Well, I promised to attempt a trip report on our recent 3-week stay, even though I believe it will be pretty boring to most. This trip was for pure rest and relaxation and we definitely allowed sand gravity to do its thing.

We left the USA on Saturday, May 28. Drove the 3 hours from Knoxville, TN, to Atlanta because we prefer direct flights and don’t want to mess with changing planes and possible luggage problems. Spent Friday night in ATL and flew out the next morning via Delta Airlines. We always pay for comfort seating as Ed hates to be cramped. Flight was smooth and on-time, no problems whatsoever. This is our 10th year of going to SXM at least once (sometimes twice) per year. We still experience that little thrill when we see the beach bar below us and touch down on that runway. As we both came into this trip a bit more stressed and tired than usual, we let out an extra large sigh as we touched down. Let the gravity begin!

We rented our car from Triple AAA (Alain) for the 3rd time in a row, so found his man who drove us the 5-minute trip from the airport, did the quick paperwork, and we were on our way. Car was fine, though a bit beat up, which is the way we prefer them. The one year we got a new(ish) car (from a different vendor), I worried about scratching it the whole trip. We checked in at LaVista Beach Resort around 3 pm, stopping at Queen Sharon’s store to pick up our rental phone, as always. We really enjoy staying at LVB – staff are friendly and helpful; unit basic, but always clean. We have been lucky enough to rent from the same timeshare owner for 3 straight years now; it’s a 2-bedroom unit because we have friends join us each year for the 2nd week. I do wish they’d put in brighter bulbs, as the lighting is a bit dim. We used Jeannie’s service from Shop N’ Drop again this trip, so all our provisions were waiting in the unit for us, right down to the citronella candle for the outdoor balcony table – which we never used because there were thankfully no mosquitoes! We left the candle for the next person when we left.

We ate our traditional ‘first night on the island’ dinner at Pineapple Pete’s. Nothing overly special, but the staff is attentive, food comes out quickly, tastes good enough, and the atmosphere is relaxed. Just what we needed to begin our unwind. Then back to the unit where we turned in early. As I said, we were pretty tired coming into this trip, so we actually took a down day on Sunday too. Ate breakfast at the SXM Yacht Club, always a nice way to start our day. Monique has become a friend and we always enjoy both her service and her smiling face. Can’t complain about the food either. They still make, in our opinion, the best grouper fingers on the island. We then took a ride around the island to get reacquainted and see what was new and what had closed. Then spent the afternoon by the pool, reading and relaxing.

The first beach we hit during this trip was on Monday. We went to Anse Marcel, which we’ve come to enjoy over the past 3 visits. However, this particular day wasn’t the best. It started out with us looking for the beach guy to get our chairs. After waiting about 8 minutes, with no sign of him, we picked out 2 empty chairs, among the fairly empty beach, and started to put our stuff down. Two minutes later, the beach guy comes along and chided us a bit for not waiting for him to seat us. Rather than explaining to him that we did indeed wait, we simply said “okay” and got settled. We asked for an additional (paid) umbrella, which seemed to irk him a bit, though he did fetch it for us. We are used to the larger umbrellas at Club O, and these are much smaller. I burn like the pale Irish lass I am, and have Lupus, so I need to be most careful on the beach. Not his problem, of course, but he could have been at least a little friendly. He was not. French beach guy took our initial drink order, but after that, pretty much ignored us the rest of the day. As the beach filled up a bit more, he proceeded to pay a great deal of attention to the French-speaking customers in the chairs, but never came back to us. We don’t consider ourselves demanding guests in the least, but I guess we pissed him off by seating ourselves. Oh well. It was also hot on the beach that day, with little to no breeze, though the water was delightful. What we have always found excellent on Anse Marcel is the food and this visit didn’t fail us in that regard. Lunch was wonderful and service in the restaurant was efficient. I had my usual red snapper and Ed had a steak salad. We were so full, we skipped our usual dessert, but I can’t say enough about the food. We haven’t had a bad meal there yet.

The rest of our first week is a bit of a blur. We went to the Club O section of Orient Beach on Tuesday. Gotta love those BIG yellow umbrellas and the calm surf. There was no seaweed to be seen, though the beach was tiny with only 2 rows of chairs in the middle part, and one row everywhere else. We had lunch at Papagayo; I had the shrimp wrap; Ed had chicken Caesar salad. It was all very good and the service was friendly and efficient. We have really enjoyed Papagayo’s food over the past couple of years. And I still say they make the best Pina Colada on the island.

We spent the rest of our first week on Orient, down by Aloha, our very favorite beach bar on the island. We just cannot say enough good things about Nathalie, her wonderful, friendly, and fun staff, and the food. Oh, the food! So delcious, lovely presentation, and complimentary rum shots to finish up. I know Nathalie and the others had a rough few months waiting for things to get settled with the construction. We are SO happy she’s back!

