Pirates in St. Maarten?

We are on day 4 of the cruise and our stop was St. Maarten. After 2 days at sea, it was definitely nice to see land. The kids were excited to see "the island" when they opened the curtains.

We decided to explore the island with my parents and then later met up with my sister and niece. To get to St. Maarten from the docks though you have to take a water taxi over to the main area, but first we had to take the traditional tourist photo in front of the St. Maarten sign. 

Yes, Jill is crying in the photo, she didn't want her photo taken. Ah, memories. 

So, here's my take on St. Maarten: It's lovely, but I was not a fan. The beaches look nice, the streets are cute, but I could not get over how pushy the people were. Seriously, if someone got in my face one more time asking if they could braid Jill's hair I would have lost my mind. 

The kids were over the island pretty quickly. If I was 4, I wouldn't want to walk around a bunch of shops, either. I did manage to get a fabulous Pandora bracelet though, score one for me! Scott even picked out a charm for me from him. 

After all was said and done on the island we had pirate night on the ship. Our servers were decked out in pirate attire and many of the people on the ship were as well. Aaron wore a pirate shirt, so that covered it for us. It's not my thing people, sorry.

We also celebrated my nephew Jeffery's graduation from 8th grade, not that you would think he graduated from 8th grade, high school maybe, 8th grade not so much. Jeffery is already over 6 feet tall, it's crazy.

After dinner we went up to the pool deck and watched the Mickey Pirate Party show and then the Pirates in the Caribbean show followed by fireworks. Seriously, fireworks at sea, how cool is that? 

The shows were great and the kids (Lorren included) were hooked from the get go. After the fireworks they had a dance party, but we decided to head out with the kiddos.

Between the Mickey show and the Pirates show Jill, Tay Tay, Lorren and I went to get Aaron from the Oceaneer's Club. While we were walking back to the elevators we ran into Peter Pan. Random, right? And it was just him, nobody else. 

Aaron thought it was awesome, and you can guess what Jill's reaction was based on the photo. 

Check back tomorrow for our adventures in St. Thomas!