A friend and I just returned from a week's trip to SXM taking JetBlue and I'd be happy to sum up the experience. Why did we choose JetBlue? Because the RT/all-in price per person was $575. You can't beat that. Also, with the few extra inches of legroom (I'm 6'3") even in their normal seats, any more room is better than less - although I should have splurged for the "even more room" just to sleep a little better.

Our trip was LAX-JFK-SXM and back with a 3-hour layover in T5 each way. If you care to know some other details, please read below but overall it was a decent experience.

The LAX-JFK flight was a 4.5 hour red-eye which was expected and JetBlue has those nice sleep amenity kits provided for free (ear plugs & eye mask) and a cool flight staff walking by on occasion to give those small bottles of Dasani water to keep hydrated.

The 3-hour layover started around the 5:30am hour and to our surprise, alot of the restaurants in T5 were open for breakfast even though we weren't that hungry and opted for fruit and coffee. Many shops were open too. The terminal has free WiFi all over and the signal's pretty decent. Also, the multiple charging stations helps tremendously with keeping you occupied on the iPad to pass the time away.

The SXM-JFK flight is another 4 hours with little wifi/satellite reception, but the free movies help pass the time again (I caught The Imitation Game and a little of Birdman before getting some sleep). We landed a bit early and getting through customs/immigration at SXM is at a relatively easy time where there aren't too many lines from other massive flights coming through the gates.

The flights home were pretty much the same except the free movies were exactly the same as they were on the way down even though the movie guide specifically said some movies were northbound and others were southbound.

The JFK T5 International arrival process was really smooth. They have new kiosks for checking in US residents so the passport control process is alot faster. Swipe your passport, get your pic taken and confirm your flight number before you go to a passport agent and then the return passport stamp couldn't come quicker. After you pass customs (same as any other with the random checks) you drop off your bags again and you're back in the main luggage carousel area of T5.

One small complaint is I thought international connections would have their own small TSA line so we didn't have to basically go back into the terminal and start over for the usual long TSA lines with all the other JetBlue passengers. No big deal.

The other is the knowledge of the security staff when it comes to bringing in goods back from an international country. Some said the candy I bought from the Duty Free would be ok going through TSA while others were adamant I put it back into my suitcase before going back into T5. At least I had the new "sealed alcohol bag" so TSA can let you pass it through the machines and they will swab the interior pretty quickly. Maybe if the candy was in there I'd have got less trouble from that luggage agent.

Overall, I liked the JetBlue service/process and I'm glad that T5 got the remodel with all the new restaurants and space. Would I use them again? I'm not sure. I say this only because the flight departure/takeoff times as well as the journey time itself are grueling. I've done flights through CLT, ATL and MIA and I'd honestly choose CLT again since its not as busy and hectic as ATL/MIA with a slightly less travel/layover time altogether.