Has Happy Bay changed since festival. More people going there? Or retuned to normal. Thanks

In the St. Martin/St. Maarten Soualiga Post, back on January 24th, 2017, the organizers stated the following prior to the festival: "Moreover, we are trying to clean up, create a parking lot, cut poisonous trees, pick up litter, secure the ruined buildings, and even refurbish the little beach bar. In short, we will leave Happy Bay brand new!"

Hope they left that place as unspoiled as it was before they arrived.

Do you still have to walk over the hill from Friers bay? Or is there another way to get there? Thought I saw some posts that suggested that there was construction on the old buildings and the road openning?

We were there when they were preparing for the festival. Danny's was getting a facelift (paint) and they were cleaning out brush. I would be interested as well to what the current state of affairs are...

We were there when all that was going on...I too would be interested in how it presently looks. Not sure if I look forward to "brand new" and a parking lot. It will lose its secluded feel if it's not, umm, secluded.

Check out comments by hortack in this thread, which is mostly about snorkeling. But he did say that it looked very little changed, as of the end of March.

We were there in early Apri on a weekday. LOTS more people. LOTS. Several groups, especially local teens. And almost all were textile! The few nudies on either far end had bushwackers (4) to deal with and they bothered the textiles a bunch too.
The first change we noticed was the road up the hill from the Grand Case gate had been cleared on the right side for about 5-700 cars. There's a clearing behind the beach that had been enlarged and a 25-30 foot Mayan statue head put up. A trailer Porto john structure was there but obviously waiting to be removed - not operating but nice to know they had one there for the music festival.
No other noteworthy changes. Beach was cleaner than I expected. No changes to "Danny's". Sand was good.
Overall, those who enjoyed the beach over the years might be disappointed by the "crowds" and bushwackers but as far as the festival itself, they cleaned up well.
Lots of festival and recent pics have been posted on another site, especially of the Mayan god figure.

As I feared....