Allure Day 5 - Tapas, Rising Tide and Quest!

Back on board, we (of course) went to the flowrider.  We stayed there until it closed at 6pm.

We didn’t have dinner plans this night, and it was Smart Casual dress.  We decided to have tapas and wine at Vintages.

We cleaned up and had some pictures made  on the Royal Promenade before our dinner.  (I was wearing white and was afraid of spilling wine on my outfit before we got pictures.)  We were actually both wearing white, and I thought it would be neat to have pictures made in front of the black background I had seen, so we headed that way.

After those pics, we decided maybe the white background would be cool, but we weren’t really sure if our white clothes would blend too much.

As it turned out, the background that I thought was black was really a funky blue and I didn’t like the photos.  But we had fun at the white background photo shoot and ended up buying this one.

I have to throw in an aside here.  On the evening of Day 7, we picked up this photo and were sharing with all of our new friends.  Dave and David took one look at it and one of them said (I am typing to insert my best British inflection here) "it's a grite phutoh, but..." Wow.  I was floored.  My new friends were bold enough to tell us our flaws?  He continued with "...the wheyete flureyedeh (that's flowrider in Texas speak) bonds (wristbands)..."

Hey, it's Chris and Susan.  What do you expect?  At least we coordinated our outfits to match our wristbands.  We all got quite a giggle out of that.

Back up to Deck 8 and Vintages.  We walked in and the entire restaurant and bar were empty.  Out on the patio, one table was seated.  We decided to also sit on the patio.  This ended up a great choice, because it was beautiful in Central Park, we could people-watch, and we chatted with a few of our new friends who stopped by from time to time.

Our waiter was great, and he gave us advice on a wine flight and some good tapas pairings to go with it.  I can't remember what we ordered to eat, but I can tell you we ordered 4-5 small plates and none of them had olives.  That narrows it down a little.  ALL of them were delicious.  There were a couple that we selected that our waiter talked us out of, due to the pairings, and I don't think we missed anything.

We decided at the end to order one last glass of wine each, and we picked a Mondavi Reserve (which was pretty expensive, in hindsight, making up almost half of our bill for the evening).  With it, we ordered a couple of dessert items, and our waiter brought us a surprise (“something I think you will like”, he said) of chocolate lollipops.  They were outstanding!

This was my 2^nd favorite dinner of the entire cruise (2^nd to 150 CP).  It was so nice to go at our own pace, enjoy the atmosphere, sip REALLY good wine and have some great tapas.  I recommend Vintages for a change of pace, and a meal as light or heavy as you’d like.  It’s also a good place to stop in before dinner for a quick appetizer (which we had done on Oasis).

After dinner, we didn’t have any plans.  At least until Quest.  So we decided to visit the Rising Tide Bar at Deck 8 and ride it down to Deck 5.

When we boarded the bar, we saw our friend Harold sitting in the center.  We went over and sat with him and just had a great time chatting.  Not long after that, our friend Dave from the flowrider showed up with his partner David and their friends Christy and Mark.  Then a few minutes later, up walked our new friends Brett and Jessica.  And suddenly, it was a party on the Rising Tide Bar!!

We had a great time there for a good long time.  We must have gone up and down 3-4 times.  At about 11:30 we all decided to go to Quest together, so we headed down to Deck 4 to Studio B.

We ended up all sitting together in Section 1 for Quest.  It was a great time, and almost everyone from our group participated at one time or another.  I really don’t remember much about the Quest, after a few cocktails at Rising Tide.  Our team didn’t win, but we had a great (ahem) showing.

After Quest, we walked down the hallway to Blaze for the Quest Afterparty.  I think this night was the most crowded I saw Blaze.  Not only was our group there, but we ran into the couple who had sat at Chris’s end of the table at Rita’s Fiesta, so the party kept growing.

At one point Allan Brooks, the cruise director, showed up.  He was super friendly and approachable.  We chatted with him for awhile, and some people took photos, and I began to wonder if this guy ever sleeps (remember, he does a 6am show every morning, and it’s approaching 1am now).

At some point, Harold reports that he was wearing someone else’s hat. I really don’t remember that.  But I’m sure it was fun and I’m sure there are pictures somewhere.

A great night on Allure of the Seas!  And tomorrow is a Sea Day, so we can sleep in.

Let’s visit today’s pre-cruise calendar plan:

9am-2:30pm – Bernard’s Tour Done (til 3:20)

3pm – 6pm – Flowrider Done, but started late

9:30pm – Ice Games (show) Oops.  Completely forgot this. We must have been “stuck” on the Rising Tide Bar.

