Dec 2 – 12
3rd trip for Scott and me
Flights – I usually don’t say much about flights, but I just HAVE to make a comment about the Miami airport. It is just as bad as everyone says it is! I’ve NEVER been anywhere with worse signage, and the terminal where our SXM flight left from had very few choices for food. The only other thing I can add is that it’s a looong way to SXM from the West Coast, but its well worth the effort!
Okay on to the FUN stuff! We went with a group of 7 this year. Scott and me, Scott’s brother Dan from Seattle, Jennifer & Felicity, friends from Wenatchee, and Tom & Jan from California, who we found on the TTOL board when I posted that we needed someone to take one of our rooms in the villa. We did lots of emailing in the months leading up to the trip and I really felt like I already knew them before we got there. This was a great group to hang out with and I would travel with the same group again without giving it a second thought.
LODGINGVilla Pointe des Fleurs – We rented from CaribbeanWay and they were great to deal with. What can I say? We LOVED this villa! In fact, I am sold on staying in a villa from now on. Pointe des Fleurs is a 4 bedroom with a pool. Each bedroom has a bathroom. The grounds are huge and there are steps down to a beach that is completely private except for the occasional swimmer here and there coming over from Baie Rouge. SteveandDeb had mentioned that the stairs to the beach were a bit rickety, but I think they’ve been rebuilt since their trip, because they were very solid. I rolled out of bed every morning and went straight to my lounge chair by the pool. I did discover one unfortunate thing about staying in a villa. I call it “villa gravity”, and I would estimate that its force is equal to or possibly greater than that of “sand gravity”. I specifically remember saying at one point that I was leaving to go to the beach because I didn’t come all the way here to sit by a pool! But sitting by the pool was just AWESOME! We had this incredible view of the Caribbean, and it was sooo comfortable sitting in that lounger! The only thing that is tempting us to try a different place for next year is the lure of a heated pool and hot tub. The pool was great for cooling off during the day, but it was pretty chilly for an evening dip.
Delfina Hotel – Scott and I stayed here on our last 2 nights of the trip. It is a small hotel (maybe 12 rooms) near The Summit. They have a great low season rate of $105 plus tax which includes continental breakfast. This place was just GREAT. It is run by Michael and Boris who are from Germany. They are very entertaining. We hung out in the upstairs bar for awhile and Boris had us both rolling. Also Lance who is there in the evenings makes a MEAN margarita, and knows a TON about the island. Another huge bonus…it was okay to be nude by the pool! A lot of their clientele is gay, so if you’re intolerant of that lifestyle, this may not be the place for you.
RESTAURANTSBaywatch- I have to put them first. Not only is this the only place that we ate at more than once, BUT I had the same thing all 3 times that we were there. Mussels ala Andy. I admit it, I’m an addict. Adrian was a doll, and Andy was his usual charming self! We missed Cheryl this time, as she was in the States with her mother. We also had a TTOL party there, but more on that later.
La Gondola – Our first big dinner out with the whole group was here. This was my favorite meal during our last trip because the food and service were so good, and they did not disappoint us this year either. We split a puff pastry w/lobster for an appetizer, I had carbonara, and Scott had gnocchi. As far as I know everyone else was happy with their dinners also. The only mistake that I made was my dessert order. I couldn’t decide, so I got a combo dessert plate. It had tiramisu, a nougat ice cream, and a chocolate tart. Each dessert was fabulous, but I swear I could have eaten at least a pound of that chocolate tart thing. If you like chocolate, don’t waste your time ordering anything else!
Pineapple Pete’s – Oooooh, I had the lobster thermidor, and it was yummy. Scott had a 24 oz cut of prime rib. It was HUGE, and also very good. Great service from “Pineapple” Mark who we saw later in the week at Halsey’s.
