I'd been on my cellphone, and frankly I don't like researching on that. Especially not on RCCL's site. So the PP mentioned that it's only maarten and thomas... (Coco is simple for me, just like Castaway...sit on a lounger and zone out all day...but with Coco we're only 50% having actually been there when scheduled to!)
We've now been to Sint/St Maarten/Martin twice. Well, Sint Maarten twice; St Martin once.
This recent trip we did a Bernard's Tour. I, sadly, did not love it as much as I anticipated. DH wasn't feeling well and skipped the tour (he missed 3 days of the cruise, really, b/c he got some rotten chest cold and horrible headache) so we were all off. We ended up being put in a bus other than what we would have been (b/c there was no room for 3 in our bus, so obviously they just put 2 in A bus). I never really gelled with our driver. And it was way longer than I had read it would be when I booked it.
Maho Beach was OK, but we were just wiped out by the time we got there and I wanted to leave so badly I nearly just skipped the end of the paid-for tour and caught a cab. Orient Beach was nice but 1.5 hours there was too short. (two loungers, an umbrella, and two drinks (rum punch for me, fruit punch for DS) for $10 wasn't bad.)
The first time we were there we took the water taxi to Philipsburg and just hung out there all day. Did some shopping and wandering. There's beach right there in Philipsburg. You have to take a water taxi, normal taxi, or walk about a mile to get into Philipsburg-proper to get to that beach. Rent some loungers and an umbrella, get a bucket of beers...simple and easy. Or just plop down on a towel.
St Thomas I tortured my hubby and son by making them walk into downtown. I thought it was a mile; someone said it was 2. So what if it was in the 90s? (ha ha ha) Got some GREAT chocolates there, bought bamboo sheets (we're vaguely addicted to Cariloha even though Im' sure we could find similar quality locally), and the menfolk were DONE. So we caught one of the shared open-air taxi vans and went on back to the ship.
Thank you!
Future trip to St Thomas we would have caught a taxi to just go over to Magen's Bay. There was no beach AT the cruise port that I saw.
Ports seem so big and scary the first time you're there, then the second time they seem so small and doable. We would have just changed it up in St Thomas but we hadn't brought swimsuits or anything off the ship with us.
Hope my thoughts help.