This was fourth trip to SXM and was probably our best trip since we really took it easy.

Our trip started on Thursday April 21st and ended Thursday April 28th. The days went by way too fast. We flew with US Airways using the special airfare from last year. Had no problems flying from St. Louis to Charlotte and than onto St. Martin. We each had to small carry on pieces of luggage and two backpacks which we brought on the plane with us, but on the return trip home, we checked the two small pieces of luggage in. Who cares if the luggage is late coming back home? We really like the airport in Charlotte. The airport in Charlotte is so much nicer than the drab boring airport here in St. Louis.

We were probably one of the first groups to actually leave the terminal since we did not have any checked luggage to pick up. Customs was a breeze. Two minutes and we were out of there…

Craig from PackLight was waiting for us as usual and he had our NEW chairs for us. These were real nice beach chairs. The only thing missing was our cooler, which I really wanted. He had forgotten to write it down on his list, but he had the cooler to us by Saturday night.

Unity Car rental was also waiting for us and Craig from Packlight was gracious enough to put our chairs into our rental car. The driver from Unity took us to the lot to do the paperwork which took Michael a whole five minutes. We were on our way to Grand Marche’ to pick up a few items for the room and than off to Grand Case Beach Club. The island appeared very dry and brown. That was going to change pretty quickly as we discovered.

Also, put the car radio to Islands 92. I love listening to this radio station. I like Bogart in the morning and Ricochet in the afternoon. You can listen to them via this address :

Islands 92


I am going to give our reviews on the restaurants that we went to after I have gone over our week in SXM.

We arrived earlier than I had expected at Grand Case Beach Club (GCBC). The check-in at GCBC went quickly and we were in our room before 5:00. Now, that was quick. Once of the guys from GCBC took us to our room which had a CD playing in the room’s radio/CD player. We were in room 113, which is in the Oleander building, on the second floor, and it was a corner room. A very nice room that was extremely clean. It appears that all of the covers on the furniture were newly cleaned since they appeared new. We also noticed that the bedspread was clean also. The room, in our opinion, is all that you need while on vacation. We had our refrigerator and sink, so we were all ready. We headed out to watch the sunset by Sunset Café. After the sun had set, we than headed out to dinner in Grand Case. We just wanted something simple so we went to Talk of the Town. Since we were up early in the morning, we went back to the hotel and hit the sack.

Friday was a pretty laid back day. Had our breakfast at Sunset Beach Café and than decided to stay at GCBC’s beach. Before going to the beach, I went down the street to the bakery that is located at the end of road before you take the main road to either Orient Beach or Marigot. This was our bakery for the week. We needed to have our daily fix of the fresh french baguettes. We use the bread to make sandwiches that we eat during the day. Good fresh french bread with some good french cheese with some fresh fruit. Oh what a life. We stayed on the smaller beach since it actually had more sand on it than what is in front of the hotel rooms. It was a very hot day and the water was very calm. A very relaxing day, but somehow, we still got to much sun. We really didn’t notice it until it was to late. Good thing I had brought Biafine with us that I had bought a few years ago. It really did help the sunburn. I bought a new supply of Biafine since our old supply was to expire in a short period of time. We decided to eat at Spiga that night and than returned to the hotel and had a quiet evening.

On Saturday, we awoke to rain. Someone at breakfast said it started to rain a little after midnight. It rained all morning when we finally decided to hit the road and do some shopping in Deepti’s store. We first went to Jimbo’s for lunch. After we had lunch we went into Philipsburg. At this point, it had finally stopped to rain. We spent a little while at Deepti’s and she had some items available that I had requested for my wife. While at the store, we ran into Nan and Jack (NANSXM). We talked about the Full Moon Party that was going to happen on Sunday. Everything was still on for the party, if the weather permitted. After we left Deepti’s store, we did a little more shopping before heading back to GCBC. As we were going back to GCBC, it started to rain again and it rained till we got back to the hotel. It stopped raining in the evening so we walked down to Bistrot Caribe for dinner. Again, after dinner, we walked back to the hotel and had a quiet evening.

Sunday started off okay until about 9:30 when the rain moved in again. It rained all morning when it stopped for awhile. We decided to walk down Grand Case Beach to just get away from the hotel. We got past La California when the rains came again. We huddled under one of the buildings by the beach and waited for it to stop. It must have rained for about 15 minutes before it finally stopped. We than walked down to Le Pettit hotel before turning around and going back to GCBC. There were shells all over the beach as we were walking it. A great place for shell collectors. Once we got back to the hotel, the rain moved in again around 3:00 and rained hard until 6:00 or 6:30. I knew that the road down into Grand Case would probably be flooded in places, so we drove into town. We had dinner at La California where they reimburse you for your parking fee. While eating dinner, the rains came again and it rained almost through the whole dinner. We decided that with the way the weather was that we would not go to the Full Moon Party. We just didn’t want to take the chance. The rain let up about 30 minutes before we left from dinner. Again, we went back to the room and had a quiet evening.

