I was wondering if this has happened to any of the posters on this forum. Last night my wife went to dinner with a friend that about a month ago been on a cruise to St. Martin with her entire family, totaling close to 21 people, about 8 of them children of various ages. They were able to get two van cabs at the cruise dock where they requested to go to a beach with very calm waters because of the different swimming skills of the children. The drivers took them to Dawn Beach that was having one of it's wild & crashing surf type of days and when they again told the drivers they obviously couldn't stay there both just looked at them and began rubbing their fingers together in the universally known motion of " more money ". After some bickering back and forth they resigned themselves to the obvious and begrudgingly agreed to pay an extra sum to be driven to a calmer beach. Their thinking was at the time that if they sent the vans away without paying this Island form of highway robbery that they would be stranded so to speak and be unable to secure two other vans large enough to transport every one. I have no idea where they finally were able to settle in for a few hours but by all accounts it was a beautiful beach that suited their needs and they were able to arrange 3 cabs to get them back to the cruise terminal well in time. Has any one heard of this happening and if so is this a new way for rogue/gypsy drivers to extort $$ from people they know will be off island before the sun sets. in all the times we have been to SXM either on a cruise or weeks long stays at the Esmeralda we have never encountered this attitude, granted we usually rent a car but still it makes me wonder, what is going on here lately, <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />