I never do trip reports & I saw that Carol asked so here I go. We like dull relaxing vacations & are not foodies. My husband’s writing skills are a lot better but he won’t help. We have been coming to St Maarten about 23 years. My sister & I own 4 weeks of timeshare at Simpson Bay Resort, 2 bed, 2 bath on the beach in the same unit with no regrets. We have been through ups & downs with Pelican, Simpson Bay. Our unit seems similar to all you Beachside Villa fans.

We arrived Saturday, February 3rd. Took us almost two hours from plane to the door. The weather last week was horrendous. Nothing like we had ever experienced in 23 years. Very windy with sun in & out. No sun at all Wednesday & torrential rain about 5. Two or three inches fell. We were coming back from dinner & didn’t know if we were going to make it through the puddle by the Atrium. Looked in the Atrium garage as we went by & it looked like the garage was flooded with about 3 inches of water. Thursday is rained steady all day until Friday morning. If it stopped at all we missed it. AA canceled their flights & there were small craft advisories. Friday sun but still windy. My husband tried to walk to Market Garden but couldn’t unless he waded through water.

Food. Buccaneer Beach Bar all you can eat ribs & chicken for $11.99. Very good & the service was excellent which isn’t always the case. Pineapple Pete is Pineapple Pete’s. Isola, service was a little slow and the bolognese was dry with little sauce. Last year we enjoyed it. La Patrona has unadvertised specials for resort guests. Six ounce filet, baked potato, & vegetables for $24.00 on Thursdays. We go almost every Thursdays & it is excellent as is the service. Another night was room service pizza which we like. We did the Sunday brunch at La Patrona, $31.00. Not really brunch in my opinion because there is no breakfast food. Good variety. Nothing stood out. Hadn’t done it in a few years & probably won’t be back for a few years. Another day we had breakfast at La Vista. The setting is beautiful with Saba right in front of you. Food was good, reasonably priced, the server was wonderful but we waited so long for our food we were starting to wonder if the cook had expired. Won’t be back there this trip either.
I should say our choice of restaurants are limited because we only rent a car for one week out of the four we are here. Since we get older every year the distance we can walk gets shorter.

Week 2. Timeshare week 6

Our daughter, son in law & grandchildren arrived Sunday. They arrived at about 2 compared to our 4 & were out of the airport in 30 minutes. The weather is back to normal.

Carol I hope you can fix this so it is easier to read. If there is a scarcity of trip reports maybe I will try again. Since now we have company it may get more interesting.

Thanks for the report. No problem with reading, as the big thing is to add returns and you did great with that.

Would love to hear more about your trip and if possible, see some pictures.

Always enjoy trip reports, even if you don't consider your plans exciting! It was interesting to read about the wild weather. Really explained how bad it actually was. My sympathy that it happened during one of your weeks!

Good job.

Nice report. Especially liked the info on the La Patrona Thursday special. I'll inquire about that this May. Thanks.

LPatrona...so you don't have to e a guest of the hotel to dine there?

RonDon--certainly not. It is a very good restaurant. But be prepared that it is traditional Mexican food, not Tex Mex.

We have dined there many times. We stay next door at Flamingo. Good food and service.

Does La Patrona still have their lobster special night?

Yupppp. Lobster on their specials page

Thanks. I printed it out to take with me as a reminder.