First of all, three to American Airlines for their inflexible scheduling of people who want to go from island to island. When we wanted to fly from SXM to Anguilla on 5/2/01, they wanted to take us all the way back to San Juan, wait around the airport, then fly to Anguilla. Bobbie has had back surgery so we were skeptical as to whether or not she should take the ferry. AA would not schedule us with WINAIR or LIAT for this 10 minute flight, so we broke up our trip at this point and made our own arrangements with WINAIR. It cost us about $100 extra. but saved us several hours of flying. We also had problems going from Aruba to Jamaica, which I shall cover in my report on Jamaica.<br>Some of what I would have reported in this posting can be found in my previous posting about "License Plates" and my reply to the "baywatch" posting, so I will cover a few other points. We seldom eat heavy meals, so there will be no reports on restaurants.<br>The sand at Pedro's is something that varies from hour to hour. When the tide is out, there is some sand, when the tide is in, getting by there is a real adventure. At that time, it is mostly rocks, and walking through Pedro's means walking on pebbles, stones, etc. in the parking lot south of there. Negotiating the rocks below Pedro's is difficult at all times and VERY difficult when the tide is in.<br>One compensation for the rocks at Pedro's is that Coco Beach Bar is 1/2 clothing optional, the north half. When a couple ask for a beach chair, the attendant asks whether the clothing side or the nude side is preferred. Everything south of the front doorway is primarily for the textiles, the other side is usually occupied by 20 or 30 nude and/or partially nude couples. Since we stayed at Esmeralda, we welcomed the choice. Also, the swimming pools at Esmeralda seemed to almost all be C/O.<br>We stayed in the room nearest the beach where the people had been robbed a month previously. The robbers had physically torn the safe out of the inner wall next to the closet. Esmeralda has now repositioned all of the safes on the outside, concrete block walls under the counter next to the sinks. These safes are connected to the concrete blocks by long bolts that go all of the way through to the outside, so they would be very difficult for any robbers to remove. <br>We did notice, however, that the rooms and furniture at Esmeralda are beginning to show some signs of age and are somewhat dog-eared. As an example, the door from our unit to the pool could only be opened from the inside; the key wouldn't do a thing when inserted from the outside. Consequently, the best way to get from that room to the pool is by use of the sliding doors.<br>Because of the above, and the cheaper prices, we checked out the L'Hoste rooms. They have been upgraded as mentioned in several other posts and look great. Esmeralda no longer serves a continental breakfast (since about 3 years ago) and L'Hoste does. The breakfast choices looked very good so, for less money than Esmeralda out-of-season, a comparable room at L'Hoste can be had in-season with breakfast included. One small drawback to L'Hoste compared to Esmeralda is that there is only one pool, not very big and only 4 1/2 feet deep. But then, who needs much of a pool when Orient Beach is so close by.<br>We also drove over to Le Meridien (spelling?) to check it out. As most of you know, the road there is something else and it is way off the beaten path. The beach is reasonably nice and the grounds are truly a work of art. One has to walk about 1 to 3 blocks to get from a room to the beach. Their price is significantly higher than either Esmeralda or L'Hoste so, we would definitely prefer to be close to the beach and forego the artwork, trees, shrubs, etc.<br>We also drove over to the Mullet Bay area. The beach at Mullet Bay is great. The locals have set up little tents to rent beach chairs, umbrellas, etc. and to sell beer, snacks, mementos, and other things. We tried to get to Cupecoy from the parking places next to the wall. After negotiating the trails, we found very little beach at either of the 2 places we could get to, so didn't pursue that subject any further. While in the area, we stopped for lunch at Cheri's. I had a cheeseburger that was excellent and Bobbie had a tuna sandwich which was made from large slices of tuna. She also pronounced it excellent. I have read some knocks of Cheri's on this BB, but maybe the people went there in the evenings or other busy times. We went about 2:00 PM, got good service, good food, good beers, and all for less than $30 including the tip.<br>Mentioning beers reminds me, all of the Heinekens that we found anywhere on the island were 250 milliliters, as opposed to the 330 milliliter bottles that we are accustomed to here in the USA. This also seemed to be the case on other Caribbean islands we visited.<br>We did meet a couple of other TTOLers at Club Orient, but only because they were flying a flag that they had purchased a year or two ago.<br>We are already thinking about returning to "The Friendly Island" in January, 2002. If we do, we will go to L'Hoste for less than we paid for Esmeralda out-of-season, and get complimentary continental breakfasts besides.<br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 5/31/01 03:06 PM.</EM></FONT></P>