January 1, 2026

Happy New Year! You will get a few posts in a row because I was unable to load photos for a while. I am doing this one on January 3.

We had a great time at the deck party last night and went to bed quite late. Many of the crew came and partied with us. When the ice sculpture of the #5 went into the pool and the #6 was added, one of the guests jumped into the pool fully dressed in a suit! Ramsay got a video of it.

It has been quite a few years since we visited this island which is Dutch on one side and French on the other. When the Spanish closed their colonial fort on St. Maarten in 1648, a few Dutch and French soldiers hid on the island and decided to share it. Soon After, the Netherlands and France signed a formal agreement to split St. Maarten in half and it has remained as it is today. We docked on the Dutch side. Our tour today was Two Nation Vacation. We were in a mini bus and our guide was Rudolph.

He was informative about the island and told us that in the past, salt, coffee, fishing and cotton were the main industries. Now tourism is the only industry.

There are 19 casinos on the island. And 127 different nationalities. I didn’t even know that many existed!

In 2017, Hurricane Irma, an extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone destroyed most of the island and rebuilding is still going on. We passed the hospital being built. Now everyone needing hospitalization has to go off island so they are anxiously awaiting its completion.

We had a stop at a high point of the island on the Dutch side to take pictures. Then we went on to Marigot, the capital of the French side of the island, St. Martin. Since it was NY Day, most of the shops were closed, but we went to a market bordering one of the beaches where we walked around and had a drink.

Then, we went back to the Dutch side and got to Sunset Beach. This beach is just at the end of the runway at the Princess Juliana International Airport so the big attraction is watching the planes come in right over the beach. And the beach was packed with people. We sat at the bar where Rudolph told us if you come in a bikini and take the top off you get free drinks. We paid for ours!

You have to do some jostling to get a favorable spot for a photo of the planes coming in but we were somewhat successful.

When we got back, I played in the blackjack tournament and placed second. I had to miss the trivia which was at the same time, but our team placed second in that too.

Our entertainment was the onboard Bright String Quartet that plays every day at tea and every night in the Grand Lounge. It was a tribute to Queen and it was amazing.

Today is the last of the port stops and we have two sea days before arriving back in Miami on Sunday, January 4. The weather continues to be beautiful and we are all having a terrific time.