TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report part 1

We flew United out of Newark on Sunday March 8 and arrived 25 minutes early. Smooth uneventful flight. The plane had no immigration forms and none were asked for at immigration. Line moved quickly. Luggage didn’t take very long either. What was strange was that there was a LONG line at customs. It appears that there were a number of interisland flights that had landed and they were opening luggage left and right. Line moved slowly but when we got close and were asked what flight we came in on and replied Newark we were waived through.
Unity was waiting and whisked us away to their lot where Craig from Packlite met us with our phone. On our way in a matter of minutes. Checkin at Simpson Bay Resort was also quick an easy as we had checked in online in advance.
Jeannie from ShopnDrop arrived a few minutes later with our order. What a phenomenal woman. If only her ideal of customer service was widespread!!
Sunday night we got pizza and a big salad from Bon Appetite and took it back to the room. I let the pizza sit too long in our over to keep warm and they got pretty crisp otherwise they would have been very tasty, Breakfast and lunch so far have been on the balcony. We cooked in Monday night. Tonight, Tuesday is the TTOL party at the Greenhouse. Looking forward to a nice evening.

Sounds like a good start to the trip! Enjoy this evening!

Had a very nice time last evening. It was good seeing old friends and making new ones. Loved the Bang Bang Shrimp Wrap!

I saw that Customs thing once too, the Amsterdam flight came in before us and the Customs line was a mile long. They were going through everything. We fortunately looked very touristy and they pulled us right out of the line and let us through.

Where is customs at PJIA? I don't think I've ever seen it.

After you grab your luggage and start for the outside there are partitions (or look like cubicles)but we were only stopped once years ago. Asked us if we had any drugs?? <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" /> and let us go. Normally there is usually no one there.

We've never been stopped there before either, never seen that area manned when we came through, but if you are unlucky enough to be landing around some flights from Europe or from South America, you could get caught in the backup, as the OP did.

OK, I think I have seen those, but never paid any attention.

It's been many years, but I recall that after you picked up your luggage, there was a button you had to press. Most of the time it was a green light and they let you go through the gate for the car rental section, but the person who got the red light had their luggage checked. I really don't think there was any rhyme or reason to it, and glad when they got rid of that "service".

Bang Bang Shrimp in whatever form is always a tasty treat at the Greenhouse, and not that it goes well with the shrimp, but I always manage to find time to get a BBC (Baileys Banana Colada) there as well. Enjoy your time there, hope many good times ahead for you both.

So right about Jeannie. Thanks for the report so far.