Beach and Maho Excursion for Kids?

[cfin7]

Hello all! We're traveling to St. Maarten on RCCL in July 2019. We've never been there before and have two sons, ages 5 and 7. We'd love to have some time for them to play at the beach, but we also want to see some planes come in at Maho. We're a little concerned about nudity on Orient Beach, and we heard the waves are a bit rough, but it seems like a lot of the excursions are an Orient Beach-Maho combination. I looked up some catamaran tours, which would be amazing, but it looks like they often anchor offshore and our kids can't really swim yet, so it seems like we'd pay for a lot of snorkeling time that they really couldn't use. Land tours seem like good options since they might have more actual beach time. Or maybe we should just get a taxi and plan an itinerary ourselves. There's just too many options and I can't figure out what would actually be fun for kids. Any help would be much appreciated!!!

[mommamd]

I just returned from this Eastern Itinerary. Maho is fun but very crowded - my group of 6 just taxi-ed over there in the am (9 dollars each) to check out some planes and see the beach, then for 4$ each taxi'ed over to  a nearby beach Mullet Bay Beach which has a nice rib/burger vendor, recliners, umbrellas,  and a beautiful beach with sandy bottom. We could still see the planes from the side here.  Mullet Bay is a much nicer beach especially for families in my opinion. We were very happy with this, and there were taxis available to return to the ship when we were ready. BTW no bathrooms, only porta potties.  The Maho beach  is party oriented with a large Sunset Bar playing music and serving beverages and people spilling over into the street.