We left Minneapolis (-14 Fahrenheit) on Sun Country Airlines ($600 pp) non-stop to SXM. Grabbed our bags and Marius's crew from St. Louis Car Rental was waiting for us. Within 15 minutes we were on our way. We then had what was the only aggravating "moment" of the entire ten days in paradise. It took us 1 hr 35 minutes to go 2.8 miles to Royal Palm to pick up our phone from Sharon Harris. We were told that 1) Immigration had set up road checks (Friday evening of President's Weekend!) 2) Caught the bridge opening, and 3) there was a large broken water main near Grand Case. All these things created gridlock in all directions. It took another 1 1/2 hours to get to Palm Court on Orient Beach. Cecile was waiting for us, tossed us the keys, and told us to officially check in the next day. Palm Court may be the "Motel 6" of Orient Beach. It's not a five-star property, but it's central location and very reasonable rates work for us. We were tired from traveling and walked over to Tap 5 in Orient Village and had an excellent pizza , a few Caribs and crashed early.
FOOD, FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Joy.gif" alt="" />

BREAKFAST;

Le Fish Bar in Orient Village. Very good American breakfast $7
Baywatch. Had a nice visit with Andy.
Barefoot Terrace. Waterfront at Captain Hodge's Pier, Phillipsburg. Great breakfast, lots of locals eat there.
Croissaints, etc. from Tap 5 filled in the rest of our mornings.

LUNCH;

Baywatch. Great as ususal.

Ms.B's. Best ribs, finally got to meet Ms.B! What a scenario. Wiggling your toes in the sand on a beautiful beach while you eat lunch and 25 feet away a payloader with a pile of rebar crawls gently by.

Sky's the Limit. Now our favorite lolo. Ann is the best for making you feel welcome. Great garlic shrimp.

Golden Dragon. Front Street, upper level, not fancy but not an empty table in the place. Split a huge order of Thai Garlic Pork and rice, $10. Excellent.

Skip Jack's. Across from Royal Palm. Had a great visit with George Shetter, the owner. They just hired a trained executive chef, Greg, who hails from Canada. All their lunches are in the $7-8 range, including a half-pound burger and almost all their evening dinners are less than $20. Beautiful location on the water, great place.

DINNER:

Poulet d'Orleans. Finally got there. Christian was there to open the door before the car stopped moving. We had a nice dinner and the Romney crew were very attentive. Coincidentally, the couple seated next to us, Keith and Sara from New York, were the people I last responded to on TTOL before we left. We had never met each other!!

Tai Chi. New in Orient Village. Sweet and Sour Shrimp, Red Snapper with Noodles, moderate portions. Bottle of water. $50. Very good.

Le Petit Auberge des Isles. Fixed price menu. Bruno and Francoise do a great job. Must have reservations. In addition to three choices for appetizers and desserts, they allow you to pick any of their 5-6 evening specials for your main entre with the fixed price, including mussels, scallops, wahoo, lamb, etc. Allow 2+ hours, probably was our best overall dinner value. $63

Claude's Mini-Club. Considered one of the best buffets on the island, must have reservations, nice setting, had 3-4 people trying to take care of 100 diners. One guy pouring all the soup and trying to man 6 carving stations. It was good, but the meats were not very hot, (and we were at the front of the line). Give it a try, just remember it's a buffet. $100

Pizza Galley. JP and Lorna Guilbert, via Montreal, are already famous for the pizza. Start with a small caesar salad $5--it's big enough for two. Finish with warm, homemade apple pie layered with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries with vanilla ice cream. Hmmmmm $5

Chesterfields. Started with shrimp bisque (ok) and a salad. Peppercorn filet 9 oz (which was closer to 12 oz) Very good. $20 A large mahi-mahi filet,( a little over-cooked )$18 Shared a piece of key lime pie (ice cystals still in the pie). A pretty strong diesel fuel smell added to the nautical setting. They had one large group that they were trying to keep happy, probably caught them on an off night. $66

Tropicana. Need reservations. Excellent service. Very active place. Shared Seafood tabouli to start, marinated shrimp, salmon and calamari--it was a work of art. Roasted sea bream, rack of lamb. Shared hot-cold chocolate hazelnut cake, wine, tip. $100

Tabba Khady. Very nice quiet dining experience. great hosts spent a lot of time with us. The tuna filet medium rare was excellent. The strawberry, lemon juice and cream fraisee with a hint of mint was fantastic, chocolate crepe with whipped cream also very good. they gave us each a flute of champagne for Susan's birthday. Probably our most relaxing meal. $115 with tip

POT POURRI

With the exception of our first four hours, the traffic wasn't too bad if you learned when and where to drive. The Cole Bay Cutoff Road is good but you'd better hope the squirrels under the hood are well fed when you start up the hill.

Orient Village has quite a bit more to offer than last year. You can get on the internet at DVD Plus for $10/hr. He also rents dvd players $10 and movies $3.75. New restaurants include Le Piment, Le Chappelle (never looked busy), Le Cadre, Tai Chi. That makes 8+ eating choices in the area. They also have a little gathering on friday nights in the center court with live music and art and jewelry vendors set up.

Sand gravity really set in bad this year. We spent most of our days on the beach at La Playa. Made a trip to Pinel early am, walked up to the rock pile behind Karibuni and just sat there in the quiet breeze. The island had a lot of small purple and violet flowers on it and the air smelled so sweet. What a nice respit from the crowds of Orient Beach (which we also enjoy).

We each got a wonderful massage from Alex at La Playa. $60/50 minutes. Her "Well Being Spa" is in a nice clean "bungalow" next to La Playa's restaurant. She offers a full line of treatments, highly recommended. Phone 06 90 88 37 38.

Read four books. Don't Stop the Carnival, Gone Bamboo, Double Tap (Steve Martini) and Hour Game (Baldacci). Thanks for the first two recommendations. We discreetly brought our Carib down to the beach in a soft-sided cooler and it wasn't ever mentioned. We did screw up one day and brought a pizza down to our lounge chairs and La Playa didn't like that at all. I should have known better. I was wrong. We left and ate it elsewhere. Beers are $4 at La Playa.

We met a bunch of nice people at the TTOL party at Bikini Beach on the 19th. It really does add to the experience to see a few familiar faces around the island that you feel comfortable chatting with. Thanks John and Sue for organizing the party.

We grabbed our match play coupons and made a casino run. Played blackjack and won a nice amount for the trip (wouldn't have been much without the coupons, they give you an advantage over the house). Our top three casinos are Atlantis, Casino Royale and Princess. The others are a little weak.

Marius from St Louis Car Rental gave us a Kia Optima for the same price of a lesser car which we had reserved. There are a lot of good rental agencies on the island and he is certainly one of them.

Rented a phone for the first time from Sharon Harris. She was easy to deal with. We didn't use it much but it was nice to know if there was an emergency you had options.

The weather was almost perfect, maybe a hair windy a couple days but apparently not as bad as it had been. Harmony Nights was a lot of fun. After eating at Sky's the Limit, we sat and watched several bands for nearly 2 hours. The "older" guys with the blue and green caribbean shirts were our favorites. You could feel the island pride and warmth as they played and sang their hearts out. A smile goes such a long way.

This got a little long and to the veterans of the board, probably not much new. Thanks to all of you for your input, you make the trip so much better than going in blindly. St Martin certainly hasn't "jumped the shark" for us. Maybe ignorance is bliss. We will be back.