Sorry this is a long trip report so feel free to read as much or as little as you would like.
St. Martin/St. Maarten (SXM)
May 5 – May 19

We had been planning this trip for quite some time. My father passed away 2 years ago and his request was to have his remains taken to Cuba (where he was born and lived for 40 years) or that he be scattered in the Caribbean ocean. Since Castro is still alive and we, as a family, are not able to return to Cuba at this time we chose the Caribbean. My husband and I had been to SXM 7 years ago and loved it so we thought this would be a great place for my father’s memorial. This would involve my two sisters, their husbands and my husband and me. The six of us would take a trip to SXM for one week, and then my husband and I would stay for another week on our own.

Getting There
Our trip actually started on May 4th. We left from Lincoln Nebraska and spent the night in Chicago in order to get the early American Flight with a connection through Puerto Rico. We stayed at the Sheraton Suites Gateway and it was very nice and at $110 not bad with free shuttle to and from the airport. The stay was very nice and everyone was helpful.

My little sister, her husband, my husband and I were traveling together. We checked in and got on the plane only to find out that there was a light not working so we had to wait while they fixed it. It ended up taking about 30 minutes. They gave everyone free headphones. The captain announced that he was going to try and make the time up so he thought we would only be about 15 minutes late. I’m not sure what happened but we ended up being 30 minutes late. We originally had 1 hour and 15 minutes to connect so now we were down to 15 minutes. We were in the back of the plane and unfortunately no one was moving fast nor did anyone care that we had a tight connection. We ran to the gate and saw that our connecting flight was also late so that gave us more time. We finally got on and noticed that we could only see one of our bags. I asked the guy if there were more bags and he said no. We feared our bags were left behind and we were right. We arrived at SXM only to find that only one bag had made it for the four of us. We were not the only ones with missing bags. About half of the passengers were missing their bags. It took forever to put in a claim and we were told that our bags were left in Puerto Rico due to a malfunction in the bag sorting system (??). The bags would be on the morning flight the next day. We were disappointed but were glad that we were not like some of the folks that actually had bags that mistakenly were sent to Antigua and were not sure when they would be delivered.

Rental Car & Cell Phone
We went to Budget rental car for our cars. Very nice service. Cars were a bit beat up but we were happy that we didn’t have to worry about dents and scratches. We could always tell our car from the other 50 white Toyota Corollas with R license plates every where by the rusted clothe hanger that our radio antenna was made from.

We were supposed to pick up our cell phone from Sharon, but I had forgotten the email with the information at home. I thought she was supposed to be at the Royal Islander but we couldn’t find her (it is at the Royal Palms). We decided we would go to the house that we had rented and try and figure Sharon out from there. Since my other sister and her husband had checked into the house we could also meet up with them there. We did stop at the Grocery store on the way there – Match at Marigot. We left my sister and husband out with the car and luggage, got a few things and headed to the house in Orient. We finally got a hold of Sharon and made arrangements to meet her in the morning to pick up the phones we had rented. She was very understanding. Again, I highly recommend renting phones from Sharon. We rented 3 of them so each couple had one and this gave us the ability to go off on our own and still communicate with each other. In addition, it was convenient in case we needed to contact home or to call and check on airlines, etc.

Accommodations
First week we rented a house in Orient. We rented it from a lady named Zuzu – the name of the villa is ACROPOLE. Excellent property. We had a perfect view and the house is very spacious. Every morning there were beautiful sunrises and all day the ocean was just beautiful to look at. The pool is wonderful and got a lot of use. The outside areas were used a great deal. The house has all of the conveniences needed including air conditioning throughout. We really enjoyed the place and I highly recommend it. Did I mention the view? The price is right and there is plenty of room for 3 couples. It is 3 bedrooms with 3 ½ bathrooms. The kitchen is well stocked with modern appliances and plenty of dishes etc. There is a gas grill (George Foreman) which was very handy and did a great job on our grilling nights. There are plenty of places to enjoy the outdoors including the beautiful pool and bar near the pool with a little fridge and everything. There are left over pool toys and snorkeling gear which was nice. It is just a little walk to the beach and a very short drive. The walk back to the house is a bit harder because you are going uphill but then again a good way to work off those Caribs or Presidente beers. We ended up buying a fan for the outdoor just to keep the mosquitos away and to provide a nice breeze. They did spray for mosquitos but that didn’t seem to help much. We bought mosquito milk and that works great, but is that stuff strong. I had to take a shower just to feel like it was ok to sit on regular furniture. We tried the citronella coils and that helped a little too. We also had the off wipes and those worked but not as well as the mosquito milk which you can buy in any store it seemed like. There is maid service a couple of times during the week. We really enjoyed the place and, again, I highly recommend it.

