Hi. This is my first post so I hope I'm doing it right. I am cruising on Saturday from Florida and am very excited that one of our port of calls is St Martin. My husband and I are traveling with 4 family members who have never been to SXM. My question is.... we plan to go to El Zafiro to use beach and have lunch and also visit Sunset Beach bar ... will it be difficult for us to find a cab to take 8 people ? I don't really want to book an excursion thru the cruise line.
Love ❤️SXM. Spent a week there this past November

We have two nights at Anegada and were thinking of doing take-out lobster the first night and eat on the boat.

Any recommendations of who provides this? Thanks in advance.

So we’re coming into the home stretch of week two. Things we’ve noticed along the way.....

There is construction and construction debris everywhere but the goods news with that is things are still happening. Perhaps not as fast as some would like but they are happening.

Wrecked cars are everywhere you look and I’m not talking damaged but still drivable cars. On the sides of the roads almost everywhere there are junked vehicles so I’m guessing disposing of them is not feasible? Hopefully down the road.....

Traffic has been lighter than we usually experience this time of year but in all fairness our travels have been more limited than usual. You don’t encounter too much going from your room to the pool here at Royal Islander but we got a late start this morning and the traffic from Sandy Ground to Triple Gate area was very heavy with lots of road construction going on all over the French side.

I think they need a few BIG utility companies to come in and straighten out the utility services, particularly on the French side. How anyone can figure out what they’ve got and what they’re doing is a mystery. Some of the poles look like a spaghetti pot of wires dangling. Simply amazing......

Oops - getting late and we've got important people to see. My shower is calling me........later!!

Has anyone used Ace car rental? Any reviews?

Easter Sunday......

Breakfast at the Yacht Club, again. We got to chat a bit with both Monique and Chris and then the place started to fill up. We only saw 2 or 3 boats go through the bridge. Many of the big boys have departed now that the high season is pretty much behind us although we did notice that grey sailboat “A” return to the area, though at this point I don’t remember if that was Sunday or Monday we saw it. Yup! I still think it’s butt-ugly! But to each his own. I’m much more of a traditionalist when it comes to ships and boats and I prefer the lines of the older ‘Titanic’ or QE II style ships to the boxy lines of the newer ships built today - the ones big enough to transport whole cities.........

We didn’t do much of anything beyond hanging here at the RI pool but it’s a lovely island pool setting so between the fact it’s Easter Sunday and I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, and I know only too well how crazy the beaches can get on the holidays, this was fine.

We did go out for a late lite dinner at Bar Code since every so often a burger is just the thing. One fish burger and one bacon blue cheese burger later we headed back home as my night-night was calling. The road through Mullet Bay golf course was crazy with cars parked everywhere and we remembered again why we usually spend the holidays at our pool, wherever that pool happens to be on any given Easter visit.

Easter Monday

We made a calculated choice to avoid the beach today as this is traditionally an island-wide party day for those who live here. Did breakfast in on pastries from Jules and spent the bulk of the day here at the pool. At noon my personal cabana boy made baguette sandwiches that we enjoyed poolside. And no, he’s not for hire - he only works for limited and selected people.

As the sun day drew to a close we decided to head to El Zafiro for dinner. We have always had very good luck with our meals here and this was no exception. John had a Sea scallop app served in a white herb sauce and I really enjoyed the coconut shrimp. Our entrees were grilled rack of lamb for me and steak for John. All was enjoyable but no room left for desserts. We enjoyed talking to a group of gentlemen, long time visitors here like us and who are from the same area of Cape Cod where my Granddaughter and her husband live, and we compared SXM notes on island escapades over the years. It was a very enjoyable evening and we should have left it at that and called it a night but sadly, so close to the Dunes, we stopped and made another small donation to the owners well- being. Enough fun for another day so home to bed.

Tuesday, April 23

We decided to change it up and do something different today so we had breakfast on our balcony instead of in the kitchen. How’s that for spicing things up!?