We did spend one day that week down by Bikini, but didn’t like it nearly as much. Food was okay, but nothing special, and the staff not nearly as much fun. There was a small amount of seaweed in the water on this end, but nothing on the beach. We did enjoy watching the wind surfing and the parasailing. Only 1-2 cruise ships in on any given day.

Our good friends joined us for our 2nd (and what was ‘supposed’ to be our last) week, and we had a wonderful time together, as always. I can’t remember day-to-day details; as I said we just let sand gravity take over and it’s all a bit of a blur. I can tell you what restaurants we ate at, what beaches we visited, and our overall impression of the island this year. Please note we enjoy good food, but we are not what some would consider ‘”foodies”. We ate at some of these places more than once.


Restaurants:

Pineapple Pete’s - always comfortable, always relaxed, always our first dinner on island, just because it’s become our tradition.

St. Maarten Yacht Club - great place to relax and watch the boats come and go, nice staff who are among our favorites, and they had a large TV screen set up for the football (soccer) games. We like this place for breakfast, lunch, or dinner – or perhaps all 3 meals in one day! Just a fun place.

Chesterfields - lovely seating on the water; reliable staff, good food, they know how to cook fish; safe, well-lit parking lot with ticketed entry. We enjoy watching the cruise ships leave in the evening.

The Hideaway - since we were staying there, it just made sense, so we ate there twice for dinner and twice for breakfast over the 3 weeks we were on island. Food was very good; I fell in love with their Coconut Curry soup – just thinking about it makes my mouth water! Staff John (Jean) and Neville took good care of us. They have nighttime entertainment during dinner. We hadn’t gone there in a number of years; I don’t know why, it just fell off our radar, but we will definitely go back next time. Truly worth a visit even if you’re not staying in the vicinity.

Little Jerusalem – we had always heard good things about this simple little place that serves middle-eastern food, so decided to try it. It’s next to the Palms. Don’t blink or you’ll go by it. Enjoyed it so much, we went back another night. Fantastic shawarmas and falafels! The owner is very nice and makes up just about anything you want – or leave it to him, and he’ll make you “something special”. Delicious food at inexpensive prices. Ask for the ‘sampler’ if you’re hungry. We went to Abu Ghazi another night, just to compare, but it didn’t stack up, in our opinion – didn’t have those melding of delicious flavors that jumped around on my tongue like they did at Little J.

Dreams – We spent one day on the beach at Dreams. I know most everyone loves this place, but I have to tell you, this was our 3rd visit here in as many trips and we’ve yet to be impressed. The other two visits in the past, the food was ‘so so’ or ‘just okay’. But this time, our lunch was without a doubt, THE worst meal we had on island. I ordered the Caribbean Salad, which on the menu stated was shrimp. crab meat, mango, avocado, citrus and passion fruit dressing. Well, there was absolutely NO mango to be found – trust me, I searched, it’s why I ordered it; the crab meat was very salty, the shrimp were extremely overcooked (very dry and tasted like they had been sitting there all day). Ed ordered the Salade Nicoise and it too was awful. The tuna tasted terrible. We may not be foodies, but we know when food doesn’t taste good and neither of our meals came close. We are not complainers, so we just ate our lunches and returned to the beach. The girl that took our drink orders on the beach was very nice, but the service in the restaurant left a lot to be desired. No one ever came back to check on us after our order arrived. I didn’t see Bruno, so I don’t know if he was around or not. For what we paid (16 Euros for a BBC? Really?), at least one of us should have enjoyed our meal. We gave it 3 tries over 2 years, but we won’t go back. Anse Marcel, by comparison, is much better, in our opinion.

Skip Jack’s – We really enjoyed our meals here. Service was friendly and efficient; meals came out quickly and prepared wonderfully. Ed had the grouper and I had red snapper. Both were delicious. Restaurant was busy for low season.

IZI – one of our favorite places to eat. Always good food and service – I love their Penne a la Vodka. They have gluten-free pasta (which is what I had) and they know how to cook it right. Though I can’t remember what all of us ate (one had Chicken Parmesan), all 4 of us enjoyed our meals here. A trip favorite. Also busy for low season.

Besides the Yacht Club and the Hideaway, as previously stated, we ate several breakfasts at Zee Best, which is always decent.

Lunches on Orient were at Papagayo, the Perch, Bikini, Orange Fever, and many at Aloha – with Aloha being our runaway favorite for food, service, fun, and an amazing staff who make sure everyone has a good time. I think if we had to pick one place to ‘hang’ at, it would be Aloha. No, we don’t get paid by the staff….lol….we just have some of our best beach memories from there. Nathalie is an amazing person.

Carousel: Okay, not strictly a restaurant, but still. Our favorite dessert place. If you like gelato, in all kinds of flavors, this is not to be missed!

