Trip Report: March 4th to March 11th --- Best SXM trip yet!
Our family of five (parents, 24 yo daughter, 17 yo son and 18 yo girlfriend) have just returned from our best St. Martin trip yet! We visited the island from Sunday, March 4th to Sunday, March 11th.
This is our eighth one-week vacation at St. Martin since 2001, usually during our school’s Spring break. We have always rented a villa in either the Beacon Hill or Pelican Key areas. Our family tends to favor the French beaches during the day - our favorites are Pinel Island, Orient and Baie Rouge. On the other hand, the kids also love the night life/activities on the Dutch side, particularly in the Simpson Bay and Maho area. It is also important to share that our family never spends any time in Philipsburg, we are just not excited about any of its offerings and, as a result, have not visited in a few years.
Air Travel
We had plenty of concerns about our Continental/United #207 flight from Newark on Sunday, March 4th, based on previous issues posted here at TTOL. Worse yet, our flights coincided with the airlines’ merger weekend! Adding to our travel complications, our daughter was flying a United red-eye from LAX to join us at Newark that very morning. Bottom line is that everything went without a hitch – her red eye was early, Terminal A was seamlessly smooth and we arrived at SXM on-time and quickly funneled thru the airport.
We used long-term parking at Newark for the week and had timely bus connections to/from Terminal A.
Car Rental
We shopped around for the best deal on a Ford Explorer for our week and eventually booked a reservation with Michael at Unity. We are fans of Unity – used on past trips – but were very disappointed when we arrived at his lot this time!!! Our Ford Explorer was not there and would not be available until Wednesday or Thursday! We had little choice but to accept the only van on the lot and Unity’s suggestion that we return later in the week to see if our Ford Explorer was returned yet. We did return to the lot at one point after a beach day but Unity was closed, so we simply kept the van all week. If we knew in advance that Michael/Unity would not have our Explorer as promised, we would have rented from someone else…
La Calanthe Villa
La Calanthe Villa, located on Billy Folly Road, was certainly one of the highlights of our trip this year!!! This wonderful villa sits directly on the water and has incredible outdoor entertainment areas --- views, pool, gardens and direct access to the sea. The villa’s indoor accommodations were also terrific and our hosts/caretakers are wonderful folks! La Calanthe is the best villa we have experienced on St. Martin and will certainly book again on our future trips.
St. Martin fans all have their own special moments each visit and our family just cannot get enough of the island’s sunsets. Our ritual is to return from the beach, shower and then enjoy each evening’s setting sun from our villa, usually with a pinot grigio and appetizers in-hand. This vacation was no different and the daily sunsets from La Calanthe were just spectacular --- life just doesn’t get any better than these moments!
For many years we used rental agencies (both USA-based and island-based) to book our villa rentals. However, we had terrific success using VRBO.com on our last SXM trip when we booked a great waterfront villa in Beacon Hill. We used VRBO.com again for this trip to identify and reserve La Calanthe villa, again without a hitch. We are now big fans of VRBO.com and fears of possible booking issues are alleviated for us with our credit card protections.
Sunday, March 4th
After arriving and picking-up our van at Unity, we checked into La Calanthe villa before heading off to Sunset Beach Bar for lunch. Since this was the final day of the Heineken Regatta, traffic was a mess in the Simpson Bay area particularly with extra bridge openings. We returned to our villa to relax, then off to the Regatta’s music and awards festivities at Kim Sha Beach. Some of us enjoyed dinner at Buccaneer Beach Bar this evening while others choose mussels at Bon Appetit - both great choices enroute to the Heineken party!!! Way too much fun on our first night at SXM!!!
Monday, March 5th
Started our day with great pastries from Zee Best at Plaza del Lago/Simpson Bay – in fact, pastries from Zee Best were a part of our early morning ritual for the rest of the week! We are huge fans of Zee Best, particularly given their proximity to our villa.
We spent the day at Orient Beach, front row lounging and lunch at Kon Tiki. Very windy day and this proved to be the case for most of the week. We intended to have dinner at Pizza Pasta but, without a reservation, this was not possible. Instead we had a great sushi dinner at Bamboo Bernies – our first visit there and we will certainly return.
Tuesday, March 6th
Today we beached at Baie Rouge, renting chairs and having a great lunch at Chez Raymond. We intentionally returned to the villa early so we could get an early start to Grand Case’s Harmony Nights. Reservations at La California placed our table beachside and the mussels there were terrific. Harmony Nights was, as always, wonderful --- great crowd, fun parade, neat and unique vendors and plenty of security!
