Rum Factory Tour & St Maarteen's

Sunday, 11/13 - Rum Factory Tour and Tasting

We went to the Savor for breakfast, which was good, but not great. I went back to our cabin and laid down for about 1/2 an hour, and got up feeling much more awake. Meanwhile, John went off to do some walking. Our excursion started at 9:30. I don't remember what island this was, but the roads were the pits.

First, we went to a famous woodcarver's workshop and store. It was beautiful work, but I'm not into abstract or primitive artwork, so we didn't buy anything.

On to see Marigot Bay, which is only accessible by water taxi. We got to 'see' it from a wide spot in the road at the top of a hill. Surprisingly, it looked amazingly like a beach.

Then we were on to a rum factory for a tour and some taste testing. The factory tour consisted of a 2-minute audio tape, an 8-minute video tape, and then a walk to an open room in the factory, where we got a 10-to-15-minute lecture on their process of making rum. Unfortunately, the tour guide did not have a microphone, and they had combined 2 busloads into one tour, so it was very hard to hear her. Then our busload was sent through a labyrinth of colorful carnival characters and into the tasting room. They had about a dozen different varieties out, and we could taste as many of them as we wanted. Those of us who wanted to buy some were shunted off to the factory store, where, unfortunately, the card reader wasn't working. Since we don't carry much cash, we couldn't buy anything. Back to the bus to return to the ship.

The driver and tour guide wanted to show off their new way into town, called the Millennium Hiway. It seemed in even worse shape than the regular roads, until we got into the tunnel, where it smoothed out a bit.

The bus dropped us off at the duty-free shops at the pier. John wanted a pair of water shoes, but he got distracted by a liquor store, where he bought the 2 bottles of flavored rum he'd wanted to get at the factory. I went on to other stores to look for water shoes in his size, and when he finally caught up to me, he approved of the pair I'd found, and we bought those. The only pair I'd found in his size.

We dropped things off at the cabin, then went to a bar on deck 8 to get cokes. John finished his walking for the day. Then we hung out for a while, him reading and me writing. We had dinner in the main dining room. It had very few customers when we got there. It filled up some as we ate, but was still not full when we left about 6:30.

Our excursion for the next day had been cancelled, due to technical difficulties with the boat we would have been using. We went to see if some other excursion appealed to us. Nothing did, so we decided to stay on the ship.

 

Monday, 11/14 - St Maarteen

We got up and had breakfast as usual, but we didn't have any excursion today, as we'd been informed the day before. Since we aren't big on buying souvenirs, we decided to stay aboard and see what we could find to do. After breakfast, we started with some exercise, John doing his walking, and I going to the gym for a bike ride. John was still walking, so I took my notebook and pen to the deck 6 atrium bar for a coke and to write.

Fairly late in the morning, Arts & Crafts set up a table on the dance floor and handed out journal kits for those who wanted to make them. The instructions came in the form of a 16-page booklet of pictures and text explaining how to 'sew' the journal together. They did warn us that it would take us longer than a half hour, which was all the time allotted for Arts and Crafts. I sat at the bar, sipping my coke, and got it done in about an hour. It was fun and not difficult. It reminded me of lacing leather pieces together, particularly in one of the more challenging designs, like Mexican Basketweave. But I didn't have to worry about the lacing getting twisted, because I was using embroidery thread.

John found me, and we went for a light lunch at O'Sheehans. It wasn't as noisy as usual, because we were in port, and the casino wasn't open. Then we went to deck 8 so John could finish his walking - it takes time to walk 10,000 steps! But the bar I sat at to write didn't open until 3:45 or 4:00, so I couldn't have a coke until then.

We went to the noodle station for supper. This is a complimentary restaurant, only open for lunch and dinner. They have a limited number of seats, and once those are all filled, they turn away everybody else, so you have to get in line for it well before it actually opens. The food was good, but it seemed like a madhouse. People closest to the kitchen were getting their desserts before the ones further from the kitchen were getting their appetizers.

After supper, we went to the comedy club, where we could not get a waiter's attention to get anything to drink. The show was good, although we'd heard pieces of it before, when we attended the comedy show in the theater. And then John was tired, so we called it a night.