Adventure of the Seas--St. Maarten

So! Our stop at St. Maarten was probably one of the biggest highlights of the cruise! We booked an island hopping/snorkeling tour for our family for the whole day! And that's what we did--rode the speedboat with fun music blasting, snorkeled/swam and chilled.

We had maybe sixteen people on our tour, so it was very comfortable! And our kids were big enough that I didn't worry for someone to fall out:) This was the second time for the kids to be in a speed boat like this one--first time was in Thailand and the older ones don't remember very many details from that tour...

We got on board at the St. Maarten port and were whisked further away from the main island towards the smaller islands. We drove by the mansions and beaches of the French part of St. Maarten and then pass the Dutch ones. Hurricane Irma had destroyed a good chunk of the island and so they were still rebuilding...the Dutch were definitely better at that.

We stopped in some snorkeling spots. 

Although the water was very clear, there wasn't much to see at the very first one.

Then we stopped at a small French island. We parked the boat off shore and walked to the beach with our shoes in our hands:)

That's the whole family on the island:)

One thing this island is famous for is IGUANAS! And what's crazy is that they are not afraid of people (and apparently Mark is not afraid of them!:)

And neither is Robert...our iguana whisperer.

That's Katya and Alex walking back to the boat. 

Oh wait, before we left the island we took a happy family picture:) Everyone feels better at the beach.

Back on the boat, the kids just chilled till we got to another snorkeling spot. 

We had a ton of fun at this spot as there were a lot more to see underwater! 

And finally we moved to our last stop with crystal clear water.

We did a lot of jumping off the boat here. 

As the final exciting adventure, we got to see a couple of airplanes land on one of the most famous air strip in the world at the St. Maarten airport. We were in the water, of course, but the planes still come so low and close to the surface!

And that's us at the end of the tour, around 4 pm. 

Good bye St. Maarten! 

To Be Continued...