Woke up on Monday morning to bright blue skies. Had our usual breakfast and decided to go to Happy Bay. When we got to Friar’s Bay, the parking lot had water all around from the heavy rains from Sunday. We parked in back of Kali’s and made our way to the hill. Now, with all of the rain, the trail was wet and slick. The first part is tough with rocks all over the trail and of course the trail goes up the hill. Now, my wife just had knee surgery about two months ago, so this was not an easy walk for her. Once we got past the hill, than it was easy. It was just plain hot. We were sweating like pigs in a pen. Couldn’t wait to hit the water. One little note, as you go through the meadow, the trail will have a fork in it, one trail goes to the left and another to the right. If you go to the left, you go toward the water. That is of course, not what you want to do. You want to go right. I enjoyed Happy Bay and would recommend it to anyone. Now, supposedly, I met a couple on the beach and they said they got to Happy Bay by coming from Grand Case. I know that Grand Case is right over the hill, but I am not sure how you get to Happy Bay from Grand Case. He explained it to me, but I didn’t remember. While at Happy pay, it sprinkled around noon time and it looked awfully dark toward Orient Beach and Simpson’s Bay. We found out later that it rained at Orient Beach, but we were fine at Happy Bay. Well, we had to leave Happy Bay around 3:00pm so that we could get ready for the TTOL party at the Buccanner Beach Club. This was a lot of fun. Just want to say that Sandy and Bill did one helluva job. Neil also had a good handle on everything. Met some great folks from TTOL and enjoyed every minute of it. Deepti and Jeff arrived and we talked to them for awhile. Deepti reminded us to come back to the store before we leave since she was expecting a package to come in for us before we left. From the party, we went to La Gondola for dinner. After dinner, we again went back to the room for another quiet evening.

We started earlier on Tuesday since this was the day that we were going to Anguilla. We took the 9:20am or somewhere around here to Anguilla. The ferry ride was a easy. $12.00 per person, one way, $3 departure tax per person. We arrived, showd are passports and than got a cab to Upper Shoal bay. This is where Gwen’s Reggae Club is at and what was written up in the Caribbean Travel and Life Magazine. Upper Shoal Bay is actually right next to Shoal Bay East where Uncle Ernie’s and Elodie’s is located. Supposedly, Upper Shoal Bay is supposed to have the whitest sand beach in the Caribbean. It was white and it was hot. We asked the cab driver if he could pick us up at 1:30pm so that we could try out another beach. Of course, he said no problem. The taxi fare to the beach was $17.00 and we gave him $20 (I didn’t have any ones, need to remember that next time). Gwen’s was nice and relaxing. Only complaint was that there was no music playing for any atmosphere. I would have had some speakers around the place playing at least Bob Marley. That would have been nice. Met a couple from New Jersey who just arrived on Saturday to Anguilla and have so for enjoyed it a lot. Well, 1:30 arrived soon and the cab driver showed up. We wanted to go to Shoal Bay East, but he said that this would cost us around $35.00. He recommended Rendevous Bay, which was only $17.00. Again, no singles, so it cost us $20.00. Rendevous Bay was different than Upper Shoal Bay. Water was very calm and you could see St. Martin from the beach. It was windier than at Upper Shoal, but it was nice. It was a wonderful walk down the long long beach. We had the driver come back and get us at 4:30 so that we could take the 5:15 ferry back to SXM. We arrvied 5 minutes before the ferry left. Worked out great. The tax ride from the beach to the ferry was another $12.00. This time, I had some singles, so he got $12.00. I thought we had left enough tips by then. Again, $3.00 departure tax per person, plus $12.00 ferry ride per person. It was a very nice day in Anguilla, but expensive. Would we do it again, I don’t think so. St. Martin has enough to offer, we would though, do a snorkel trip to Anguilla like we did on Swaligia II on a previous trip. Once back to the room, we were pretty pooped, but we had dinner at L’Alabama and watched the Grand Case Festival from our table. Once we finished dinner, we walked around for awhile and looked at some goods, but got tired of the crowd, so back to the room and another quiet evening.

Wednesday was our last full day in St. Martin and we haven’t been to Orient Beach yet. Oops. This was cruise ship day. Boy was the beach crowded. We again went to the place I like and that was by the rock, by Coco’s. Placed our beach chairs over by the big rock and we enjoyed ourselves. The waves were big and my wife really didn’t care for that. She liked the nice calm waters that we had at Grand Case. So, we stayed till around 2:30 and than went back to the hotel and stayed on our beach till around 5:30. Watched the sunset from the room and than went to dinner at Beau’s Beau’s by Oyster Pond. Now this was a trip. Every Wednesday night is a beach party with live crab races. This was fun. After we had dinner, we drove back to the hotel and had a quiet evening again.