We did manage to catch up with our friends, Elaine and Bill, again on this trip, which was very nice. We also made some new friends on this trip, though I’m not sure they’re on this board (gasp!). Norm and Jeanine from CT; Glenn and Denise from Albany, NY; and John and Virginia from my ol’ stomping grounds on Long Island. It was nice to be able to talk about old haunts with someone who knows.

So, the most amazing thing on this trip occurred 2 days before we were scheduled to leave, when sitting on Orient Beach, Ed said to me, “how do you feel about staying an extra week?” A 3rd week? Now? Sure, honey, twist my arm a little harder. Ha! Scheduled flights were quickly changed (yes, there was a change fee, but luckily no higher difference in fare), LaVista had a 1-bedroom deluxe unit up on the hill we could rent, we arranged for our pet-sitters at home to watch our fur kids for just a little longer, and there we were……sadly dropping our friends at the airport (they couldn’t stay) and happily lapping up another week of sand and surf, good friends, fun times, and great memories. It never gets old.

I will end with a few personal observations, though your mileage may vary:

Even though I wanted to hate the changes on Orient Beach, they’re okay. Not quite the previous charm, but each tenant has done a nice job of making it their own. Is it the same ambience? No. But things change, and we must change with them or find someplace else that fills the bill. I know it’s low season, but when we were there, it was extremely quiet on Orient. Most of the beach bar/restaurants were pretty empty. I feel bad for the business owners whose rents are now higher and who have already lost too much time and money. We tried to give them as much of our business as we could. I hope they survive. They are good people.

Orient beach has shrunk. There was very little beach, chairs are crowded onto the sand, even at Club O. But there was little to no seaweed, and, hey, it’s the beach. Weather was beautiful the entire 3 weeks; some overhead clouds the first week, sun the next two. Literal minutes of rain on one day. A nice breeze, which kept the bugs away. Who could complain? We didn’t get a single mosquito bite, though we were vigilant with the spray each and every day. We didn’t see many. A few in the evening in the ‘bushier’ restaurant areas; none by LaVista. Nothing to write home about.

Crime: While we’ve always been vigilant when traveling, in10 years of going to SXM, this is the first trip I constantly watched over my shoulder. There were 3 instances of crime, or attempted crime, while we were on the island (that we knew about). One was Walt on the board here, which you already know about. Another was an attempted robbery on Welfare Road – which I know little about. And the 3rd was a couple who were staying at SBM, who were approached by who we now believe might have been the same two thugs who assaulted Walt. Same description, same MO. None of these were committed very late at night and all were in somewhat busy areas. These thugs are getting more brazen and very little seems to be getting done about it. While we noticed an increase in police presence on the French side, especially in and around Orient, we never saw any police presence on the Dutch side the entire 3 weeks we were there. There seem to be a lot of young men hanging around watching and waiting in parking lots. Not an exaggeration, just an observance. We were uncomfortable being out past 8 pm. I can’t explain it - it was just something we felt. Yes, there is crime everywhere. But often, mostly perhaps, things are done about that crime. You can call the police and expect a fast response, a proper police report, and usually a caring government because they value their tourist trade. We don’t see that on SXM. It’s getting scary. We love the island; it’s been like a second home to us, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen next year. We are considering going elsewhere. We’ll see. There’s a difference between being vigilant and being scared. I can’t say I was absolutely scared, but it’s getting close.

The young people on the motor scooters are crazy! An accident just waiting to happen. We saw so many ride in and out among cars, even around curves going over the hill. It’s nuts. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />

So now we are back home. The trip back on Delta was uneventful and on-time. The flight attendants were delightful. We did the ‘Park-Sleep-Fly’ program with the Westin ATL Airport, but won’t do it again. They screwed up our bill, charged us the wrong rate for both the room and the parking, even though I showed them our printout when we first checked in there. When we got to SXM, I checked our credit card and they had not only charged us more for the room than we had contracted for, but they charged us for parking TWICE. It took 3 of them to figure it out when we got back into town, and even then they said they couldn’t credit it from the hotel, we would have to wait until the following Monday when the accounting office downtown opened. They finally did adjust it and credited our account this week, but we won’t do ‘P-S-F’ any more. We’ll just sleep and park our own car at a parking place, not a hotel. We’ve done it in the past, but the Westin messed it up royally. We can forgive an honest mistake, but read on Trip Advisor that this has happened with others.

