On our way down to Anguilla and SXM, we stayed overnight in Puerto Rico at the Hampton Inn on Isla Verde. It was a nice, well-kept hotel. It cost us as much for one night, however, as a night at any of our rooms on SXM or our one bedroom villa at Shoal Bay Villas on Anguilla.
One problem that we had at this inn was that the air-conditioning unit had only two settings, cold and colder. When we called the front desk to ask how to shut it off, we were told a phrase that I have never heard before and never expect to hear again, “Open the window and let the cold air out.”
Shoal Bay East on Anguilla was great and we were assigned to exactly the villa that we had stayed in before and had requested again on this visit. We have only good things to say about Anguilla and the Shoal Bay Villas. While there, we did visit some of the more expensive resorts, such as Cuisinart, Cap Julluca, Mallihana, etc. Our one bedroom villa at Shoal Bay cost approximately ¼th as much per night as one of those places, and we were directly on Shoal Bay East (nuff said)!
As mentioned in previous posts, we took the ferry over to SXM after 8 nights on Anguilla. The ferry is a very convenient way to get from the one island to the other, and much less expensive than a plane flight. It cost us only $10.00 per person. BTW, the departure fee for Anguilla has now been increased to $3.00 per person. When we landed in SXM, we were astounded to find that the only immigration checking was a person who looked at our passports and waved us through when they found that we looked like our pictures. No papers to complete, no luggage checks, nothing. We were met at the ferry pier by Alain A. Arnell, just as he had promised. He drove us back to his office where we filled out the necessary documents and were on our way.
Since our trip had gone so well so far, we were entirely unprepared for the fiasco that we encountered at L’Hoste Hotel, discussed at length in another thread. We can only express our thanks again to the representatives at Cap Caraibes and Esmeralda who worked with us and found us lodging for the 2 weeks that we intended to stay on SXM. Cap Caraibes got us into a top-floor unit in the building that is nearest the office for the first week, and Esmeralda was only able to let us use a Garden View unit for the 2nd week. At any rate, we were on Orient Beach for the entire 2 week period of our stay. We just had to walk a little further to the beach each day than we had planned.
Listed below are a few observations and things that we noticed during out stay. There are NO restaurant reviews because of the simple fact that neither of us hardly ever eats dinner. That has been discussed before on this forum, so I won’t go into it.
Cap Caraibes no longer serves a complimentary continental breakfast. When we inquired about it, we were told that they had tried it for a while and had discontinued it. We were also without ice or a complimentary newspaper for 2 days, without any explanation. Still much better than no place at all to stay.
Many chairs are still being reserved at Club Orient before 7:00 AM. by leaving articles of clothing, towels, and other things on them. We even observed as many as 6 chairs tied together with colored material.
The partially completed building near BooBooJam is showing some signs of progress, although there was no noticeable signs of any work having been done on it during the 2 weeks of our stay.
There are some new roads on the mountainside to the left of the intersection for Cul de Sac and Grand Case. It appears that several new residences will be built there.
For most of the first 8 or 9 days of our stay, the surf was relatively heavy. There was noticeable erosion of the sand between Pedro’s and Kontiki during those days, also between Coco Beach and Mt. Vernon. In the latter area, the sand drop-off on the beach was sometimes as high as my knee (I am 6 feet tall).
Because of the heavy surf on Orient Beach, we drove over to Mullet Bay several times to swim. The swimming at Mullet Bay was delightful. And, by going over there early in the AM, we rolled through the Simpson Bay area with hardly any traffic disruptions. We did notice that some new high-rise building is being built beside The Cliff. It will apparently be called The Beach Club (I thought that there was already a Beach Club, maybe this is only an extension of that place). It is NOT the same as the other new high-rise that is planned for that same area (I forget the proposed name for it). No discernable sign of much progress was noted for that other new place.
Parking at the Howell Center is still a nightmare. Best is to park in the field that is directly to the right as you face the Howell Center. It is designated as parking by a small sign on the roadside.
While wandering about Coco Beach one rainy day, I did see a sign on the north side of the building stating that “No personal food or drink are allowed on their beach”.
After SXM, we spent a week at Caneel Bay on St. John. We spent as much money in 1 week there as we had spent for the previous 3 weeks of our trip. After the constant activity of Orient Beach, I found Caneel Bay to be extremely DULL! The grounds are lovely, but the total area of their 5 or 6 beaches is probably still less than Orient Beach. The main beach at Caneel Bay has some activity each day, but the other beaches are sometimes almost deserted. I would recommend Caneel Bay Resort primarily for someone who wants only to veg out with sleeping, reading, eating expensive food and drinking expensive drinks, and watching the waves roll in. Personally, I (Bill) found it about as exciting as watching paint dry!
All in all, it was a very nice vacation except for the hassle at L’Hoste Hotel and the boredom at Caneel Bay.
