I had seen images of planes landing mere metres above the heads of beach goers on social media and in the news, so I was fascinated to get the opportunity to go and see Maho Beach itself.

We’d been one of the first cruises operational after the Covid-19 restrictions had been eased, and as a result of that we’d been the lone ship in each port we arrived at. So it was a surprise when one ship after another arrived in Philipsburg until the towering cruise ships felt like skyscrapers along city blocks.

After getting into our buses and starting the trek across the island, we arrived at Maho Beach in time for a small jet to land directly above us.

We soon found that the local bar had the times of the big planes coming in – a word of warning though, these are the expected times: they can be earlier or later!

There were plenty of people at the well built up bar and restaurants to the left of the beach, and the bucket of six beers for $15 looked like a great deal. Some tourists were plonked down on the sun loungers under an umbrella and drinking their way through a couple of those buckets.

But we decided to go for a walk to the other side of the beach. There we found another, less crowded bar and settled in for some wings and a drink.

After seeing a couple of the larger planes landing (interspersed with a steady stream of turbo prop and smaller jets), we went for a swim on the private beach outside the flash hotels. Nobody asked us to move and we weren’t on any of the sun loungers so a peaceful few hours in the sun passed the time nicely.

After returning to the ship, we had dinner and then went for a walk on the deck. We hadn’t left port and we were curious as to why that might be. As we made our way along the deck we noticed that another Royal Caribbean ship was pulling in opposite us and after they had tied up, a group of our crew made their way with all their luggage onto the dock, in readiness for some sort of prisoner exchange?

We got talking to some of the other observers and discovered that these crew members were heading to Europe for the start of the season there – the two weeks it would take conveniently matching the quarantine rules and allowing them to get the ship ready for passengers after being laid up in port while Covid was raging. Mystery solved!

Our next stop was St John’s in Antigua.

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As the world began to get back to normal after Covid, we decided to have a look at some of the islands of the Caribbean, leaving the port of Bridgetown in Barbados on the Grandeur of the Seas.

Checking in required us to travel 200m by bus from the terminal to the testing facility where we had to do a lateral flow Covid test and then wait for the results.

There was supposed to be Wi-Fi so that we could get the email regarding the test results, but it was a little patchy so we ended up going up to the desk after 25 minutes and they pulled up our results, allowing us to proceed.

The Grandeur of the Seas was just outside the testing station, tantalisingly close while we were waiting for the results…

And then we were allowed on board. Our room cards were in an envelope on the door. Our cabin was the cheapest they had: on the second floor, with no windows. The mirrors were partly to make the room appear larger!

Having said that, the room did have a couch. Which was the perfect size for Ange.

My favourite was Channel 3 which featured a feed from the camera on the bridge looking out over the front right of the ship. Handy for figuring out whether we’d docked yet. The feed rotated through maps of where we were including such data as our depth, course, speed, time of sunrise and sunset etc.

There was a compulsory safety briefing which meant we had to go up to our muster station and check in.

But that was it – time to explore the ship! The top level featured a running track.

A big screen TV for watching movies. Sounds great. But the soundtrack for the movies would cut out randomly for 30-60 seconds every 5-10 minutes, replaced with random music. Nothing ruins immersion quicker!

The view down to the Windjammer buffet restaurant.

The Solarium was an adults only area under glass with a deep pool (and lifeguard) and two Jacuzzis.

The main restaurant was Art Deco’s finest Great Gatsby.

The Centrum was a central atrium with live music at the base of the elevators. Which was a terrible design as the Customer Service desk, Next Cruise desk and Excursions desks were all on the fifth floor, so the music drowned out any attempts at communications.

A climbing wall was at the stern of the ship. Looking down from the top would be 200ft from the water’s surface.

There was a slight shifting of our destinations due to Covid but we ended up going to:

Kingstown in St Vincent and the Grenadines

Basseterre in St Kitts and Nevis

Philipsburg in Sint Maarten

St John’s in Antigua

St George’s in Grenada

before returning to Bridgetown in Barbados.

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