11/15/14 Reflection Top Chef Cruise Photo Review from the eyes of a family with teens

[ShellDil]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like a better picture of the goats!

 

 

 

So, I took this picture from a distance, didn't really know what I was taking a picture of, thought it was "picturesque"...

 

 

 

Anyway....at a later stop, I ask our driver when we'll get to see the sea life? he says...oh, that was back at the scenic beach. Calvin was there, you had to go find him and he would show you all kinds of things. REALLY???? Well, first, maybe he could have told us about "Calvin"...instead of just mumbling something when we got off the bus. And then while we were there, if Calvin was really there, maybe he should have called us over. I know it sounds a bit petty, but if he was going to mention it when we got on the bus to start the tour - and really, he talked it up! Then when we get to Calvin and his sea creatures - please tell us! First, as I may have mentioned...I love all things ocean. And second, this would have been a teen friendly part of the tour for my teen who had now been sitting in a bus while the adults were passing a jug of some rum punch around!

 

So, if there was one minor complaint about the tour, and it really is minor - that would be it. I felt a bit of lack of communication there.

 

Onward!

[ShellDil]

Next we drove by some iguanas...they used to take their tour to an iguana farm, but that is no longer part of the tour. I've heard it's under construction or also that it's in bad condition. So the replacement is to do an "Iguana Drive By"....kind of funny.

 

Both Alex and I are reptile fans- imagine that! Animal lovers that we are! Alex actually has a pet Chinese Water Dragon. Sounds more ferocious than he is. He's actually a very friendly, not too big lizard - much smaller than an iguana. So, we like the lizard stops - but it was kind of funny to actually pull over on the road to take pictures - when they are found almost everywhere in the Caribbean!

 

But they did have the cool orange ones!

 

 

 

 

 

And another picture stop...not the prettiest view, but it was a "sweeping" view!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a shipwreck in the ocean

 

 

[PathfinderEss]

Really enjoying your review and great photo's.

[ShellDil]

Really enjoying your review and great photo's.

 

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the review and I love receiving comments! It's good to know people are reading along! :D

[ShellDil]

Next we stopped in Marigot. I think this stop was one of the main reasons I wanted to do this tour! There's just something about this market area that I felt like I wanted to experience. It's not the typical cruise port shopping area, it's just a bit more than that. It's French, very French! And that's just unique to me. This tour gave us the drive around the island, the photo stops, the beach and time to stop here. I'm not a shopper at all. At least not a vacation shopper. I collect magnets everywhere I go, and maybe get a necklace or some other small thing, and by necklace I don't mean an expensive one, I mean something more handcrafted. Maybe a t-shirt...so I don't go to the ports for shopping and bargaining, but I wanted to come here. Maybe this was why?

 

 

Everytime I read anything at St. Maarten, Sarafina's came up!

 

 

Alex doubted me...remember he's a picky eater. And for some crazy reason he doesn't really like pastries or believe it or not chocolate! So this entire place really had no appeal to him whatsoever! But I dragged him in and afterall, I did say he has some sense of adventure so, he didn't complain!

 

We decided to get a "grilled three cheese and mozzarella panini" - apparently mozzarella is not really a cheese on the French menu! It was amazingly good! Alex and I split it and we also got these...

 

 

YUM! They were amazing! And since he doesn't like that kind of food, I got to have both.

 

They had a great selection to choose from

 

 

 

And those are only a small section of the items.

 

After our short little lunch break, we went over to the vendor and craft type market. One side of the street had stores and more of restaurant type places, and then over on the water side there were vendor type stands. We went over there and got a couple of small items. No one was pushy and there were some nice jewelry stands and many other stands. We didn't walk through the whole place but only walked through to get back to our van. I'd say all in all we had maybe an hour in Marigot.

 

 

[ladylemondrop]

More please!!

 

We have never been to the Caribbean and your photos are fabulous!

[ShellDil]

More please!!

 

We have never been to the Caribbean and your photos are fabulous!

 

Thank you! I hope to post some more tonight. I'm glad to bring you to the Caribbean with my photos! :D

[ShellDil]

 

When our time at Marigot was up we wandered back to our tour bus. It was a successful trip there! We had gotten our French lunch, complete with macarons! I got a lovely handmade necklace made of some type of sea shell found in the Caribbean. Alex bought a necklace for someone special ;) for Christmas and we really enjoyed the area.

 

 

It was time to move along! We left the French side and crossed over into the Dutch side. Again we got to hear all about crossing the boarder between countries and the differences between the governments. It was pretty fascinating!

