Trip Report 02/24 – 03/10<br><br>TRAVEL – Going down Orlando-Miami-SXM was with no problems except for the squeeze on the wallet from AA. If you folks from the northeast think you have it bad, try $889 for a ticket price per person from the southeast. Coming back was a different story. The flight was delayed 40 minutes leaving SXM, which doesn’t sound so bad except for the impact it has on clearing immigration and customs in Miami. Even with the long lines at immigration I still had to wait for the bags at customs. I had a planned two hour time for connections but with the delays and re-screening in the Miami airport I got to the gate as my connecting flight was boarding. I made the flight but my bags did not and had to wait for them for an hour and a half in Orlando. LESSON: Make sure you have a long time at connecting flights (I’ve had similar experiences in San Juan). Even if you only have carry on bags this savings is off set by the extra time in security checks and re-checks and re-checks. Leaving SXM I was able to do the regular thing of checking in bags early, all were hand searched and paying the $20 departure tax then coming back later to do immigration and body scan/carry on search to wait at the gate. Be sure to allow plenty of time for all this.<br><br>CAR RENTAL – Used Alain Arnell of AAA again this trip. Same great service and no problems. I’ve used him for the last few years on every trip and I recommend him highly. Email: triplea@outremer.com<br><br>ROOM – Used cheapcarribean.com for the first time. Was very pleased and can’t beat the price of $449 per week. I stayed at the Sapphire Beach Resort. As I also own there I knew what to expect and all went well. I meet one of the Wyndam hotel staff that has arrived to begin training of the staff to upgrade them to their standards. I let them know that such training would be a very good thing.<br><br>WEATHER – As I am an off-island member of the St.Maarten Yacht Club I had come down for the Heineken Regatta. The winds were very calm until Thursday 2-28 when they picked up nicely. Good for racing but not so good for Orient Beach and the Atlantic coast. It remained fairly windy the rest of my stay and I never did get to Orient to swim. Just as well as I prefer a quieter beach. My favorite is Plum Beach, not many people and the homeowners’ security patrols come by regularly so the car is reasonable safe. (Do not leave anything anytime ever in a car.) Some people on this board have stated the “island looks greener than ever”, I can say it is green but very dry and going brown. There were a number of brush fires due to the dry conditions in the hills on the French side. I will also say that the island is much cleaner than in the recent past. The government towed the old wrecked cars to the dump and roadside trash is getting scarce (Thanks St. Maarten Pride).<br><br>EATING/DINNING – With most of my time used up by the regatta I only had time for quick eats the first week. Turtle Pier, Rick’s, Bananas, Baywatch, and the Yacht Club were all as good as usual. Peg Leg’s Pub was a first time and the sandwiches and steak were very good. I did get to the Marina Port La Royale and had a very good lunch at La main a la Pate but a not so good one at the restaurant next to them (on the right, can’t remember the name). By the way, if you are ever in the mood for a late night snack (big snack) try the “Gerio(sp) Wagon” truck in the parking lot of the Marina. He doesn’t get there till after 7pm and food is not ready till about 8pm (French meal time??) but the sandwiches are full of beef or chicken or both and cost approx. $5. This has become a favorite fun food of mine. I could not leave St. Maarten without dinning in Grand Case. I have eaten at La Alabama so often I’ve had most of the items on the menu I would try so if there is nothing on the special board of interest, I may have to pass them up next trip, BUT don’t you, it’s a great place. Always a new place to try, this trip it was Le Cottage. Excellent. Great meal, good service a definite repeat.<br><br> A NOTE ON CURRANCY: I paid the restaurant bills with my credit card and always had them bill in Euros, when I got home the card was charged at a rate of about 0.90 which I thought was fair. NOTE: If you use your credit card to pay the bill in Euros it seams the new bank card processing systems being used by most of the restaurants can not reenter the system to allow for the tip to be added on after the bill is totaled (a technical thing – not a scam for tips I believe). This means you will need to leave the tip in cash, so remember to bring some cash with you to dinner. I found the meals to be much less expensive this trip, almost a third less then last year. Don’t know why but I liked it. Most of the restaurants seemed to be converting at about 0.90 but some of the shopkeepers on the French side either don’t know how to convert to the new Euros or are really trying to gouge people. A woman told me about a purse she wanted to buy in Marigot at 140 Euros and when asked what the price was in US she was told $170, they tried to question her math but she insisted that was the price.<br><br>REGATTA – It was a spectacular site to see 243 beautiful boats racing around the island. I chased the boats around the island on Friday to get some great videos then went out on my friend’s 40’ catamaran “Celine” (www.sailstmaarten.com) on Saturday to watch the racers from Long Bay and have a BBQ. The parties every night were fun and a real hoot. The monohull “Pyewacket” owned by Roy Disney and named, I believe, after the magical cat in the book Bell Book & Candle won the big boat class and also the fastest boat around the island. If you want to be impressed by the not so rich, the rich and the really really rich you should come down for this event and see the mega yachts in lagoon marinas. The really BIG ones can’t even get into the lagoon because of the width of the bridges. The only other time I have seen more yachts and private jets on the island is at Christmas & New Years.<br><br><br>All in all it was a good trip, like any trip to St. Maarten could be a bad one. I hope you found some useful information in this report. I have been a constant reader and promoter of this board for a long long time, but I don’t always post as much as I should. I’ll work on that.<br><br>Any day on the island is one less day you get in heaven!<br>GaryB<br><br>