Trip Report

We, as always, had a great trip. Of course the absence of Cashew Man left a hole in the total experience. This was our 10th trip to the island. We were in SXM from December 8th to the 15th. - We left horrible weather on the East Coast and came back to horrible weather on the East Coast. The island has received a lot of rain and was the greenest I have ever seen it. With all the green came an abundance of mosquitoes and noseeums. Bring spray!!

We took American on the $250 plus miles plan. At 3:00 am on the day of departure we got a call re-routing us from our planned route of going down through Kennedy to the Miami-SXM route. We were initially annoyed because we were to get no beach time on Monday with the new route, but in the end that did not matter since Monday the weather was not good.

Weather- Odette played a little bit of havoc with the first part of our trip- A storm in December, who would of thought?? Monday, the day we arrived, was raining. Tuesday, it started raining after lunch and on Wednesday we lost the whole day to rain- Weather for the rest of the trip was great, with at least one short shower per day-

Accommodations-

We stayed at Club O. We booked our trip through Jim Ruos with Caribbean Island Travel Services. His attitude and service were excellent. He even called once we got home to make sure that everything went smoothly. This is the first time we have spent our entire trip at Club O. There are pros and cons. The pros are that we always come to the beach in front of Club O, so the access is good. We like wandering back to our room to get a beer, lunch, an extra towel etc. We met and reconnected with so many people including Ray and Vlasta, THE party hosts John and Sugar Rae, Dave and Janie, Jim and Cyndy (Stella), Jessie and Janon, Bob and Margo, and so many others we had met in the past. The people that stay there are great. We stayed in Studio #19, which had a view of the ocean.

The cons are that the rooms are very basic, no tv, telephone, music, etc.. Some people like that, but we like the option of watching the news at night and some external form of entertainment on rainy days. The studios are small and after spending a week in one we really felt the need for more space. Dollar for dollar we felt that upgrading to a larger unit did not make much sense when you compare what else you can get on the island. We enjoyed our stay, but will probably not stay there again, but will visit the beach as often as possible.

A great plus was the expansion of the Perch bar deck at Club O, and the great 2 for 1 happy hour from 12:30 to 1:30, which we took advantage of. Too many bbcs. Due to its reputation we never ate at Papagayos, but did go there for Happy Hour, the Wine and Cheese party on Wednesday, and Saturday night karaoke. We found compared to past trips that Happy Hour was not as well attended. We also attended the TTOL party on Tuesday which Karen, proart, organized.

Dining-

We ate dinner in twice and on the other evenings we ate at, Bistrot Caraibes, Le Repaire du Pirate and Little France in Grand-Case and O Plongeoir in Marigot and , Au Grain de Sel in Cul De Sac. Our new find was Au Grain de Sel, which is a pizza/Italian food restaurant in Cul de Sac, very low key, priced well and very good. We had an excellent pizza and split a salad that was to die for. We were not as impressed with our meal at O Plongeoir as we have been in the past, and had heard from a local that she thought the overall quality had gone down- We had a list of new restaurants we wanted to try, but alas we did not get to them. At Little France, Frank had an Osso Bucco that was fantastic. All the meals we had were great-

Lunch: We ate in several days and when we went out, we went to Bay Watch. The food there, as always, is wonderful and Andy and Cheryl make you feel right at home. The week before was the large 80+ person evening event at Bay Watch on Friday night- that party sounded like a lot of fun. Hopefully when we go back in May we can organize in advance and try to pull a group together. On our last day we had reservations at Le Tastevin in Grand-Case. We much prefer having lunch there to having dinner- off season it is very quiet and the views are great. Once again I had the lobster/shrimp/avocado salad and Frank had grilled fish. We split a bottle of wine and to die for profiteroles and then were ready to deal with American and our flight home.

Breakfast: We are not big breakfast eaters so we had coffee and maybe a croissant in the room--

We did not do much on this trip except for socializing and sunning urselves on the beach. We got together with a group that chartered a day trip on the Tiko Tiko to St. Barths- It was a long sail, little beach time on a clothed beach, and a great deli lunch the group put together. I did get sick over the side of the boat early in the trip. It ruined every desire I ever had to own a boat-We had a good time, and our group was great, the crew had mentioned taking a trip around different beaches in St. Martin. In retrospect that would have been a better idea for me.-

Car Rental: We got our car from Michael at Unity-\ We got a brand new car. His service was seamless, and we definitely recommend him-



Shopping- We went to Marigot to the market, to buy some Christmas presents, pareos etc. and also went into the West Indies Mall and discovered a shop that sold linens from Provence- We bought a beautiful table cloth. I believe the store was called Le Soleil. His exchange was 1dollar to 1 euro. We have yet to discover the charm or draw of Phillipsburg and tend to avoid it.
Internet Access-The Club O internet access was down for the entire time. Jim clued us in on the DVD Plus shop behind the Fish Bar in Orient Bay Village. Real high-speed access at hourly increments at $9.50 I think per hour. Didn’t need to use entire hour at one sitting. Great service.

We overall had a great time and are counting down to our trip in May-

Merry Christmas to all our friends in St. Martin and from our many trips to St. Martin.


Anna and Frank