Can you do this cruise port on your own?
Philipsburg
DIY Score
Easy DIY
Docked, water taxi to town, open border to French side beaches.
Tender or Docked?
Almost all ships dock at the A.C. Wathey pier. Occasionally a ship will anchor in Great Bay and tender, but this is the exception. Expect to walk off the gangway.
How to Get Into Town
The water taxi from the pier to Philipsburg costs $7 round trip and takes about 5 minutes. It is the standard way passengers get into town. Walking the full distance along the pier road takes 20-30 minutes.
Main Attractions
Sint Maarten delivers three things well: duty-free shopping on Front Street, spectacular plane-watching at Maho Beach, and beautiful beach days at Orient Beach or Great Bay. Combining two of the three in one port call is realistic.
How Much Time You Need
An 8-10 hour call covers shopping plus one beach, or a cross-island tour. With 6 hours, focus on either Front Street plus Great Bay, or Maho Beach, not both.
Keep in Mind
This port can put 5 or 6 ships in at once, sending up to 20,000 passengers into a small town. On heavy ship days, taxi queues, beach chairs, and Front Street crowds all get significantly worse.
Safety & Comfort
Philipsburg and the main tourist areas are safe for cruise passengers during the day. Standard awareness in crowds applies. The island recovered strongly from Hurricane Irma (2017) and tourism infrastructure is fully operational.
Tips from Cruisers
"Water taxi bracelet is $7 and runs all day. You can go back and forth as many times as you want. We used it four times — into town…" — by Tony V.
Sources
- Port St. Maarten official site
- Visit Sint Maarten: cruise page
- Visit Sint Maarten: taxi rates
- SXM Taxi and Tours: rates from cruise port
- Visit Sint Maarten: bus routes
- Sint Maarten Government: emergency numbers
- Things to Do in St. Martin: Orient Bay
- Visit Sint Maarten: Great Bay Beach
- Visit Sint Maarten: Maho Beach
- Caribbean Journal: St. Maarten cruise traffic 2026
- We Are SXM: Fort Amsterdam
Water taxi bracelet is $7 and runs all day. You can go back and forth as many times as you want. We used it four times — into town, to Bobby's Marina, back to the pier for sunscreen, and once more. Way faster than walking the pier road in the heat.
Maho Beach was a must-do for my aviation-obsessed husband. We timed our visit with the airport departures schedule (find it on MahoBeach.com) and got perfect photos of a KLM 747 about 20 feet overhead. The jet blast on departures is genuinely alarming. Keep children back from the fence.
Six ships in port when we arrived. We knew because we checked the schedule the night before, so we went straight to Marigot on the French side by bus — $2 each. Much quieter, had a nice lunch by the marina. Front Street back in Philipsburg was an absolute zoo when we got back at 3 PM.