Hi, 12/2-9 was our 1st trip to SXM and I have a few opinions. I know that many of you think that this island is great, and much of it is, but we don't think we'll be back.
OBBR is absolutely fantastic. The place, the people are great. But getting there is an experience. The food so-so. I rented a car and it was a real trip to get to OBBR if you didn't know which way to go on the roundabouts from the airport. BTW the airport was great going and coming - no problems. The beaches: Dawn - 3 stars, Orient 4 stars, Mullet 5 stars, Maho 2 stars, 5 stars for the planes taking off and landing (5 star scale). Now, for the criticism. The French side is so much more cleaner then the Dutch side. The roads are better and the people don't look like vulchers ready to attack. My wife and I like some night life especially casinos and we drove to Casino Royale almost every night and drove back at about midnight. Again the road back to OBBr from Maho was really scary. I won BTW. We never seen any crime, no one approached us but the people we encountered along the way were a bit disturbing. For food we wanted to try to have dinner at either Grand Case or Marigot and we decided not to because of the parking situation. Too many little streets and nowhere to park. So we ate at Beau Beaus - it was ok nothing to write home about and a little French restaurant next to Casino Royale behind Cheris called Le Moulin Fou. Nice place good food. I wished I would have known about the time travel companies in their little yellow cars because we did get sucked into a presentation and really pissed me off. Abd one more thing about Dawn beach. The beach is small and crowded. Because of the rock slide between the OBBR and Westin you probably will never intermingle with them on the beach any more than you have. I also heard that the Marriott will be moving in there as well which will make that even more crowded. And my last opinion is that this island will be one huge gridlock. The traffic and, as they get more cars & trucks, you won't be able to go anywhere by car & the motorcyclists will be getting killed by the way they weave in/out of traffic. Oh yea the island itself with the mountain views and aqua blue water is absolutely gorgeus and I did go nude at Orient which was a great freedom releasing experience. So, have fun on your island we will be going to other places.