Sunset Beach Bar – We had burgers here after our all day charter of the Celine. Burgers were huge and good. We were there on Monday when they have 2 for 1 on Heinekens. My advice is to stick with the beers. I ordered a couple of BBC’s and they were $8 each! 2 burgers + 2 BBC’s = $32. No hard feelings though, because after we ate, there were 6 of us drinking for free and that poor bartender was in frozen drink hell! The music was really good that night and we had a lot of fun watching all the action!
Lido and Joe’s- I’ll combine these two because that’s what we did for dinner. Ribs, chicken, scalloped potatoes, and rice & peas from Lido. Spicy jerk sauce, plantains, and Johnny cakes from Joe’s. Everything was delicious! We stopped at Joe’s after Lido because we really wanted plantains & Johnny cakes and Lido didn’t have them. We got everything to go and brought it back to the villa to eat after a hard day of shopping. We had enough to feed all of us, plus leftovers for the beach the next day for a whopping $35!
Bistrot Caraibes – Finally made it here after having it on my list for 3 years. I had a medley of fish in a bouillabaisse which was very good though not exactly what I expected, and Scott had the sea bass which was one of the specials. Personally I think they make one of the best margaritas on the island, and then there is the warm chocolate cake. OH MYYYY, it is soooo wonderful! I considered picking up my plate and licking it clean, but decided the restaurant was a bit too full for those kind of antics!
Pizza Pasta- We had a pizza and the pesto gnocchi. Both were excellent! They also would have each been enough to feed both of us, but we had the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Halsey’s- We stopped in here late one night because I remembered that they had $5.00 martinis after 10pm every night. It was a great choice! The staff there is really fun, and they have a HUGE selection of “martinis” many of them don’t even have gin so don’t let a dislike of ‘classic’ martinis keep you away!
SMYC- Stopped by here for a drink on our way to BBB. We hit it just right and the bridge opened just as we sat down with our drinks. This was also an excellent margarita.
Buccaneer Beach Bar (BBB)- Biggest disappointment. Why? BECAUSE WE DIDN’T GO THERE SOONER!!! Spent some time talking to Neil, then we had cheeseburgers. VERY good cheeseburgers! Live music. We will definitely be hanging out here a lot more next year. Free gift with the Shooter of the Day on Thursdays, and you will LOVE it (Neil gave me one even though it was Sunday<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />)!
ACTIVITIESTTOL Parties- There were two parties during our time on the island. This was a very cool thing, because by the time we all got to Baywatch, everyone already knew each other.
Los Gauchos- This was a classy event put together by BELAIR (Kathy) and Sca2la (Vickie). Vickie obviously went to A LOT of work doing great handpainted nametags for all of us. Special mention has to go to Liesa from Los Gauchos for the drink specials and the MOUNDS of appetizers that she provided. She just sent out one after another until we were all too full to sit down for dinner. She was nice enough to offer 10% off of dinner for anyone who wanted to come back on another night!
Baywatch- This was the party that I “organized”. I use that term pretty loosely because really all I did was name the time and place, and everyone showed up. I had a great time, managed to remain lucid enough to talk to people throughout the evening! That was a real bonus, although unless you had seen me at the last Baywatch party I went to, you wouldn’t really appreciate the difference! We laughed and danced and generally had lots of fun. Many, many thanks to Andy, Adrian, Indi, and the rest of the staff for having us!
