanging off the end” of the pier.

St. Maarten’s newish docks are quite nice, really, though a bit removed from town. Still walkable (did it), but also still a huge improvement over tendering, which we had to do on my first visit in ’98 (because the dock didn’t exist then).

[casidi]

I’m very excited about that yoda guy! I’d like to go with a group of people, but I know we will be able to organize that on the boards. :]

Edit: And by boards, I don’t mean forums. I mean the physical boards in the game room.

Edit edit: If you are new and don’t know, there are big paper boards in the game room for planning things!

[CindyLouWho]

@casidi By organizing, do you mean someone posting “Hey, anyone that wants to go see That Yoda Guy meet at X place at Y time”? Because that’s what I imagine happening. 🙂

[origamislayer]

@casidi Or Twitt-arrrrr 🙂

[stationary]

@CindyLouWho  That’s pretty close to accurate, yeah 🙂  

[casidi]

@stationary @origamislayer @CindyLouWho Basically! You all get it.

[AdifferentMolly]

@CindyLouWho  I would be very interested in joining in on the Yoda excursion!  I guess I just need to make sure I pay attention to what is being said and going on.  😉

[storychick]

Yodaguy, the beaches, the mountains, it all sounds wonderful. I just hope to experience it with new found friends from the cruise.

Does this mean I will need to bone up on “how to tweet” to stay on top of what is “happenin'”? Oo that would mean a new smartphone (yay!)

[kate]

Yay!

[thecolintaylor]

Somehow I managed to completely miss ThatYodaGuy when I was in Philipsburg earlier this year!  I’ll have to work that in during JCCC3.

I can also personally attest to the awesomeness that is the St. Maarten airport, and would love to check out the beach under the approach path.  The closest I came the last time was around the side of the runway (also on the beach), just across the street from the airport, where there’s a great little place called Mary’s Boon.

[gbasden]

I really think lying on a beach and watching jets fly very low over my head might be the shore highlight of this trip for me.

[Author]

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