St. Martin Christmas 2025 - Day 6: Departure

We were all up early enough to see one of today's cruise ships heading over to Philipsburg.

I wanted to enjoy some hammock time before the sun crested the hill, and before we had to check out at 11 AM.

The palm trees weren't quite far enough apart, but there was a lamp post that worked out perfectly. I just wish the fence hadn't partially obstructed the view.

Above, Jeanne and Rudy admired the view of Little Bay.

Within an hour, I had to turn around because the sun was in my eyes, and it immediately went from "comfortable" to "slightly too warm".

After about two hours, I conceded defeat and took down the hammock.

Around that same time, Jojo (the owner's rep/maintenance guy) showed up to look at something on the roof, and also offered to help us with checkout activities. He made an impressive run up the hill in his compact car with the "RECKLESS" decals.

After taking one last group selfie, we embarked on our final drive towards the airport, returned the rental car, and breezed through security.

We had enough time to shop around a bit and enjoy a sit-down lunch at one of maybe two actual restaurants. Being the Sunday after Christmas, it was fairly busy and they were out of some items, but the food was decent.

The Princess Juliana International Airport is quite modern, and larger than some of the island airports we've been through. It was wrecked by hurricane Irma in 2017 and only back to full capacity in the Fall of 2024, apparently.

Our 2:15 PM departure had been delayed to 2:40 PM before we checked out of the Airbnb, and then 3 PM while we were at the airport. Eventually, we boarded... a bus that shuttled us over to the plane.

It was already 2:45 as we lined up in the hot sun on the hot tarmac, to queue again at the mobile boarding ramp.

People were still boarding at 3 PM. Island time, remember?

It was 4 o'clock by the time we taxied to the start of the runway and launched into a clockwise climb away from the island.

This delay was at least partially due to weather in Philadelphia, as an ice storm passed through the region.

Other than getting home a bit later than expected, it was unremarkable (which is definitely the objective). Zooming out, one can imagine how much worse it could have been, had the jet stream moved.

By the time we made it home (after a stop at Wawa, in the slush, still wearing flip-flops) it was around 10 PM.