7 DAYS OF PARADISE!

Saved several hundred dollars by taking the LONG way from Oklahoma City to SXM. Left OKC at 6:00pm on Friday to Chicago. 2 hour lay-over in Chicago then on to Washington DC. Up early on Saturday with a 3.5 hour flight to SXM. Landed on time, bus to the terminal then the line for immigration. This was looking like it might be a long wait but another line was opened and we were done in no time. Unity picked us up at the airport and we had our car and were on our way in no time.

On our previous visit we had stayed at Les Balcons which we really enjoyed. That being said we drove every day to Orient Beach so this year we found Caraibes Beach Hotel on Orient. We were on the top floor in building three. The path from our door led to Orient right at La Playa. Total walking time was not even a minute! Our room had a view of the beach directly over the top of Waikiki. Daily maid service was nice and each day we exchanged our beach towels at the office. Only complaint was the fridge was not very cold and not very big. We usually freeze bottles of water and use that as "ice" for the ice chest. Lucky for us Caraibes has an ice machine so we were set.

Don't know if anyone noticed my earlier post about my trying not to be "obsessive" regarding unpacking and getting settled. Well you would be proud of me, within 15 minutes of check-in we were on the beach looking for our first beer, it didn't take long! We walked toward Coco Beach (left as you look out from La Playa) then turned around and walked to Club O stopping occasionally to pick up another beer. Paid $15 for a bucket of 6 beers which isn't the best deal but it didn't matter. We found a table in the shade and enjoyed our first couple of hours.

We shopped at US Market on the road to Grand Case. Picked up the necessities; beer, water, rum, juices, a dozen eggs, a couple of baguettes and 2-3 different cheeses. The baguette and the cheese would become our dinner for one evening. We ate at Tap 5 for pizza a couple of times. Spent 2 evenings at Dinghy Dock, one of them being a little fuzzy for each of us. My excuse is that I generally drink beer but was a little bored with that so ended up letting my significant other (G) decide what I should have. I ended up with Malibu Rum and pineapple juice. VERY TASTY but I found that you really shouldn't drink hard liquor as quickly as beer!! We ordered a burger and some coconut shrimp to eat at the bar. Burger was great as was the shrimp. Had a great time and will always make sure on future visits that we make a stop at The Dinghy Dock.

Took the ScoobiToo to Prickly Pear for our one excursion off the island. We went with them to Anguilla on our last trip and really enjoyed the boat and crew. We weren't disappointed this trip. Prickly Pear is absolutely GORGEOUS! The water and the beach are just unbelievable. Some snorkeling and then lunch at the restaurant there. Plenty of rum punch on the sail back. We had a great day and would highly recommend the ScoobiToo to anyone.

We spent a couple of mornings at Grand Case looking for sea glass which we found plenty of. We ate at Talk of the Town, as delicious this time as it was on our last visit. Stopped at the little grocery store there and then walked down the street reading all of the menus. One of these visits we're going to eat at one of the restaurants!! Spent a few hours at the Westin. Had a beer ($5) outside by the pool and then played for a good while in the casino. Beer in the casino, $0, ME LIKEY! I had a little bit of luck in the casino but no luck for G so I shared my winnings and proceeded to lose what I had left while G managed to win a little bit back. Leave it to her, we left with money in our pockets! Had a good time and we both thought the Westin although very pretty, a little too "resorty" for us.

Plenty of highlights on our trip but one constant was the fact that no matter how late we were up the night before we ALWAYS woke up between 6:00 and 6:30 every morning. This led us to our morning ritual of walking down to the beach and turning to our left, toward CoCo Beach, and walking that direction and then turning around and walking back to Club O. On the trip back every morning except for our Scoobi excursion morning we ended up at Andy & Cheryl's for mimosas. 8:00ish every morning you could find us sitting at a table drinking a couple of mimosa's looking out at all those different shades of blue and green. Had breakfast with Andy one morning and made a couple of trips down, when we could haul ourselves out of our beach chairs, for mussels a'la Andy. I just can't say enough about Andy and the wonderful mornings we spent there.

The water at Orient seemed a little rougher than I remember from our last visit. In fact I bought it on one of my trips out to cool off. Luckily G had made the walk out into the water with me. We were standing in about waist deep water when, what G says was "way" over our heads, a wave knocked me down!! You know I love the beach but I'm not really that confident in the water. So of course I get hit by another wave while I'm trying to recover from the first hit. All this time I'm sputtering and spitting all I can hear is G asking me if I had my glasses on when I walked into the water. FORGET THE GLASSES - HELP ME UP!! Finally on my feet again I answer the glasses question, "Yes." I'm blind as a bat without them and now I'm looking for them! Low and behold about 10 feet away I see something - MY GLASSES! I always bring an extra pair when we travel but if I have to lose my glasses, there is no where I would rather lose them than on SXM.