TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report 11/12/19-12/6/19, PART FOUR

Saturday, November 30

I had planned a beach day at Divi, where I own weeks in June, but a hard rain started and scuttled my Divi plans. When the rain ultimately stopped, I went to Karakter for breakfast. The food was fine, but service was a little spotty. Headed back to the Toad for the afternoon. I did get some beach time, but it was overcast.



The lovely couple who hosted the “cooking with friends” event last Saturday invited some friends over for cocktails tonight.





After watching another beautiful sunset, we enjoyed hors d’oeuvres catered by Fabulous Feasts.



The food truly was fabulous. It was a very pleasant time on their deck with friends and food. The plan was to go to Vesna Taverna for dinner; not many were hungry after the generous hors d’oeuvre spread, but we soldiered on. I had just a crab cake and chocolate mousse. I know a lot of people love Vesna, but I have yet to be wowed by the food there.

Sunday, December 1

Innkeeper Doug has a morning ritual of sitting on the seawall with a cup of coffee and his cat Ginger before taking his daily swim. Ruralcarrier dubbed this “a man and his cat” when he posted a picture on Facebook. I enjoy watching the sweet interaction from my balcony each morning.



Determined to have a beach day, I headed to Petite Plage for breakfast at Sunset Café before heading to the beach. Again, good food (goat cheese omelette with hash browns and bacon) but less-than-stellar service. And it was clear that any beach day wouldn’t be happening on Petite Plage as the sea was crashing against the sea wall. That appeared to be the case all along Grand Case Beach.





I decided to try Divi since there is generally a large beach at Little Bay. The beach was a lot more crowded than I am accustomed to seeing in June. Huge waves, very unusual for Little Bay, were creeping under the lounge chairs all along the beach. I lounged for a couple of hours with my beach bag on the table next to my chair so the water wouldn’t soak my bag. The final straw was a really large wave that came up on my chair, covering me with sand, and splashed into my beach bag. Enough! When I returned to the Toad, some guests had been driving around the island and said that the restaurants at Friar’s Bay were closed because the water there was all the way up to the restaurants and there was no beach. Angry seas all the way around today.

Since it’s close, I headed back to Le Moulin Fou for dinner, ordering the spectacular goat cheese salad and duck shepherd’s pie.



More than half of both ended out boxed up for me to take home. Crème brulee topped off the meal.



While heading back to my car, the throng of cats were waiting in the parking lot. I left my leftover shepherd’s pie out for them to eat. Poor babies; wish I could take a couple of them home.

Monday, December 2

I was awakened around 4:00 a.m. to the sound of the smoke alarm in the kitchen going off. It buzzed only three times and then stopped, so I tried without success to go back to sleep. It went off again shortly after 6:00 a.m. but stopped after a few beeps. Then shortly after 7:00 a.m. the one in the bedroom went off and.would.not.stop. Innkeeper Doug was sitting on the seawall so I yelled at him; he could easily hear the noise and came up to my unit. Lacking a ladder, he got up on a chair and removed the detector. Just as he was walking out the door to get a new battery, the one in the kitchen went off again so he also removed that one. Turns out it wasn’t the batteries, but Doug replaced both units.



Only three more full days on the island, and not enough time left to do all I’d like to do. But I crammed two things into today’s schedule so as to not lose a beach day. I spent the morning puttering around the Toad and working on this trip report. Then I met some friends for lunch at Sol e Luna, which has now become a three-time tradition. WendyK first introduced me to this experience, and we have repeated it each time we are on the island at the same time.

Sol e Luna offers a three-course lunch for 24 euro. I had the beef carpaccio appetizer, a basil pasta entrée, and a lime crème dessert. Everything was very good although the pasta had more tomato than I was expecting.





Rushed home after lunch to change for a Meet and Greet I was hosting at Bar Code.

Thanks for the report! Amazing, going all around the island and seas so rough, no place one could sit on the beach! Those appetizers from Fabulous Feast look amazing! Great sunset and as always, such food porn!! Thanks so much for soldiering on, to get this done.

Thanks again for the report and pictures. I really enjoyed watching Doug and Ginger every morning on the seawall. We also fed some of the cats and kittens that were hanging around where Cheri's was located.

Nice report and pictures.

Thanks for taking time to post your report and wonderful pics.

That spread laid out in the kitchen looks delish! Maybe I should use them next time instead of spending most of the day in the kitchen.....

Fabulous Feasts really did a nice job, and I thought the quality was very good.

Fabulous Feasts table photo was very nice. It looks like it was set up in the villa of your friend? How many people were there and was it per person or a fixed platter price?

Yes, in a villa in Pelican Key. You'd have to ask the hosts about the price; we were invited guests. I want to say the hosts won something with Fabulous Feasts, but I may not be remembering that correctly. At any rate, the guests did not pay.

Found the website https://www.fabulousfeasts.com/locations/st-martin-f-w-i/st-martin-hors-doeuvres/ Thank You!

Thanks for the pricing link!

The cocktail party was at our villa and Fabulous Feasts' food and service were excellent! Just have them send you their menu options. I ordered too much for 18 guests....LOL.
Wanted it to be a very nice event and spent about $800, excluding wine, which I bought separately. Cost included 2 wait staff for 4 hours.....didn't have to lift a finger!
Would highly recommend!

I didn't know if you were on TTOL, Joyce. It was a beautiful event and one of the highlights of my trip. THANK YOU for your incredible generosity!

Thank you! It was a beautiful catered table and I will think about FF if I am having a gathering in SXM.