11:45pm – Quest Done (and fun!)

Allure Day 5 - Rima Beach World

One last stop on our tour was Rima Beach World. This is a gift shop, much like any number of gift shops you may see at beach towns in the U.S.  You know, the ones with the big shark head out front where you take the cheesy picture?

We stopped there for about 10 minutes.  My lips were burning so I bought some sunscreen lip balm.  I’m sure you care.

This was also a great place for a bathroom break after a couple Coronas at Sunset Bar and Grill.  Otherwise, it was just a gift shop.  Tacky Caribbean shirts.  Skimpy skirts.  Rhinestone stick-ons for your skin.  Beach towels.  And much, much more!

As we boarded the bus one last time, one of the guys decided it was time for death rum punch all around.  He handed an Ounce to each of us.  Not wanting to be rude, Chris and I each took a sip and held onto our full cups until we got back to the pier.  We just couldn’t do any more of the stuff.

We were dropped back at the pier at 3:15.  If I have one very small complaint about the Bernard’s Tour, it is that it was advertised to get us back to the ship by 2:30, and I had verified the return time directly with Bernard that morning.  We got back at 3:15.  Not a huge deal, and once we realized we wouldn’t be back at 2:30, there was nothing to be upset about, but we did have plans to be at the (you guessed it) flowrider when it opened at 3.  Not a huge deal, though.

Overall, the Bernard’s Tour was great.  We really enjoyed our day and were glad we did it.  We’re not really beach-lounging people, but that Orient Beach was out of this world and I want to go back.  I would recommend this tour as a great way to see a lot of the island (and its creatures) in a day.  And, if you like “free” (or $40) death punch, it’s a good tour for you too.

We went to Germany, specifically Bavaria, last summer and fell in love.  When we found this little Bavarian biergarten in St. Maarten, we decided we could live here.

Ending this post with some photos of  our beautiful ship.

This is a zoom of the port side (stand-up) flowrider line.

 

All in all, we had a great day in St. Martin!

Allure Day 5 - Maho Beach - Airplanes!!

We arrived at Maho Beach at 1:30, and had about an hour to spend.  This beach sits right at the end of the runway for St. Martin’s international airport.  You can get some amazing views and take some awesome photos and video as the planes approach and land directly over your head.

Also, when planes take off headed away from the beach, their jet blast topples anything on the beach and creates a sand storm.  You can see this if you search Maho Beach on YouTube.

People can get pretty stupid brave out there.  There is a video of a girl holding on to the chain link fence during a departure and getting blown across the road, hitting her head on concrete.  I hope she’s ok.

There is a restaurant called Sunset Bar & Grill right to the side of the beach.  Here is the surfboard with arrival times of the planes.

The only big one left to come in while we were there was the American Airlines at 1:55pm.

Here she comes!

Our camera wasn’t really cooperating, but here she still comes!

 

Here she is!

And the closest shot!

Oops.  Operator error. Or dude in the way.  We missed our “shot”.

Here, you can see a portion of the beach, with the road to the right, fence to the right of that, and runway directly behind the fence.

Here comes another plane.

 

Time for the camera operator to redeem himself.

Closer.

Anyone waiting on a delivery?

Of note, at Sunset Bar & Grill, “topless women drink free”.  And there were indeed topless women at the bar.  So if you’re taking children, or are easily offended, you’ll need to know this.

Finally, here is a photo of Chris and me with Sexy (and a guy who had had a little death rum punch).

Does Sexy live up to his name(tag)?

Allure Day 5 - Marigot - a little French town

It was 12:30 when we arrived in Marigot, the Capital of the French side of St. Martin.  We stopped for about 30 minutes here.

First, we headed to “the yellow building” that housed Serafina’s.

Serafina’s is a famous pastry and sandwich shop.  We walked through and took a look.  I wish I had saved room at lunch for dessert, but my tummy wouldn’t hold anymore.  So we saved a couple of dollars/Euro by not buying any of these yummy goodies.

Around Marigot

A castle on the hill

I am not sure if this is the same castle we had seen on our way to Marigot or not.  We had seen a castle on a hill and someone asked Sexy what it was.  He told us it is actually a house built by an individual about 10 years ago as a private residence.  He said it takes a very long time to build homes in St. Martin, due to getting supplies.

Chris, somewhere in Marigot (not a bad place to be lost)

Speaking of lost, just in case, here’s a globe.

