TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Is Club Orient Resort Gone for good?

IMHO It was a bad idea bringing back the beach chairs, umbrellas, Perch Lite, Billboard club orient sign, raft etc. Club orient resort was known around the world as a clothing optional beach and tourist destination. If Cedrick and other former employees did not bring back the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean maybe the SXM French Government would not have let it go to ruins after Irma.

I thought you personally were happy with how things were going at what once was Club Orient.

I thought at the time the Perch lite and Cedric Watersports was a temporary fix to a very sad situation right after Irma. I believed at the time the COPRO would settle the lawsuits and have the Club Orient resort open by now. It is close to two years since the hurricane and I now feel differently.

Cedrick and company are maintaining the beachhead until the other stuff sorts out. The alternative to this is far worse.

The legal stuff is on a different plane than the beach itself right now.

Thanks Cedrick for holding the fort.

*eyeroll*

I can only say that my wife and I never the honor of staying at Club O so we cannot comment how it was. We can only say that we found the clothing optional experience after Irma. Based upon our limited experience we believe that the operations by Cedrick is a good thing. We believe that because it shows the government that there is interest in maintaining a clothing optional beach which in return may assist in trying to bring all parties to the table to get a resolution. Had Cedrick, Shawn and the rest of the employees not brought back the small amount of normalcy we believe that section of the beach would probably be treated as the rest of Orient Beach, not clothing optional but European bathing (topless for women but bottoms required for both men and women) which is not what the masses desire. If the Copro, the resort management and the government can get this settled to start rebuilding, my wife and I will definitely book a stay at the resort.

Hey jenniboston. I believe you know more than most about what is going on with Club O. Anything you can share with us?
Have there been any owners meetings?

Having spent more than 75+ nights on the Island since 2008 (which is nothing compared to many on this forum!), we have only spent 2 nights at Club O and probably 60+ on the beach at Club O. It was wonderful to return just a few weeks ago and I loved that the "spirit" of Club O beach is very much the alive and well! We made lots of new friends and on some days couldn't even find a chair on the "front" row. It's a great thing for the recovery of SXM to see how many long time Club O resort patrons have returned and are bringing tourism dollars to other rental properties, restaurants, etc. In fact, I have never seen the Village so crowded and happening in all of our years staying there. I think the red tape of the Co-pro, owners etc., would halt rebuilding regardless of whether or not there are chairs to rent and drinks to buy @ the Perch Lite. While I would LOVE to see Club O rebuilt - in the interim, I say Kudos to Cedrick for maintaining the best (imho) part of Orient Beach!

Yes, the owners continue to have their annual meetings (this year's was in June and actually occurred on the island). There are also regular communications amongst them. Legal proceedings are still slowly winding through the courts. Unfortunately until that process runs its course, or the hold outs stop being [censored; this is a family friendly website! ] rebuilding is likely to remain on hold.

Entirely, 100% my opinion; the government could and should get involved; Club O was one of the biggest employers on the island. It is really unfair for such a small group of hold-outs to keep all those people unemployed.

Jenni--realistically, IS there anything that government could do in this situation? Anyone that follows my posts knows that I regularly pound the French side for things they should be doing, or should be doing FASTER, but I wonder what the government could do, even if they wanted to?

Thanks for the reply Jenni.
Such a ridiculous situation.
Any hold-out owners on this board that would like to defend their position?

Good to know, however doesn't the insurance payout have a time constraint? For our condo at Les Balcons, we filed our claim in April 2018. The insurance provided us with 70% of our claim and we have to finish repairs and provide receipts by April 2020, or loose the other 30%.

Probably noting short of legislative changes which are unlikely on behalf of a single entity. But a girl can dream, can't she?

Do NOT get me started on the insurance company's part in this whole fiasco. They are also part of the problem. The situation is complicated in legal ways I don't feel this is an appropriate forum to get into in any details on, but this is actually probably the least of our concerns right now.

OK, thanks.

I would suggest to the owners and holdouts that while most of us who like Club O will spring back and become a customer when/if the resort reopens, every day/week/month/year that goes by your customers are finding something new and pretty good to go to: other resorts on sxm , other islands than sxm, resorts in the usa, nude cruises. Some folks are getting old and or dying, so we all cant wait forever so please get on with it.

My biggest fear is a resolution, a rapid rebuilding and sky high prices. Club O had a premium worth paying, but for us there is a limit and they will want to recover investments that had to be made.