Celine Charter to Tintamarre- WOW! This was an absolute blast. We ended up with 18 on the boat, and Neil never missed a beat. We had the 7 from our villa plus Ray & Vlasta, Mike & Susan, Alan, Dave & Darlene, David & Vickie, and Hannu & Anne. I set the whole thing up with Neil a couple of months before we left. The fickle nature of email on SXM makes starting early with your planning advisable. We left Turtle Pier at 7:30 am, Neil provided breakfast on the boat. We had a 2.5 hour sail out to Tintamarre, saw a sea turtle along the way, and lounged on the beach for awhile until the Grey Ghost emerged from the bushes with a cooler of mud (actually Neil coated in mud). Two coolers later, we were thoroughly coated and drying. While all this was going on, Neil’s son (and crewman), Graham, was slaving away over a hot grill on the Celine getting lunch ready for all of us. Lunch was fabulous…ribs, chicken, potato salad, green salad, and a seafood paella that was to DIE for! Of course Graham kept us well supplied with drinks while we ate. We made our way back and spent some time at Happy Bay where Neil found a perfect sand dollar which he gave to me (MUCH appreciated Neil!). We made the 5:30p bridge opening in Marigot, and were back at Turtle Pier by 6’ish. A really great day with lots of new friends! There may eventually be some pictures of this event that are suitable for public viewing on Ray Mann’s website. Please, Ray, ONLY the suitable ones on your website!!!
Windsurfing- Scott, Felicity, and I went windsurfing twice at Tropical Wave at Le Galion. We took a one hour lesson the first time with Oliver, and the second time, we just practiced what we learned during the lesson. It was A LOT of fun, and if you’ve ever even considered giving windsurfing a shot, I think it’s the perfect place to try. The water is warm, there aren’t any waves to speak of, and the boards are so wide you can do jumping jacks on them. If I could do a decent job of writing a French accent, I would go into the way that Oliver yelled at Scott throughout the lesson, but I just don’t think I could do it justice. Try to imagine, “Scotteeee’ you mooove too fast! You must leeesten to me!” For some reason he didn’t yell at Felicity and me nearly as much! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />
Beaches- My luck with going to Orient continues to be bad. Once again, it was so windy the umbrellas weren’t even up. We stuck it out for awhile, walked the beach, then gave up. We walked down to Baie Rouge several times, and used our small beach below the villa a few times. Of course we spent an entire day on the beach at Tintamarre which was wonderful. We had the whole beach to ourselves there.
ShoppingDK Gems- Okay, so I’m not much into jewelry (or shopping in general for that matter <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />), but I had decided prior to our trip this year, that I would look for a new wedding band. The other one needs to be resized anyway, so how about an upgrade! I ended up with a really lovely rose, yellow, and white gold ring that I just LOVE. Its really hard to get a decent picture of jewelry, but if I can manage it, I’ll post it. I also got a really nice sapphire necklace for my mother for staying with the kids. Hoping that the offer of matching earrings will get her back here next year!
Luis Gomez- I got 2 new suits from Luis on Orient Beach. He has lots of new materials this year. Actually I came home with one suit and he still has one plus a coverup, and a pair of bottoms for Felicity. If anyone is interested in stopping by there to pick them up, I will pay for shipping (from the US)! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />
Well there goes another trip to my favorite place. I’m already looking forward to the next one. The big decision now is whether we are going to rent the same villa or try a different one. There are lots of funny stories left to tell (including one about an island romance!), but I’m just too lazy to try to write them down! If you’re on the island the first week of December 2006, hunt me down and I’ll keep you entertained over a drink or two or three! Yes, Wayne & Louise, Norm & Betty, Kathy & Howard, and LeeLee, I will miss you all in February, but the lure of a villa, and the inability to afford it during high season, has us changing our annual trip to 1st week of December. I know a lot of you have timeshares that week, but if we can ever convince you to share a room in a villa, let us know!
Finally I just want to tell all of you that we met this time around that we really, truly enjoyed our time with you. Tom and Jan deserve some kind of award for having the guts to share a villa with a bunch of nuts that they didn’t even know. I think that award may be some almond roca ice cream headed your way eventually! Ray & Vlasta, Mike & Susan, Alan, Dave & Darlene we’ll be looking forward to seeing you all next year. David & Vickie, maybe we’ll make that swim out to Green Cay with you sometime, we never got around to it this year. Anne & Hannu, hope you’ve found TTOL and we’ll be in touch after the holidays.
BTW I’ll try to get some pictures up later this week!