I thought the colors in the market were beautiful.

Boats in the harbor

Chris and I finished looking around before time was up, so we just kept wandering, enjoying our time, and the fact that we had nowhere in particular to be.

Next stop – Maho Beach!

Allure Day 5 - Stingy Sexy and Orient Beach

Back on the bus, we were now headed to Orient Beach.  It would take about 20 minutes to get there, so we decided to try the rum punch.  Sexy had some little cups for the rum punch, the size of the ones they put pills in when you’re at the hospital.  Smaller than a Dixie Cup.  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why he would serve rum punch in Dixie Cups. I mean, I’ve had rum punch in the Bahamas and in Jamaica and maybe in Key West.  I remembered it being like a Hurricane.  Red and fruity.  Where’s my Red Solo Cup when I need it?

Chris and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and decided to try what little bit of rum punch Sexy was willing to share with us.  Stingy Sexy.

He poured it from an unlabeled, rectangular bottle he kept in the cooler.  We each got our Ounce and went to be seated.  As Sexy set off to drive us to our next stop, we toasted and sipped our first sips.  Whew!  Rum PUNCH??  I think it was just straight rum.  WOW!  Yep, 1 Ounce was plenty for me.  And like St. Thomas’s Bushwacker, I was glad I tried it.  Now I can say I did.  And I never have to again! Ha!

And after that, Chris switched to beer.  Imagine that.

On the way to Orient Beach, we saw goats along the sides of the road.  Lots of goats.  I mean LOTS of goats!  Someone asked Sexy (ok, at this point I’m just getting a kick out of typing his name) where all the goats come from, and he said “each and every goat on this island has an owner.”  This amazed me.  I mean, these goats are roaming free.  How do the owners know where they are?  Or that they are ok?  Or if they have babies?  And why do they own free-roaming goats?  For milk? Cheese?  And if it’s time for milk, how do you find your goat?  Or do you borrow someone else’s goat?  I’m as inquisitive as a 5-year old.  Or maybe it’s the rum punch.

Orient Beach is pretty long, and there are several resorts and cafes along the beach.  Sexy parked the bus near a bar and grill called La Playa and told us what time to meet him back.  We had about 90 minutes at Orient Beach.

 

Seriously?  It’s picture perfect. This has to be the most beautiful beach I have ever visited.  It really is one of my new favorite places on the planet (next to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and Brixen, Italy – but they don’t have beaches).

Just look at that white sand!  And the color of the water.  And the soft breaks of the waves.  Can I go back?  Now?

This is La Playa, looking out toward the beach from the back of the bar. 

They had a bar, some tables in the shade, some out in the sun with umbrellas, a band stand, and a kiosk bar on the beach.

 

The bar kiosk

Menu (hard to read).  

The exchange rate that day was $1 = 1 EU.  I’m sure that’s not the international exchange rate, but it keeps it simple.  Chris and I talked about how they had to be losing money at that rate, unless everything was just incredibly overpriced in Euro, which it probably was.  We knew from being in Germany last summer that the exchange rate was running about $1.25 to 1 Euro.

 

Along the beach in front of La Playa, you could rent some cushy chairs.  Two chairs and an umbrella were $10 US.  We needed  a place to leave our “stuff” while we walked along the beach, so we rented the chairs.  If we had had more time at Orient Beach, I’m sure we would have used the chairs more, but we ended up not really getting much use from them.  90 minutes goes by quickly.

Out we went for a romantic stroll on the beach.

Are you KIDDING me??

We recognized a couple from the ship and asked them to take our picture.

One more photo of this unbelievable beach.  I can’t get enough!

Incidentally, Club Orient at Orient Beach is a clothing-optional resort (“nothing is better”).  It is a little down to the right from La Playa as you face the water.  We walked up and down the beach, but didn’t wander that far toward Club Orient.  The beach itself is also clothing optional (or at least top-optional for the ladies), but we didn’t notice anyone taking the option.  We didn’t really look for that, but there was nothing obvious.  Just in case you plan to visit and want to avoid that, or have kids with you, know that it may be there, but we didn’t notice.

It was 11:00 and we were hungry, so we decided La Playa was as good a place as any to grab lunch.  We took seats at the bar.

We decided to order from the Cuisino Creol (Creole local food) portion of the menu.  I ordered Accrus de Morue (cod fritters) and Chris ordered Colombo de Poulet (chicken Columbo).  And Chris ordered a Carib beer (local).

