A near perfect day - we got off the ship at St. Maarten this morning and looked around. Following a brief incident of one child breaking the cardinal rule of NOT taking off into the crowd (five cruise ships docked at the same time - thousands of people....I literally saw red), we proceeded with our chosen excursion of the Seaworld Explorer. It began with a bus tour of the island which we were not expecting at all and therefore had not taken or brought gravol. I am sure Leslie and Richard can imagine how Holly, Brooke, and I fared on the bus up and down the hills around twisting roads.... white faces, cold clammy hands, quite horrific really... We arrived at the beautiful beach with amazing turquoise water and boarded the vessel with others from our ship. We travelled around the bay and went below to the glass bottom boat to see the turtles, sting rays, and various fish (including pufferfish) near the coral reef. A diver went in by the glass to feed the fish and they swarmed him - fun to watch and we all enjoyed it. I started the chain of green, sick people who had to return up top to the fresh air. We took the bus back, where we fared no better, and leapt at the chance to jump off at the shopping and eating area. We got to see the French side and Dutch side of the island and saw areas of poverty and amazing hillside mansions - it was all beautiful and we feel very lucky to have seen it all. We stopped for lunch at a waterside eatery called "Haven" and had the most scrumptious lunch of hummus and pita (best I ever had), samosas, shwarma chicken, chicken kabobs with rice and hot dogs.... delicious and costly (so very costly) but highly recommended. We shopped and bargained down the water edge at endless runs of tiny meandering shops and ended up with a nice start to our trip purchases. We boarded a water taxi back to the ship and then gathered more energy from our freakish deep energy reserves (not) and took the kids to the ship salt water pool. Near collapse, we then hobbled down to shower and head for dinner, where conversation drifted into nothingness and we all developed blank stares. We have retired to our rooms for the night where we have received bad news - our snorkel tour of Turtle Cove tomorrow has been cancelled by the operator and everything else is full or Cooper is not old enough to go on. We are all very disappointed and even purchased an underwater camera especially for the snorkeling adventure. We will take the kids on our own to the beach and take pictures underwater and try to make the best of it. Even with this disappointment, this is still the best trip ever and we are already looking ahead to another cruise.