All in all, it was a great trip, one that turned out to be a week longer than I expected. Getting back to reality is always hard, but the memories carry us through ‘til our next big adventure, wherever it might be. As far as SXM goes, we have decided that we like going in May/June best. Less traffic, less cost, less congestion on the beaches; few cruisers; lovely weather, at least for the past number of years we have gone in June. I know that some like to get away from the cold weather, and I certainly understand that, having done it ourselves in the past. But I also like to get away from the sticky hot TN summer weather. We had 85-86’ in SXM every day, with a lovely ocean breeze; and came home to 93-94’, hot, muggy, soup. There’s something to be said for both opinions.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope it wasn’t too boring. Sometimes sand gravity is all one needs! We came back feeling refreshed and ready to face the world again. That will last about a month, then my fingers will start itching to begin another countdown. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Groovin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Groovin.gif" alt="" />

Robin & Ed

Thanks for your report. That had to be a thrill to get another week in on short notice like that.

Nice, detailed report. Welcome back to warm East TN!

East, West, Middle it is hot everywhere in TN. Great report thanks

Find it amazing that 3 dines at Dreams and none was good. It took us only one bad meal at Izi's to not return.

Thanks for the report! What a special thing, to be able to 'snatch' an extra week like that!! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" /> We felt really lucky this trip to be able to get an extra day! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Hi, Robin,

What a lovely report and thanking you for sharing your trip, your experiences and your observations. I think Ed needs to have a little chat with my DH about relaxing and how to do a lengthy vacation because once we get to the tenth day, he starts getting antsy and by two weeks he's more than ready to leave. Three weeks would be like a dream come true ........but we haven't gotten there yet.

Too bad about your beach day at Anse Marcel but at least lunch was perfection and we've had similar days to what you described at Dreams, as well. The trick there, I think, is to go with a group or an island 'super star' (which we've done, too - TY Sharon Harris) and they will bend over backwards to be accommodating, and it definitely helps to go on a day when Bruno is there, or at least, this has been our personal experience, even at dinner.

It's sad you had the uncomfortable feeling this trip that seems to be happening to visitors more often of late. I don't know if there's any connection but I've read crime definitely seems to pick up in the low season when times are leaner, kids are footloose with little to do and there is more opportunity for 'things' to happen. It's too bad and in honesty, we've had a few occasions when we felt a little edgy, too. Not enough to give up our favorite vacation spot yet, but enough tenseness on our part to understand where you're coming from. On vacation, or anywhere for that matter, we need to be aware but that shouldn't translate into being alarmed and sadly, I'm reading that in too many posts of late.

And again, thank you for sharing your beautiful trip with us.

Ah, the gift of elocution! Well done.
Bob

<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> A true pleasure to read! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" />

Enjoyed your report and observations. Never too long when talking about SXM. Thanks for taking time to post.

I love reading these trip reports as I plan my first trip to SXM; they are so helpful and exciting.

A great report-- <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/thanks.gif" alt="" />

Not boring at all. I always enjoy an interesting, well-written report - especially mentioning some of our favorite haunts. And to get a bonus 3rd week makes it even better.

Excellent report; thanks so much for taking the time to write it. Very sorry about your experience at Dreams but glad to hear the food at Anse Marcel is holding up as I really enjoy it there. And how terrific you were able to stay an additional week! Sounds as though it was a great vacation.

Excellent report Robin! It really sounds like you and Ed had a wonderful time and getting to stay the extra week was a nice bonus. Sorry to hear that your experience at Dreams was not good. I know that when Bruno is not there, things are different and we have reported that to the manager in the past.Our food has always been good there, but sometimes service is lacking in Bruno's absence. We have also experienced less than good service at Anse Marcel.Sometimes French speaking people do get better service there which should not be the case. Thanks again for sharing your adventures with us.

Enjoyed your report - no report is ever too long! We enjoy many of the same restaurants as you do. So glad you enjoyed your time on SXM - and to stay an extra week - bonus!!!

We just got back in mid-May after 3 weeks and your trip took us back once again for 3 more weeks. You did many of the same things we did, but we stayed on the French side and did notice police out many times during the day and evening. We usually don't travel to the Dutch side at all anymore after dark. Too many safer places on the French side where we don't have to worry as much. Thanks for the great post.

Great trip report! They are never to long or boring! We agree about Dreams - we've been there twice and the food and service both visits were nothing to write home about. Looking forward to a visit to Anse Marcel, we wanted to do that last winter but didn't get it done! Lucky you...3 weeks!

Great report, thanks for sharing. Although this may be considered sacreligious, I agree with you about Dreams. The first three or four times we went, it was great. And I always got the same thing, I think it was the seafood salad, with nice large shrimp. The last time we went, I think it was January 2015, we took a first time SXM couple - they ordered the same thing at my suggestion. Wow! The shrimp was not cleaned, the total vein with sand and whatever else was still intact. I showed this to the waiter (I think David?) and he brought us more shrimp - of the dozen he brought, 2 had been cleaned. They offered no adjustment on the check. Bruno was not there, and when I saw him six months later I figured it was too late to make a complaint. So we haven't been back. Maybe again next trip (but I still don't like the sand on their beach).
And I do think Bruno has done a great service to Orient Village with Le Petit Casino.