The food was good, and filling. It was served with baguette slices, which I used to sop up some of the sauce from Chris’s chicken.  It had some curry flavor.  I think we spent $40 with tip, so it was a relatively expensive lunch.

While we ate, the DJ played a mix of island and pop music.  He kept announcing that it was the Orient Bay Resort Owners’ Welcome Back party.  We did see an influx of people who didn’t appear to be from our ship.  I assume this was for owners of resort property who come to spend the winters on the island.  Hmm…should I look into that?

By the time we finished, it was time to board the bus again.  Sexy asked us to change to dry clothes, as the seats were cloth.  Some people opted for another Ounce of death rum punch.  Not us.  Off to Marigot we headed.

Allure Day 5 - Rum Punch and The Sea Urchin Man

I forgot to include our planned schedule for Day 5 from my pre-cruise calendar.

9am-2:30pm – Bernard’s Tour

3pm – 6pm – Flowrider

9:30pm – Ice Games (show)

11:45pm – Quest

After the iguana farm, we boarded the bus and continued our tour with Sexy.  I didn’t mention earlier that Sexy had loaded two coolers onto our bus at the start of the tour.  One had water and soft drinks.  The other had beer and rum punch. Our bartender from the Trellis Bar in Central Park had told us to make sure to try the “Guavaberry Punch” in St. Martin.  He said it is the local rum drink.  So we were pretty sure the rum punch Sexy had was the Guava Punch our bartender had mentioned, so we were looking forward to trying it.

Every time we stopped the bus, drinks were offered.  The iguana farm was still pretty early, so we had not tried any rum punch yet.

Also, to be consistent with the theme of “The Most Disorganized Review. Ever.”, I forgot to mention that when we had loaded the bus at the pier in St. Martin, we watched as a small group walked by, coming from the direction of the ship (and our ship was the only one in port that day), rolling all of their luggage.  We had to wonder why they were leaving the Allure.  They didn’t look unhappy, so I doubt they were being kicked off for being naughty.  And nobody looked hurt (or sad), so I don’t think they or a family member were injured.  I wonder if maybe it was just a planned departure?  Maybe they were guests of a crew member who was ending his/her contract in St. Martin?  I hope it was nothing bad.  I sure wouldn’t want to be leaving Allure when we still had two Sea Days left…

Back to the review:

Off we go, across the border, to the French side of the island.

We made a short stop at a nice overlook of Oyster Pond, where there were two main resorts on the other side of a bay where several sailboats were anchored.  The Westin Dawn Beach Resort and the Oyster Bay Beach Resort.  Sexy told us that the Westin was on the French side, and the water in the bay and Oyster Bay Beach Resort were on the Dutch side.

That’s the Oyster Bay Beach Resort with the glass on top.

One day, I will vacation here for more than a day.

Looking back down the road we had just come down 

More of the bay

Out to the ocean

Back on the bus, our next stop was Rotary Lookout Point, where there was a tower constructed to climb and get a nice view of the ocean and surrounding islands.  Near the bottom of the tower, we found “The Sea Urchin Man”.  He had a name, but I don’t remember it, and he asked us to call him “The Sea Urchin Man”, so we did.

The Sea Urchin Man had a table set up close to the shoreline.  On the table, he had a variety of shells.  He went into the ocean and pulled out some live creatures and showed them to us.  Then he showed us what the dead version looked like.

Here I am holding a sand dollar.

It was squirmy.  It would move its tentacles (or soft spikes, or… whatever), trying to move around my hand.  It moved slowly, not abruptly, so it didn’t startle me, but it felt funny.

And here is a live conch, coming out of his shell.

(You can see the “dead” sand dollar on the table below the conch, and you can tell the difference – at least in color – from the live one.)

A better photo of the conch

He also had sea urchins and some other stuff I don’t remember, but holding the sand dollar was enough fun for me for the day.

From the tower

 

There’s The Sea Urchin Man in grey, pointing out some of the local wildlife to others.  Just a note:  if you take this tour, or otherwise visit TSUM (for short), he works for tips.  We put a couple of dollars in his jar.  He takes U.S. Dollars or Euro (or I imagine you could get creative, but we stuck with dollars).

You can see in the photo above, that there was a guide on the railings of the tower.  It explained some of the islands and local wildlife (birds, I think) that you could see from the tower.

Somewhere out there is St Barths.

TSUM, again

Next, we were on our way (finally) to Orient Beach.  I know you can't wait for photos.