Just ran past this article and it’s incredible if you think about it. Granted, not every single soul on those ships will disembark for a day on the island. But consider it… in a single day, over 30,000 people added to the island for a day.

I’ve yet to take a cruise so I can’t envision what the port must look like on that day and won’t day go to Pburg on cruise day. (BTW, thanks to this site for the cruise schedule)

https://caribbean.loopnews.com/content/st-maarten-sets-new-record-daily-cruise-tourist-arrivals

Daily record of cruise pax for SXM

Those are certainly days to avoid Maho Beach, that's for sure.

Looking at the scheduled for TODAY, it looks like maybe there are four (small) ships that are currently homeported in SXM?? There are 4 ships that are in port today, a Saturday, from like 6 am to 7 pm. I have always wanted to do a cruise out of SXM. Maybe need to look at that some more. Spend a few days on island before, to avoid arriving on a Saturday (horror!), and then go home after..

We think it's absolutely wonderful for all these cruise ships and their passengers to stop in SXM; all of the shop owners, employees, taxi drivers, restaurants, beach set up folks, tour drivers need all of this activity to make ends meet from all of the terrible times in the past years. It's just like all of the shore towns in the Northeast part of the USA with only about 5 or 6 months to make as much money possible.

I am happy for the St. Maarten economy and businesses that benefit with the arrival of all these cruise ship passengers. But it's also O.K. for me to dislike the crowded and congested conditions they bring. One of the reasons I tend to visit St. Maarten during the slow season. And those same businesses are very happy to see me that time of year.

As for the ships homeporting on St. Maarten, for the last 3 weeks there have been maybe 50 guests that arrive at Oyster Bay Beach Resort on a Friday and depart by bus for the cruise port about 2:00. I think they may be on the Wind Surf. I'm sure others arrive on Saturday and go straight to the ship. Obviously good for the economy.

👍👍👍

Sorry if this sounds negative, but this is the first time looking at TTOL in a few weeks and WOW is it nice to see it looking normal, and without all of the COVID information. (All extremely helpful but so glad to not have to see)

Great for the island tourism, no doubt. Just it’s wild. By conservative estimates, the island population is about 42k

And it nearly doubles, in. A. Day. Unreal.

Yep, those are days I’m at the secluded beaches or on our boat charter!

Island population closer to 80k

If only the infrastructure would catch up.

It's always good to know the schedule ahead of time to plan out your day! It's nice that Carol and Eric TTOL provide this link!!

Mikel--thanks for the info.

I'm heading to the island, for the first time, next month. What areas should I avoid on heavy pod people days? (and recommendations for places to visit) are appreciated.

Avoid Maho beach anrea and Phillipsburg.

Avoiding Maho and Philipsburg is good advice.

As first-time visitors, it's probably helpful if we were a shade more descriptive. "Maho" refers to the area around the airport. near the end of the runway (beach and the area around it). Philipsburg refers to... um... Philipsburg! Which is where the cruise ships dock.

Here is my favorite site to go to check cruise ships at Philipsburg. I focus on the passenger count; this is more important than the ship count (look at Feb 11 - two ships: 808 pax. The next day, Feb 12, just one ship, but 2,074 pax! --> it's not about the number of ships, it's the number of passengers). Avoid Philipsburg on high-passenger count days.

I like it when the ships are in port. My time to hit Philipsburg. I like the activity.

We were on island then. That day we stayed put at Dawn Beach but the next day (also with 6 ships in port) we had to take our friends to the airport. Took a detour to check out the beach at Maho, it was CRAZY! There wasn't a square inch of sand without a body standing or sitting on it. I've seen the beach busy before, but this was unreal.

Since Covid and somewhat prior to it, town was not nearly as busy as it used to be on days when a lot of ships were in port.

Going to be a very busy day today! FIVE ships in port !!
31-01 Tue 06:30 - 18:00 VOYAGER OF THE SEAS CPS-NE
31-01 Tue 06:45 - 19:30 SX230556 MSC SEASIDE CPN-NW
31-01 Tue 07:15 - 17:00 SX230365 NIEUW STATENDAM CPS-SW
31-01 Tue 07:45 - 18:00 SX230292 VISION OF THE SEAS CPS-SE
31-01 Tue 08:00 - 19:00 SX230291 SYMPHONY OF THE SEAS

I did the math: the total capacity of today's ships is 21,300. Gonna be busy in Philipsburg... and all over the island!