Day at Sea, St. Maarten - November 23-24, 2010

Tuesday was a day at sea, which meant "lazy day"...sleeping in, having a leisurely lunch, relaxing on the balcony.  Tonight was formal night (or "dressy night", as overheard from a fellow cruiser) with hopes of a good meal in the dining room.  Princess has two options for dining - "traditional" and "anytime".  Traditional is a set time every night (5:30, 6:00 or 8:15) with the same table and waiter.  Anytime dining means anytime...you can eat whenever you show up to the dining room, though making reservations (only taken the day of) is best to ensure a little to short wait.  Since we booked late, all the traditional dining slots were full, so we were stuck with anytime dining.  We didn't have reservations tonight, so we had to wait for about 20 minutes before getting seated with a large table with 6 others.  Two of the couples were older and from Georgia, and there was a younger couple from Seattle.  We didn't really converse much with them, as the Georgians were talking about local things and the Seattle couple was seated too far away from us to have a decent conversation.

The menu was decent, though we were already spoiled by Sabatini's last night.  No escargots though. :(

duck breast, love the fattiness

the fettuccine was tasty and fresh!

Babe had pork roast

I had squab

"Princess Dream", dark chocolatey goodness

more chocolate delights + pink grapefruit sorbet

The "formal night" meal wasn't as great as I had hoped.  The plating wasn't very pretty either.  My tablemates were amused when I was taking pictures of all the food.

We went up to the buffet to see if the selections were better, but they weren't.  This made me look forward to Friday's meal; we had reservations at Crown Grill, the other alternative restaurant.

That night, there was a special karaoke night where the staff dressed the singers in costumes.  We saw our Seattle tablemates on stage, singing "I've Got You Babe".  I had signed up to sing a song, but didn't get to me as they ran out of time.

The next day, the ship docked in St. Maarten.  Beautiful views from our balcony.

There were three other ships docked along with us:  Celebrity Solstice, Sea Princess, and Oasis of the Seas, currently the biggest ship afloat.  It looked like a cruise ship on steroids; my parents sailed on this monster a couple of weeks prior, and were not impressed.  The ship was so big that passengers had to make reservations to watch shows.  Sometimes the shows would perform only once, and if it was during your set dining time, you were out of luck unless you went to the buffet or made other dinner plans.

St. Maarten is the Dutch side of the island; the French side is called St. Martin.  I've been to this island before in previous Caribbean cruises so I had hoped to get space on the America's Cup yacht racing excursion, but it was sold out before we got on board.  I wasn't interested in getting another tour or renting a car, though I was curious to visit the town of Grand Case, the Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean...maybe next time.  I had already been to the other main attraction, Orient Beach, where a stretch of it is clothing-optional. (warning, this link is rated R...and it shows nice looking people.  The time I was there, I saw mostly leathery bodies and people who should've kept their clothes on)

Babe didn't care to do any extended sightseeing, so we took the water taxi from the pier into town.  An unlimited ride wristband cost $6.  Even though we'd only ride once in each direction, a one-way ticket cost $4, so it behooved you to get the unlimited rides.

No matter what, even in the remote regions of the Caribbean, you can always find one of these:

(and it was quite busy!)

We walked up and down the "main drag", which wasn't a lot.  To help the local economy, we bought some ice cream from a place called "Vanille & Chocolat".  The ice cream was delicious!   You could taste the fatty cream in it, so rich.

There were tons of booze and jewelry stores, and tons of people in them.  One store sold Cuban cigars.  Another sold knock-offs of designer purses.  We went into one of the electronics shops to see if it was a good deal to buy an iPad or one of those new iPod Nanos, but the prices weren't super low.  You'd probably save sales tax, but that was all.  The best deal I saw was renting two beach chairs for the day and getting a bucket  of 5 local bottles of beer for $20.

We decided to head back to the cabin even though we weren't to set sail until later that evening.  I wasn't interested in shopping or drinking, and it was too late to rent chairs on the beach.  I didn't mind relaxing on our balcony and catching a beautiful sunset.

We decided to give it another shot at the dining room.  I was smarter this time and made reservations for 2 earlier that morning.  Tonight was "Caribbean night" and looking at the menu, I was prepared for the worst.  The only thing that seemed appetizing was the vegetarian dish of eggs atop lentil cakes, with salad and fried sweet potatoes.  It actually wasn't bad, but I still secretly longed to eat at the alternative restaurants...

Public service announcement for vegetarians...Princess does a great job here providing vegetarian food.  The buffet had signs indicating which selections were vegetarian, and I would say 40% of the food had no meat in it.  The dining room menu always had a nightly vegetarian option.  Pastas were always available (like the fettuccine).  So if you are vegetarian, you will have no problems finding something to eat on a Princess cruise.

Tomorrow we dock in St. Thomas for Thanksgiving...and also formal night.  Will the escargots finally appear on the menu???