Our April 16 thru 30, 2020 virtual trip.....

Someone suggested writing virtual ‘would have done’ trip reports and it seemed like a great idea to me so here goes and I hope others will share theirs as well.

We caught a great one way fare months ago on AA First/Business seats to SXM from our local regional airport. It’s only 25+ minutes from home with none of the JFK hubbub and we jumped on those tickets. Good flights and good service into CLT where we connected to the island. Again, no complaints at all and so happy to be on our way.

It’s always a special moment to catch the first glimpse of SXM as you make the big turn past Cupecoy and Mullet and then to glide over the heads of all those crazy Maho Beach plane watchers. We arrived a little early and made it through immigration in no time and the first of many surprises - our bags were there on the luggage carousel by the time we got there. Grabbed the bags and out the door to spot Lesley Bruce with his usual big smile and warm greeting.

We were off to a wonderful ten days at BSV, and lucky us, we spent them in Unit 14, right next door to the pool. Great location for convenience to the pool and plane watching. The Mascarins have thought of virtually everything the normal vacationer could want and have put it all together in one wonderful location. Kudos to them and their staff. The unit was perfect, as always, and Jeannie Gee had been there and worked her magic so all our provisions were neatly in place. Time to make the first batch of pina coladas and celebrate our arrival. Unpacking will come later as will checking out the pool to see if any of our neighbors are friends from past visits. Dinner in that night as we were exhausted from travel day and then on to a reasonably early bedtime.

Why is it the sound of the waves is so very relaxing? Puts me to sleep in a heartbeat every trip.

Up early - first morning means warm pastries and freshly brewed coffee out on the balcony as we wave to all the early beach walkers. It’s such a special time of day and I’m always glad I’m an early riser. To be able to sit out there and feel the peaceful feeling the island provides is a blessing unto itself. This set the pace for most of our mornings throughout the course of our stay at BSV. When you’re staying on the beach there’s just no reason to leave so we often don’t! But that said, beyond our time at the beach and pool here, our beach days also included Mullet, Friars, the Marys Boon end of Simpson Bay and of course, Anse Marcel. If you haven’t figured it out already, we love the beaches with great eateries attached and we weren’t disappointed anywhere we went. We intended to check out the new restrooms on Mullet but we couldn’t seem to get beyond Rosie’s so we never did see them.

We didn’t do much of anything that would excite most visitors - no other-island excursions and no boat trips but in honesty, over the years we’ve day-tripped and/or done stay-overs on most of them, and while an occasional boat trip is fun, again, we’ve done our share so we were content to stay pretty much on the beach and our time off the beach was spent visiting longtime island friends we’ve made over the years.

Dinners were, as always, the treat of the trip. We did mostly our old favorites but at least we made it to Jax this time and were not disappointed even though I’m not usually a steak fan, Le Moulin Fou is always good as was Palapa Grill, the Spaghetti House and Sublime and the pizza at Fat Tony’s was perfecto. We had no dinner reservations anywhere and this trip it was not a problem.

A few evenings at the casino at Maho - LOSERS as usual and a few evening stops at ElZafiro and the Hole in the Wall but nothing too exciting.

Okay, so our time at BSV flew by and we moved on for five more nights to the Grand Case Beach Club. When we made our original trip plans we had hoped to spend our last days at our Towers timeshare but sadly, that’s a thing of the past. I would have been content to stay at Beachside for the entire trip but by the time we realized the Towers was out, our unit 14 was already rented and once the realization was made we’d have to move, we settled on GCBC, which was wonderful, It’s a great place to park your butt in the sand and just enjoy the luxury of being there. Much like the people at BSV, they’ve done an amazing job of rebuilding and replanting post-Irma and the staff there are all wonderful. And then, there’s the added benefit of having GC dining at your fingertips.

So our fourteen days overall literally flew by - I can’t remember much more in the line of details but believe me, it was all good. And even the trip home, we had FF tix for JB non-stop into JFK - better than usual, or at least, it left me nothing to complain about.

And after all that said, and over all our many SXM vacations, this trip will always remain in my book of memories as the worse of them all. But only because it was all in my dreams. And now I hope and pray for a happy and safe island return soon come. But not too soon!