They always seem to have some small activity going on the pooldeck - yesterday there was an Easter Egg hunt for the kids and today it was poolside trivia for the adults - Thirty questions and I think we got thirteen right. We did great on island history and trivia but music and sports? Not so much! Another lunch on the pool deck catered by chef Johnny and then some serious bingo. Yeah, you guessed it. Didn’t do well there, either. But it was fun and Tortuga, the restaurant here at Royal Islander where the bingo was played makes a very good BBC.

All that activity and in one day, no less.

Dinner was at Bavaria - a longtime favorite of mine but Johnny not so much since he doesn’t really enjoy or crave German food. So I had the pork schnitzel with fried potatoes and J had the roast pork dinner which they very nicely Americanized for him by ditching the red cabbage and spaetzl and substituted mashed potatoes and green beans so we were both happy campers. And of course, a shared apple strudel to finish the evening along with a little discussion with Annette regarding her Irma experiences, which by Island standards were pretty good. Another island day maybe not so well spent by some people’s standards but truly enjoyed by ours.

We have not been back to SXM since 2012 but have followed this forum religiously, knowing that we would return one of these years. And we are, in December!

We just nailed down a 10 day trip to St. Martin prior to our 7 day family trip to Turks and Caicos over Christmas. Staying 3-4 nights each at the 3 clothing optional places near Orient: Club Fantastico, Jardin D'O and Residence Adam and Eve. Couldn't decide which place we wanted to stay at so we are trying all 3! So we'll be be gone 3 weeks or so next Dec. due to our pesky 50th anniversary !

We worked the dates so we could do Park-N-Fly at the Hampton Inn near MIA on 12/12, fly to SXM on American, fly back to MIA on the 22nd, stay overnight and do another Park-N-Fly at the Hampton for the T&C trip the next day, also flying on American Total of 19 days parking of which 14 are free at the Hampton. They'll charge for the extra 5 days but who cares!? Our R/T basic economy fare to SXM from MIA was only $268, plus extra $ TBD for checked luggage and seat selection that we might do later.

We would have worked the same arrangement with Jet Blue out of FLL (would much prefer flying out of there) but JB had not posted their schedule when we made our T&C plans in February- we wanted to grab good fares and seats on the puddle jumper in T&C (from Prov. to Grand Turk) while they were still available. At the time, we did not see, as we had originally hoped, any direct flights from T&C to SXM, hence the MIA connection in between.

Looking forward to having some fun and chipping in to help SXM recover at the same time .

Jet Blue canceled our mid-day flight out of SJU on our way back home. We're now on the 5:05pm flight. The result is an 8 hour layover in SJU on Sunday, June 2. Soooo, why not make it a Sunday Funday?! We were hoping to find a spot in or near Old San Juan to enjoy a leisurely brunch and wander around a little. Any ideas on a good spot? Places to check out? We have 12 in our group.

Also, it's been 5 years since our last BVI trip. As I recall, on arrival from EIS we need to retrieve our luggage and go through customs. I assume we can recheck luggage for our Jet Blue flight right away and then head into San Juan. Any hiccups with that?

Any guidance is appreciated.

Hi Guys
I own a 1 bed Condo up on the hill at Pelican..
Where do you suggest is the best place to advertise?
Who do you book with?
Any suggestions welcome xx

Without ANY email notification, my November flights on AA were changed again. Totally unacceptable routing with an overnight (at my expense) at a hub city and not getting home until very late at night on the 2nd travel day. I called and was told by the agent the Boeing 737 MAX situation is what is causing the issue, although I did not think they flew this aircraft to SXM. The agent also said to check back in late August as schedules will be in a major state of disarray until then.

And, as I stated there was not email notification and the agent said their records indicated multiple emails had been sent. Same [censored] and bull line I was given on the first schedule change where there was no notification. I am now waiting on a call back from AA tech support to see if they can get to the bottom of the lack of notification.

At this time, the only other option is Delta at a $300+ upcharge per ticket.

Hey everyone, I’m headed down to the BVI mid June with some friends on the Voyage 480 electric catamaran. I haven't been able to find any reviews on the boat and I figured if anyone had any experience with it they'd be on here. Any anecdotal info about the 480 or the ocean volt system it uses would be great. Thanks in advance