Well it's back to reality. 85 Degrees and 5 hours later 5 below. At least we have out memories of 2 fantastic weeks on St. Maarten. Here it goes.<br><br>We left MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) on Friday January 25th on a 6:00 a.m. flight to Chicago O'Hare in route to San Juan. The flight was without event and we made all of our connections and arrived in San Juan early. 2:25 p.m. We got our bags and headed to our hotel in the Condado Beach area. We had a walk around the area and a great meal at Hermes on Ashford Ave.. We had bad night in our hotel with cruisers partying at until early in the morning (very loud). It was also raining and had water dripping on the air conditioning unit and making a lot of noise. Anyway - we made it and landed at Princess Juliana on Saturday and we were in paradise.<br><br>Booked our car rental with Mr. St. Martin and much to our disappointment when we got to the rental counter at Hertz it wasn't what I was expecting. We had four people and I was expecting a Corolla, but according to Hertz the order they got from Mr. St. Martin was a class of vechicle that would not work for us. (Atoz). After much discussion Hertz gave us an upgrade and we wound up with a Subaru. Anyway lesson learned and Kenny's or Alan next year.<br><br>Got to the Belair Beach Hotel and everything was beautiful. Little Bay is very nice. We like it because it is sort of out of the way and quiet. The check in took about 5 minutes and we had dropped off the gals at Rams to start the shopping and us guys (the father in-law and I) went to the Belair to drop off the luggage and then go back and help with the groceries and especially the RUM.<br><br>We ate at Chesterfields, Greenhouse, Lee's Roadside Grill, Boathouse, Turtle Pier, La California, Ms. B's, Captain Olivers, Sunset Beach Bar, Ric's, Indiana, and Hot Tomatoes. We also tried an afternoon lunch at the Lolos shack nearest the water on the same side of the square as Talk of the Town. All was great and worth the trip. The best lunch of the trip was at the Friar's Bay Beach bar restaurant. (great salads, but are enough for two people) One thing we did experience was that Turtle Pier did not have any Lobster the night we were there.<br><br>This being only our second year going to our timeshare on SXM and our first time staying for two weeks we decided to check out some of the things we didn't do last year. So we went to Friars Bay, Baie Rouge, Guana Bay for the first time, then we went to our other favorite beaches, Mullet Bay, Maho, Orient, Dawn Beach, Great Bay, and Pinel. All of the beaches were beautiful and sooooooo worth the year long wait to get to.<br><br>Driving was fine, but lot more construction projects than I can remember from last year. The road from P'burg that goes to Dawn Beach past Guana Bay is very narrow in spots due to construction, also the road through the Middle region from P'burg to Orient was having some work being done. There were flag people out controling the traffic. None of this had any impact on getting around, but I thought I would mention it. The new road that goes to Little Bay and Belair from the round-about on Cay Hill is Great!! <br><br>We picked up my parents half way through our trip and spent our last week on the island with both sets of our parents. We had a great time. We decided to treat our folks to a private charter for a day on a sailing catamaran trip. We chartered the Swaliga I out of Bobby's Marina in Great Bay. The six of us plus the 3 crew of the Swaliga went to Prickly Pear for the best day possible. Wow is Prickly Pear Beautiful. The water was beautiful the visibility was fantastic and lots of fish. We had a perfect day. Thanks to the Crew of the Swaliga I for all of their help. The funny thing about this charter was that it was a big surprise and something we wanted to do for our parents. We did do a sunset cruise on the Swaliga I the Wednesday before we did our charter. This was great snacks and open bar, but no dinner. I like this because it is a couple of hours and goes from Great Bay up past Maho, Mullet, and Coupecoy and finally to Baie Long before turning back toward Great Bay. The captain told us to look through the bottom of our Heineken bottles to see the "Green Flash".<br><br>So many great memories from our two weeks in Paradise. Can't wait to get back in 2004. Please send me a PM with any specific questions you may have. I appreciate this forum for information that can be gained from it.<br><br>We had drinks at the Buccaneer Beach Bar a couple of times and Neil has a beautiful spot and it has really added to the area of Kimshaw Beach behind the Atrium and the Indiana restaurant. Go see Neil and check out the BBB!!!<br><br>dandbmn