One of our favorite stops on our cruise was in St. Maarten, a gorgeous island in the Caribbean that is home to breathtaking scenery and some pretty amazing shopping too!
St. Maarten is actually split into two countries, half of the island being dutch and the other half french. The island got hit pretty bad by a hurricane last year, so we knew going in that certain parts were still in the process of rebuilding. For that reason – we skipped visiting the french side (particularly the famous orient beach, which I had wanted to go to) and instead opted to stay on the dutch side and check out a beach I hadn’t been to on my previous trip here years ago.
The ships dock in Phillipsburg, a town on the dutch side. The beach you see here sits right in front of all of the shopping in town. There are some really cute stores and beach bars right along the boardwalk there. I couldn’t get over all of the adorable umbrellas that you could rent with loungers for the day.
There were a lot of excursions that we could have done, had we planned them ahead of time. But we chose to kind of wing it once we got off the boat on this stop. I will admit – this was the day AFTER our engagement and I was not feeling so hot. It’s quite possible the champagne was flowing a bit too freely the day and night before – LOL! The occasion called for celebration though, so well worth the hangover!
I packed a lot of super affordable bikinis for this trip and this little dotted bandeau set was one of them. It looks like they don’t have it online anymore but there’s a lot that are similar here!
St. Maarten is apparently one of the most popular shopping destinations in the Caribbean. Fine jewelry seems to be something that people like to buy on the island because the prices are much lower than the U.S.
One of my favorite shops that I think I have ever come across on vacation was this adorable boutique along the boardwalk called Lola Flowers. I could have spent hours in there and basically wanted to buy everything in the store!
At the end of the day, we found a spot at the very back of the ship to sit with champagne as we left port. It was such a beautiful end to a beautiful day!
If you like following our travel journeys, make sure to check out our stop in The Bahamas too! I’m planning to do a separate post with our full review of the cruise we went on, so look for that next week!
