Welcome to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast, a weekly looking to the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host Matt Hodgeburg, and this is episode number 40.

When I go on a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Eastern Caribbean, I really do look forward to a stop in St. Martin because of how much there is to see and do here.

So this week, I'm going to discuss the things to do in St. Martin, my favorite spots, and share tips for touring this island paradise.

We also have lots of your listener feedback to share, so here we go.

This week's episode was actually inspired by one of our listeners, Garrett Keating, who wrote

an email to me.

Actually, we're going to read Garrett's email and answer some of this stuff later on in

this episode. But Garrett wrote, thanks to the great blog and we're going to read Garrett's email and answer some of his stuff later on in this episode.

But Garrett wrote, thanks to the great blog and podcast, they both helped make the wait until our next cruise just a little bit easier.

We're taking our next cruise in July, 82 days, for nine nights on Explorer of the Seas, added Kate Liberty, New Jersey to Bermuda, St. Martin, San Juan, and Labadee. I'm at the point in cruise planning process where it's time to start thinking about and

researching excursions.

I'm not a fan of the planned excursions and tourists because I find you usually get carted

around from one tourist trap to the other, and when it's all of a sudden done, you really

didn't experience much of the places you're visiting.

I know you mentioned a driver in St. Martin that you've used a few times and

recommend. I'm on the fence about using him or doing the C&C tour SM94 instead.

We aren't interested in going to the beach while in St. Martin.

This will be doing most of that while we're in Bermuda.

Is there enough non-beach things in St. Martin for SSC to make it worth our while?

Would taking a private tour guide be able to show some of the stuff the tourists don't usually find? And about how much does he charge for about three to four hours?

So Garrett's email, I thought, brought up a lot of good ideas and questions. And, you know, I started

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