 

Well, I had really hoped to post more than just one picture and a couple of thoughts - but flickr seems to be down, again...I've been having a lot of problems with it during this trip report. I will try again either later tonight or tomorrow! Promise!

 

 

 

[Queen of Oakville]

Hey Shelldil! Enjoying your review. Lovely getting to know you on our roll call, sorry we did not get to meet on board.

[dodger1964]

Great review. We did summit a couple of months ago and we are on reflection in a couple of weeks.

 

We did same reflection itinerary last February. Like to cruise this itinerary for the sea days once in a while.

 

Although there are way over 20,000 cruisers in st Thomas this coming trip and we are "tender". Might just stay on ship.

 

We always do maho beach in st marten. Sometimes all day, sometimes only part. This trip we are there all day. Hope u got to experience the big boys taking off and landing.

 

Keep up the great report.

 

How much was your taxi to ship?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[eyecantwait]

Thanks for your great review! I really enjoy traveling with our kids (they're older now but still great fun to travel with!)

The shopping area at Marigot was one of my favorites.

Angela

[ShellDil]

Great review. We did summit a couple of months ago and we are on reflection in a couple of weeks.

 

We did same reflection itinerary last February. Like to cruise this itinerary for the sea days once in a while.

 

Although there are way over 20,000 cruisers in st Thomas this coming trip and we are "tender". Might just stay on ship.

 

We always do maho beach in st marten. Sometimes all day, sometimes only part. This trip we are there all day. Hope u got to experience the big boys taking off and landing.

 

Keep up the great report.

 

How much was your taxi to ship?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Thank you! I can imagine St Thomas being quite the scene with 20,000 cruisers there! Wow. We did get to Maho...that's coming up! Definitely an experience!

 

The taxi to the ship from the hotel in Miami? If I remember correctly it was around $10 or so? It was a quick ride, so much so that Alex and Keith insisted we could have walked...I don't think we were up for that! But there were people walking across the causeway...not me with luggage and the "kids"! Even as teens, when they're walking on a busy road, they're still my babies! :eek:

[ShellDil]

Thanks for your great review! I really enjoy traveling with our kids (they're older now but still great fun to travel with!)

The shopping area at Marigot was one of my favorites.

Angela

 

Thank you for reading along! Even though my kids are just younger teens, the older they get the more I enjoy traveling with them! It's so much fun to see the world through their eyes! And they keep me young too!

[ShellDil]

Hey Shelldil! Enjoying your review. Lovely getting to know you on our roll call, sorry we did not get to meet on board.

 

Hi there! Yes, sorry we never did get to meet on board! I missed the meet and mingle. Did you participate in the slot pull? If so, did you win anything? I hope you had a great cruise!

[ShellDil]

Ok, let's see if I can get a few posts in while flickr is working! We left off as we were crossing from French St Maarten into Dutch St. Martin! Our driver again did a slow drive so we could take pictures of the border.

 

 

 

I know it says Welcome to the French Side...but it's actually as we were passing by leaving looking out the other way.

 

 

Our next stop was Maho Beach! I knew Alex would enjoy this...but he wasn't so sure. We pulled up to a mob scene! It was crazy. And when our driver told us we'd be here for an hour, or maybe it was an hour and 15 minutes our whole bus grumbled! No one wanted to be there! Come on guys....let's see the planes land! I'll admit it was packed. I think a plane must have just landed or taken off. During our last trip, the tour we had drove by here and we saw the beach area but didn't get to see any action. So I was looking forward to this! Our driver told us to be careful and the risks of being blasted.

 

We got out of the van and I checked the board, which again...no picture, sorry! And we had only about 5 minutes until a BIG plane was to land! Cool!

 

So first some pictures of some small planes. Just a warm up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

 

So, this would be the big one! An American Airlines jet...

 

 

 

 

 

Love this picture - it looks like the plane is going right through this guy's neck!

 

 

And here it looks like it's landing on the roof of that car

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

 

This time this guy has the plane on his head!

 

 

 

Everyone loved the plane landing....so we stood around, deciding what to do next, when what should happen?

 

 

So this plane backs all the way up to the fence to take off. Talk about some jet blasting! Now, I'd heard about the landing, but not much about the blasting! I was pretty happy we were off to the side. I had NO idea just how much the blast, well, blasted! People literally were blown into the water who were standing on the beach! Hats were flying! Sand was blowing everywhere! It was amazing! And pretty funny!

 

And again, no picture because Alex and I just stood there jaws open saying WOW! Look at that! Then it was over when the plane took off....

 

And people were all back to normal as if none of the past 10 minutes had happened!