Wednesday, March 7th
Visited Marigot’s market and enjoyed our pastries and coffee at La Sucriere. Off to our family’s favorite beach, Pinel Island, where we spent the day at Karibuni. Great lunch where we all shared plates of very tasty tapas. While the snorkeling a Pinel Island was just ok, perhaps because the windy weather was stirring-up the sea bed, we continue to be very impressed by the efforts to restore that reef area. We returned to Simpson Bay that evening exhausted from a great Pinel day but with enough energy to have a fun dinner at Pineapple Petes. By the way, the music there that evening was terrific and all of the kids really loved their meals!
Thursday, March 8th
We decided it was time to enjoy La Calanthe, so we spent all morning and early afternoon lounging and swimming at our villa. Based on the reviews posted here, we then traveled over to Karakter for lunch on Simpson Bay beach. Wow, great food and beach setting, in fact, we immediately booked a reservation for their Jazz evening on Friday night! We later traveled to Marigot to experience their “Marigot Thursday” festivities at the marina. Great dinner at La Main A La Pate and the music entertainment there was very enjoyable!
Friday, March 9th
Another wonderful trip to Pinel Island! Of course, we had to make our Marigot stop at La Sucriere for pastries first, then on to the ferry. Another great day at Karibuni – the water was much calmer today, snorkeling improved, tapas in one of the huts – too much fun! It was a bit crowded today with many folks arriving much later when all the chairs appeared to be sold-out…
We circled-back to Karakter tonight for their Jazz and special tapas dinner – what a great setting, food, music and service!!!
Saturday, March 10th
Well we let the kids make the call on today’s final beach trip (Orient or Baie Rouge?) and, to our surprise, we were off to Baie Rouge! We returned to Chez Raymond for another wonder beach day and lunch. The body surfing at Baie Rouge was incredible, perhaps bordering on dangerous for young kids. After enjoying our final sunset at La Calanthe, we were off to Pizza Pasta (had reservations this time!) for a great homemade pasta dinner and pizza. As usually, we casually strolled around Maho before heading home.
Sunday, March 11th
Packed and last minute swims at La Calanthe before our final farewells to our wonderful hosts at our villa. We stopped at Zee Best on Airport road for our flight’s sandwiches. Our return trip on United #299 to Newark was flawless as was our drive to Connecticut.
Other Observations
Exchange rates are all over the map on the French-side. We found that many restaurants were offering a 1-to-1 rate (Grand Case, Pinel, even Orient) but this was not the case at Marigot marina. Not to stir the pot here, but it is not obvious to me that some French-side restaurants warrant the exchange premium when other incredible French-side restaurants offer comparable fine dining at the 1-to-1 rate. My instinct is that 1-to-1 is certainly a big draw – saw it first-hand on Harmony Nights in Grand Case. On the other hand, Marigot Nights’ restaurants appeared to be struggling to draw patrons.
Traffic was a mess during the rush hour periods, particularly in the first few days following the Heineken Regatta. This may have been the worse we have ever experienced.
The kids had a blast after-hours, spending their late evenings at Beach parties and clubs in the Simpson Bay area. Taxi fares from Maho to Pelican seemed excessive ($25/trip) but after an evening of dancing/partying, probably the safest way to get them back to our villa.
Security/safety issues apparently continue to be an on-going concern on the island based on stories that we had heard. Visitors just need to be cognizant of their surroundings.
Regrets?
We usually take a day sailing trip to Prickly Pear on the Bluebeard but did not do so on this trip – we will certainly do so next year though.
This was also on first visit during the Heineken Regatta, albeit only for the very final evening of music and awards festivities. We can imagine a future trip that is scheduled so that we can enjoy all of the Heineken events, particularly the regatta racing itself.
Wrap-Up
This was our best trip yet to St. Martin! La Calanthe is certainly a wonderful villa, the island’s beaches and restaurants were, as always, the best and everyone we met was genuine and helpful. We slipped into “island time” in a hurry this trip and our week’s agenda was just perfect for all of us. As always, we cannot wait to return to St. Martin.
Thanks to all the contributors to this TTOL forum – the information and insights are always so helpful in preparing for our family’s annual visit to St. Martin!
.
