I was going to structure this report as The Good, The Bad & The Ugly but that would have ended up finishing on a very negative report. Instead, I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first. This was a trip that reinforced our love affair with St Martin and almost destroyed our relationship with our best friends. In the end, the friendship survived but it was a close run thing…



The Travel Part, or Murphy’s Law -- in spades.

This is where all the ugliness happened. We were sharing a villa in Oyster Pond and the plan was to fly United from Buffalo to Orlando on Boxing Day and meet up with the third couple in our party. United bumped us at the last minute and re-booked us with Delta into Daytona Beach. We got there earlier than planned but the drive from Daytona to Orlando filled in the gap. OK. Things happen.

Next came a pre-arranged trip (without my complete agreement – long story) to Disney to spend the rest of the day because the next leg was on Dec 27. Off we went to the Magic Kingdom – six grown-ups with no kids in tow. I hated the place as soon as I walked through the gates and quickly dubbed it The Fascist Kingdom. The biggest waste of time and money I’ve ever been involved in and my mood was far from great. Back to the Hyatt at Orlando airport and things started to really go downhill.

Flight the next day was jetBlue to San Juan, connecting to SXM. With a 35 minute connection time. This was discussed elsewhere and was already a cause of concern for me. Well, we couldn’t check in online. Turned out that the plane leaving from Orlando had mechanical problems and wouldn’t leave on schedule. JetBlue managed to fix it – rebooked with AirTran to San Juan and then Insel Air to SXM. Got to San Juan OK but no sign of Insel Air and no indication of what or where their gate was. Finally found someone who had heard of them and we found their gate 15 minutes before boarding. At that point we got an email from the villa owners. Previous renters had trashed the place the night before and they were having to put us into a larger unit and would send directions ASAP. No mention of the villa name. Finally got to SXM and e-mail arrived with villa name and directions. Cleared immigration and Alain Arnell was waiting for us to take us to our cars. So far that was the only part that had worked. That was also the only part that I arranged.

By this time it was dark and following directions was a nightmare. The directions were straight from Google maps or similar and gave street names only, no landmarks. Ever tried finding street names for the roads you’re travelling on in SXM? Not always easy. We finally got to our villa around 7:30, finding it more by luck than good judgment. Villa was OK but had a few oddities. Never mind, we were there and The Goddess and I had a great time until it was time to leave.

The Return.

Yet another [censored]-up as the third couple’s AA flight was cancelled. AA re-booked them with jetBlue to Boston and onward to their original destination. The rest of us were on JB to JFK-Buffalo all on the same day. I had an important meeting starting at 9am the next day. When we confirmed the changed flight with JB, they offered to put the rest of us on the same flight to Boston with a 75-minute connection to Buffalo, getting us home 3 hours earlier than planned. Great! We jumped at it. Of course, the inbound JB flight the next day was 2 hours late arriving so we missed our connection and had no other options to get us to Buffalo that evening. The third couple just made their connection and we headed off to the airport hotel and then to Legal Seafood for some comfort food and to try to repair our friendship. Which we did.



The Good Stuff

After we got settled in at the villa we walked down to Mr. Busby’s for food and drinks. It was a two-Manhattan night for me. That’s an indicator of my stress level but after that and burgers and pizzas we were much more mellow, headed back up the hill to the villa where The Goddess allowed me to worship at her temple and drive us both into oblivion.

Our friends are not beach people – a combination of complexion and disposition. We are, so we both piled into our car and headed pronto for Club O. We paid $5 for parking and $20 for loungers and an umbrella. Lunch came round and we downed a few rum punches from Willa at the Perch while waiting for a couple of hot dogs (we know how to live). The high winds had been causing problems with the Perch’s grill and we had more punch than anticipated. At that point, something bizarre happened. A young family, fully-clothed, Mum & Dad and two girls around 12 and 14 wandered into the Perch and got past the front of the bar when they realized they were in the wrong place. One girl screamed and the other started to cry. They went through the bar past the grill, round the back and back out the other side. One girl was holding her flip-flops at the side of her face to shield her eyes. Given where the Perch is, I have no idea how they could have got that far before realizing what they had walked into. We stayed on the beach until 4pm and then headed to US Market to pick up enough wine, Brie and pate for our lunch for the week. Paté was a nice duck liver pate, not too coarse. Wines were a mixture of Moulin à Vent and Chinon. Not too heavy for lunch.

The next day, established our daytime routine, pretty much. Up at 7:30 and drive down to the Grocery Store at the dock for croissants for breakfast and baguettes for lunch. Breakfast at the villa and then off to the beach in our vehicle while our friends did their own thing. Stayed at the beach until 4pm and got back in time for wine and cheese as a group before dinner. We all took turns cooking and had different styles each night.

A word about the weather: Windy! They call them the Christmas winds and they were strong enough to force the cancellations of Peggy & Paul’s trips. They made swimming at Orient hard work and it actually felt cool whenever the sun went behind cloud for any significant period of time. A far cry from our last trip in Sept/Oct. That being said, the avg. temp was around 27C so we weren’t complaining. I would hesitate before returning at Christmas time again, though. Our one rain day kept us away from the beach, although it was intermittent and I got out for a good walk and photo expedition around the bay and up to the conservation area. It also gave me an excuse to find The Dinghy Dock for a beer on my way back.

For New Year’s Eve, we made reservations at Canoa. We had been invited into look around on the night we arrived and have a chat with the chef. We shared two appetizers between 4 ( 2 didn’t want any). I had the Caribbean Bouillabaisse, The Goddess had grilled Mahi-Mahi with a mango sauce and the others had crab-stuffed red snapper. Desserts were whatever they were (I’ve forgotten). With cocktails for all and a bottle Chablis, the bill for six people was $345 including 15% service charge. Back to the villa for some more drinks and cracked open a bottle of champagne as we watched the fireworks from St Baths and Orient Bay.

New Year’s Day saw us back on the beach with Willy in a top hat and vest, pouring wicked drinks. We met Peggy and Mike walking Boner, their dog and had a nice chat with them. Then we worked on our tans for the rest of the day then headed back to meet our friends at Mr. Busby’s for Happy Hour. Not a bad way to start the year, all in all. The rest of the trip, until Jan 3, was more of the same. Discovering that we were returning to -12C was a bit of a shock but, hey! we’re Canadians.



So?

So, we loved St Martin again and it almost cost us a friendship. We’ve also sworn this: direct flights only from here on. We’ve already priced Club O prices for July/August and it looks like WestJet have Sunday flights at that time of year as well. In the end, it worked out OK. I will post a link to pics as soon as I’ve finished editing and uploading them.

This report has been edited at the request of the original poster. All responses are from Iain's original post.

Thanks,

J.D.