Hello All, We are FINALLY on the island! Had to push back our reservations 3 times since May, but we made it.

My wife and I, and our best friends scheduled our Covid tests on September 21st, for tests to take place on Monday, Sept. 28th at Passport Health in Sarasota, Fl.. We had our results by 8 pm on Tuesday, filled out the online form and uploaded our test results to the SXM portal. Within an hour we had our approval for entry into St Martin. Left home on Thursday, drove to Miami and stayed at EB Hotel, where we had booked a park and fly package (https://www.ebhotels.com/miami/packages). Hotel was very nice, I would reccomend it. Hopped on the hotel shuttle at 8 am for a 10:45 flight to St Martin. We were all flying business class, but even the Priority lines at AA were surprisingly long. AA does check both your Covid test results and Approval For Entry form. Our flight was probably 75% - 80% full. The service in first class wasn't what it used to be. A bag of snacks and full selection of booze were available. In flight service was great! We arrived on time in St Martin, passed through immigration more quickly than any of our 17 previous trips, grabbed our bags, and met up with Michael and one of his helpers for a short ride to the Unity Car Rental office. Paperwork was quick and easy, and we left with two SUVs and headed to Care Four in Cole Bay. Picked up groceries and made it to our villa ariund 4 pm. We have stayed in this neighborhood many times, but this is our first time at Albacore (https://dream.villas/rooms/orient-bay-572-572). Beautiful villa with amazing views and awesome pool! We were met by Samantha who filled us in on everything we needed to know about the villa. After unpacking and showering, we headed to Le Piment in Orient Village for a great meal and fabulous service. We guys had the blackened ribeye, the girls both got pizzas. They also have great Rhum Punches with a hint of passion fruit flavor. Perfect end to our travel day!!!

Day 2: Breakfast in the villa, then off to the the south end of Orient to rent chairs and umbrellas from Cedrick. Including the four of us, they had a total of eight customers on the beach. We walked the entire length of Orient and marveled at the amount of destruction still visable from Irma. Had lunch at Le Telegraphe in the village. After a dip in the pool and cleaning up, we were off to dinner. Got some incorrect info from a local about restaurants that were open. We headed over to Sunset Beach Cafe in Grand Case only to find out that they are only open for breakfast and lunch. Had noticed that Spiga was closed when we drove bye, so we headed to Bistrot Caraibes. They were also closed. Headed over Sol de Luna. Closed too. Oh well, back to the village. Le Piment couldn't seat us as they were packed. Went next door to La Trattoria. Food was good, but the service was lacking due to them being overwhelmed by the size of the crowd. The places that are open are prospering!

More to come soon!