By Sarah Pruzansky, Cruise & Travel Writer | April 15, 2019 ( Comments)
Visit our previous blog post for Day 4 of our Caribbean Princess cruise ship review and Princess cruise line review.
Caribbean Princess Cruise Review - Day 5
Wednesday - March 13th
The ship arrived in St. Maarten - St-Martin relatively early this sunny Wednesday, around 7 a.m. so we had our breakfast of apple juice, oranges, pastries and tea delivered earlier than usual. Eating our food on the balcony and looking out at the island, we were excited but also bittersweet about seeing the last destination on the agenda for our Caribbean vacation.
Quickly throwing on our bathing suits and packing our bags, we headed over to Planks BBQ to eat a bit more, and then off the ship we went to start our Twin Island Excursions tour (booked through iCruise) at 9 a.m. "Woot woot," Rick shouted as we all climbed the air conditioned bus to explore both the French and Dutch sides of the island, oddly reminding us of Jurassic Park along the way. Throughout this informative tour, we viewed many empowering statues of different humanitarians from the island and several scenic spots, while also learning about the people who live here, the hurricane that hit in 2017, and how the French and Dutch sides coexist.
Similar to the day before, we stopped at a flea market downtown to do some extra shopping. After grabbing some more local art prints, we began looking for small gifts for back home. I found a glass decanter with hand painted artwork and a glass fish topper and while shopping, we also ran into a local fresh smoothie stand where Megan and I ordered some of the best smoothies we'd ever tasted! Megan ordered a fresh blueberry smoothie while mine was packed with fresh mango.
After getting some shopping done, journeying through the island, and stopping for gorgeous photos of St. Maarten - St-Martin's hills, buildings and beaches, our tour dropped us off at Orient Beach, which had beautiful crashing waves this day. If you travel here, be forewarned though that clothing is optional, making nudity common in certain areas of the beach. Luckily in the area we were dropped off, we didn't see anything traumatizing!
After our usual beach routine by now of snapping photos, lying out in the sand, and enjoying the refreshing, cool water, we headed into the neighborhood to grab lunch at one of the local restaurants before hopping back onto the bus and back to the port.
Here, we did some more window shopping where Megan found some locally sourced cigars to gift back home.
Once we were back on the ship, we went to the Coral Dining Room for the ship's Afternoon Tea service and sat at a group table this time, as opposed to by ourselves. I personally didn't say much as I sipped my tea, tired from our exploration of the day, but Megan seemed to enjoy the extra company.
Since our cruise would soon be coming to a close and we'd be at sea for two days, we decided we'd like to treat ourselves for the next night, so went back to our cabin to reserve dining at Sabatini's on the ship. As we arrived into our room, we also discovered that Thursday night would be the dreaded formal night again. Fearing the dirty looks of dressed up passengers at our fanny packs and sandals, we ended up making our reservation as early as we could to avoid the crowd of ball gowns potentially making their way into the restaurant as the sun set.
Thinking about food as we made our reservation made us hungry again (an unavoidable craving when you're on a ship that has so many included dining options) so we headed back to the Coral Dining Room to grab dinner before going to the Explorers Lounge to watch the ship's staff get into character at the lounge's Lip Sync Battle. If you've ever seen Jimmy Fallon host these hilarious games with celebrities, then you probably know how fun these can be to watch. If you haven't, go look them up on YouTube - they're addicting.
The crowd was responsible for choosing a winner, a task Megan and I took very seriously. Until Cruise Director Matt slid onto the stage and began tapping his foot to (I've Had) The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing. Accompanied by a fellow staff member, they gave quite the over the top performance, parodying the final dance scene in the film and making a scene as Matt's black wig went flying around, exposing his bright orange hair as he accidentally threw the microphone under the stage. They didn't let the small details get to them though, as they continued the performance with full dedication. It's not surprising who won the competition.
With music being a theme for the night for us, after the event, we headed over to the Princess Theater to watch vocal impressionist, Tricia Kelly. I had an idea of what a vocal impressionist does, figuring the star of the show would walk onto the stage looking like a famous celebrity like Lady Gaga and then put on a performance as if she was actually her.
But as this petite blonde woman, Tricia Kelly, walked onto the stage and sang impressively but totally normal at first, I was confused as to who she was impersonating. Until she formally introduced herself and then busted out singing like Louis Armstrong, legitimately sounding like him the entire way through.
Explorer's Lounge (c)Princess CruisesShe went on to cover various artists like Janis Joplin and Julie Andrews, switching up her voice so quickly, we had our jaws dropped practically the entire performance.
At the end of the applause and standing ovation, we made our way back to our cabin to crash onto our beds and anticipate the journey home.
Caribbean cruise blog to be continued…
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