 

 

Just look how crowded it is though! If I wasn't here to see the planes, I don't know that I'd want to come to the beach here, or even stop at the bar! What a crazy, crowded place!

 

 

So, we had time before our bus was supposed to leave. We sat for a bit. I got a rum punch and Alex a water....again, a nice stop for us!

 

 

 

 

[dodger1964]

glad you got to see the insel air takoff...that is the best takeoff to watch (besides the klm 747)...but the insel air takes off every day...they have the engines throttled up for a long time before starting to move.

 

I have a video of it taking off and after its gone there is a fully loaded backpack 50 yards off shore...and probably 20 sandals...it was funny watching the swimmers retrieve all that stuff.

 

When we are there later this month we get to see the klm 747 again...that is a great site.

 

When we were there in november the beach was also pretty crowded...Other times in the past not quite so much.

 

We don't go in the water, but at this beach (which doesn't get great reviews from the people that review beaches) it seems the people in the water are all having a great time. the rolling waves seem to make it fun for them?

[texasgirl29]

I'm enjoying your photos and commentary. We are sailing on the Eclipse in July. We have never sailed on Celebrity before. My youngest daughter will be 15 and she's a huge fan of the teen clubs on the Disney ships, so I was interested in your kids impressions of the Celebrity teen clubs.

 

Qsine also looks like it will be fun for our family, thank you for posting lots of photos.

 

JoAnn

[Queen of Oakville]

Hi there! Yes, sorry we never did get to meet on board! I missed the meet and mingle. Did you participate in the slot pull? If so, did you win anything? I hope you had a great cruise!

 

I "briefly" attended the meet&mingle, because as you know they scheduled it at the same time as the Top Chef event. I left just before the galley tour and made it to the slot pull. No luck, we all walked away empty handed!

[sbb]

Thanks for taking the time to post. We are sailing on the Reflection in February and I enjoyed reading about your time in port.

[ShellDil]

I'm enjoying your photos and commentary. We are sailing on the Eclipse in July. We have never sailed on Celebrity before. My youngest daughter will be 15 and she's a huge fan of the teen clubs on the Disney ships, so I was interested in your kids impressions of the Celebrity teen clubs.

 

Qsine also looks like it will be fun for our family, thank you for posting lots of photos.

 

JoAnn

 

I think in July there will be more teens on board than when we went in November. In theory the teen club should be pretty great, but probably not the same as the Disney clubs. They always had some great things planned on the schedule, but there were so few teens on board that often what was scheduled never happened. That being said, the staff seemed very nice and my kids still enjoyed going and hanging out with the small number of teens who did show up. Which sometimes was only the two of them and one or two other kids.

[ShellDil]

Our tour of St. Martin continues!!! This really was a great day...we did a lot! And apparently it's taking me forever to tell you about it! So, we left Maho beach after seeing the planes and our last stop was our beach stop. Our original tour was supposed to include a 2 hour stop at Orient Beach. However our guide told us that after the recent hurricane, they preferred to take us to a different beach because Orient just wasn't up to their standards.

 

So, we went to Divi Little Bay Beach Resort. This was just fine by us! This is where the tour divided for those who went on option 1 vs option 2! Those who didn't want the beach went back to the ship, and those who did, well, we went to the beach!

 

It was gorgeous! I believe you could rent a chair for about $10 or $15 and there were jet skis you could rent as well. There was an outdoor restaurant too.

 

Alex and I just put our towels down and went in the water - it was perfect!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

 

 

You can see the beach wasn't crowded at all, which was nice

 

 

 

 

 

We took a walk up to see the pool area of this hotel too - the sign said for hotel guests, and we didn't go in the water, but did take some pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

This was really the perfect end to our day. We had close to two hours here, and our guide was right on time ready to take us back to the ship. We got back to the port with plenty of time and picked up a few more souvenirs before heading back to the ship.

[ShellDil]

When we got back to the ship, Megan was feeling better. She did spend the entire day in our cabin...and took advantage of room service for lunch! Keith enjoyed the relatively empty ship and relaxed by the pool, coming back to check on Megan off and on during the day.

 

But you can see here, that Megan recovered and was ready to head out to see what the evening would bring!

 

 

 

Some pictures of the ships in port as we got ready to leave St. Martin

 

 

And once again, the Oasis was there....and the kids, while of course enjoying this trip, couldn't help wonder just how many more kids were on that ship, and how many more kid friendly activities there were on board! Little did they know that for Christmas, they would find out that we'd be sailing on the Allure in February! :D It was all I could do to not burst every time I saw that ship following us!!!