The St. Maarten Cruise Port

The terminal

Dr. A.C. Wathey Cruise Facility sits at Pointe Blanche on the eastern arm of Great Bay. It is one of the busiest ports in the Caribbean and regularly takes three or four large ships at once.

The terminal area has shops, bars, a taxi rank and the water taxi dock. It is perfectly pleasant and it is not the island — everything worth seeing is a drive or a walk away.

The time you actually have

The advertised hours are not the usable hours.

Take a nine-hour call, in at 8am and all aboard at 5pm. Thirty to forty-five minutes for the gangway and the walk off. Thirty minutes of margin at the end. That leaves about seven and a half hours.

That is plenty for one good thing and comfortable for two. It is not enough for four, and planning as though you have nine is how people end up rushing.

Getting into Philipsburg

Water taxi across Great Bay, a few minutes, small fare, usually an all-day pass. This is what most people do and it is the right answer.

Walk the boardwalk around the bay in 25 to 30 minutes. Pleasant early, hot later.

Taxi by road, about 10 minutes.

See Philipsburg for what is there — and note that with three or four ships in, Front Street is genuinely crowded from mid-morning.

Real drive times from the terminal

Add fifteen to twenty minutes to anything west of Philipsburg if the Simpson Bay bridge is open. It lifts on a published schedule and the road stops while it does.

The taxi rank

Fares are fixed by zone rather than metered. The rule that surprises people is that the tariff is per trip for one or two passengers and per person for three or more — a family of six to Maho pays $48 each way rather than $25.

Many drivers are cash only, in US dollars. See the full rate table.

The thing to plan for

Getting somewhere is easy. Getting back at half past three, when several ships' worth of people all want to leave the same beach at the same time, is the part that goes wrong.

Whatever you book, book the return as well as the outward. A driver who waits is worth more on a port day than on any other kind of day here.

What to do with the day

The honest options, with verdicts, are on beaches near the cruise port and St. Maarten cruise excursions.

Short version: Mullet Bay for a swim, Maho for the aircraft, Marigot and Grand Case for the French side, Philipsburg if you want it easy and free.