I guess you all got the picture now. We are not much into going out at night. We packed (or should I say, my wife packed) so that we were ready to leave the next day.

Thursday came and we decided to take an early swim. This was refreshing, especially since we had the first footsteps on the beach that day. The day was gorgeous. Clear and bright. The water was so clear. We really haven’t seen it like that before. After we checked out, we went to Philipsburg to do our shopping at Deepti’s. Our package did come in and my wife was happy. We finally left Philipsburg and was going to the airport to check in early. Boy, traffic was a nightmare. Very very heavy. Couldn’t believe how long it took to get to the airport. We checked in our luggage at US Airways and than paid our departure tax. Off we went to Sunset Beach. This was nice. They had a small band playing which was real nice. It was extremely hot. Had some great cheeseburgers and than we decided it was time to go.

Now, this is the only bad thing that happened on our trip. We got back to our car to change into different clothes for the trip home, but someone had broken into the trunk of the car and took our small bag of clothes. Now we know better, but we didn’t think anyone would take a bag of clothes. Well, we were wrong. My wife was bumming because the bag contained one of her favorite pants and a favorite shirt. I was disappointed since my shirt was a hard rock shirt from Syndey. I like collecting those shirts from Hard Rock. It was also a drag since the shirt I was wearing was pretty wet from wearing it all day. But, we won’t ever leave anything in the trunk.

On the way to return the car to Unity, we stopped by the French Bakery across from Hot Tomatoes, but they were out of their great baguettes, so we missed out. We returned the car with no problems and were returned back to the airport with no problems. The flight out of St. Martin was pretty special. We all boarded the plane, but the plane couldn’t leave since one of the passengers was missing two people. Now this was strange. The two passengers left the gate area, but never made it to the plane. At that same time that we were boarding, a Corsair flight was also boarding. We think that they got confused and actually boarded the Corsair flight instead of our flight. So, the passenger on our plane had to decide whether to stay in SXM or fly with us. She decided to stay on board, but because the other two passengers weren’t on the flight, they had to remove their luggage. Well, we left 30 minutes late, but we didn’t care since we had a nice long layover in Charlotte. Our flight from Charlotte to St. Louis was also delayed due to no crew available, but we left 30 minutes later. Not a big deal.

This was a great great trip. We met a lovely couple at GCBC from Chicago, Susan and David. They were on our flight home on Thursday and we actually helped them through the customs area since they just did make it in time for their connecting flight.

Here are our restaurant observations:

**** - great
*** - good
** - fair
* - avoid


Talk of the Town - *** - good value
Spiga - **** - highly recommend
Bistrot Caribe - *** - overpriced
La California - **** - highly recommend
L’Alabama - **** - highly recommend
La Gondola - **** - highly recommend
Beau’s Beau’s - *** - fun place, good food
Jimbo’s - *** - fun place, overpriced

We were extremely disappointed in Bistrot Caribe. I think out of all the above restaurants, they had the worst service. The two brothers do a very good job of getting you into the restaurant, but I don’t think they do as much as the folks at the other places do. When we finished eating, they both noticed our empty plates on the table, but did not remove them. They left that up to the lady who was actually serving us. That did not happen at any of the other restaurants. They were also the most expensive out of the above restaurants and they really didn’t deserve to be. The best service was L’Alabama, La Gondola and Spiga. These folks know how to serve their customers and keep them very very happy. La California was also very good, but they were extremely busy for just three people working the tables. They really needed another person, but they worked hard. I do appreciate seeing that. I never did see that out of the brothers at Bistrot Caribe. Yeah, I know, I will hear it from some TTOL members who like Bistrot Caribes, but we liked them the first time we were in SXM, they just didn’t live up to the same standards as the other restaurants that we went to.

As for as baguettes go, we tried Zee Best and the bakery in Grand Case, but still our favorite is the bakery by Hot Tomatoes. We still think that their chocolate croissant is to die for and their baguettes are so so good. But, all of these bakeries are better than the bakeries here in St. Louis, for this type of pastries.

The beaches we hit this trip were a little different than our previous trips (No plum beach). We really liked the small beach by GCBC. Water was very peaceful. Happy Bay was nice, but I’m not sure it is worth the walk to it. It is a pretty hard trail to walk if you have bad knees. Orient Beach again was nice. I like to people watch. Upper Shoal Bay and Shoal Bay East are nice beaches in Anguilla. Rendevous Bay is nice, but I wouldn’t put it over any of the beaches on SXM. Because of the two days of rain, that is all of the beach time that we had.

Well, hope I didn’t bore the heck out of you by now, but we really did enjoy this trip. We will be back for more fun…