The second week we stayed in Little Bay at the Belair Beach Club. This was a timeshare trade with RCI. It is a very nice place, exactly as advertised, very clean with a small hotel feel. There are not a ton of activities but the beach is right there, they have nice beach chairs, all condos have an ocean view and it is so nice to hear the ocean surf. The balconies are huge. They are two bedroom two bathroom units. The 2nd bedroom is small but since it was just the 2 of us we used it to keep our luggage. Both bathrooms were great. The entire place was very well. The staff was very friendly. We had requested an upper level unit and got a top floor unit which was nice (no mosquitos). There isn’t a dishwasher but that was not a huge deal for us. We did eat in most nights and just watched the sunset and listened to the ocean. It was nice to see the cruise ships come and leave port. The Divi is close by and we drove over one day and walked to the fort which was really nice. You can snorkel near the Divi and there is some snorkeling by Belair as well. We saw that there were jet skis for rental although we didn’t do this. We didn’t eat at the restaurant but the menu looked good and varied. Prices were probably normal although it seemed maybe just a bit high – I remember Coconut shrimp for $22. They do have the eating on the beach on Friday nights. We almost did that but ended up skipping it as we had a huge lunch that day and just didn’t feel like eating much. There is a small shop on site with many conveniences which is nice so no need to make a trip to the big store although it is very close by anyway.

The hotel has a way for you to use the internet but it was $3 for 15 minutes and you have go into their office and use an old computer they have set up. The connection was fast but there were plenty of mosquitos, a dripping ac unit right above it and the keyboard was sticky so I don’t recommend this unless you really are in a crunch. The Royal Palm had a nice internet café next to Sharon’s place but I didn’t look at the prices. Near the Marina Royal there is an internet café but if you don’t have Euros you may pay more than normal as he doesn’t really like to accept dollars. I only needed to check email really quickly once and paid $1, I then needed to download my pictures and copy them to a zip drive and that took a little bit longer so I think he charged me $2.

Groceries
Went to Match, Super Marche, and US Import. Our favorite Super Marche was on the way to Marigot near Port de Plaisance. Great deli and cheese selection and very helpful staff.

Bought fresh fish so that we could grill it at home in Simpson Bay at a restaurant which is also a fish market. I can’t remember the name of it but it is on the bay side.

We found prices to be comparable to the US although certain things were obviously a little more than here. The selection in general is very good although we forgot the stores closed on Sunday early and ended up having to wait until Monday for more provisions than what we had.

We did go to Tap Five mini store a couple of times and the one thing I would caution is to watch for dates. We bought some pasta and it was old and had bugs in it and also bought some cheese which was expired and had mold which we didn’t notice at the store. We found this store to be a bit pricy as well but it was convenient while we were at Orient.

Restaurants
Saturday
Tired and not wanting to have to do much, we just went to Orient village and ordered pizza to go from Safari Grill. It was good and eating it on our beautiful outdoor area was great.

Sunday
Went to Koko Marina (owned by Zuzu’s daughter) for lunch and it was absolutely wonderful. Chicken kebobs, fish, drinks and of course the hamburger and French fries for my two brother in laws. French fries were great and we decided that we had to try French fries at every restaurant to compare. Excellent place to relax.

Dinner we decided to have Rancho Del Sol deliver to the house. Excellent choice. Had chicken kebobs, fish, pizza, and pasta. All great. No French Fries ordered this time.

Monday
Decided to go to Orient Village for dinner. Since it was Monday many places were closed so we settled on La Chappelle. Unfortunately it was one of our bad experiences. The food was really good but service was rude and made our experience one of the worst in SXM. It was unfortunate that it ended up this way. Not sure what set the things in motion since it seemed to be bad service only for us and not the rest of the people around us. I keep thinking about the events and there really was no reason for the waiter to be rude to us. It was to the point where he told my sister that they were out of things that she ordered, but later we noticed that others who came after us ordered and got what we wanted originally. It was a very odd experience.

Tuesday
We had our memorial service for our father today. We had rented a boat and went out right before sunset. We had made reservations at La California and we were running a little late so I called to let them know when we would be there. They were not busy and were happy to reserve our table.

We had the best dinner on the island here. We ordered lobster, red snapper, steak, a goat cheese appetizer, a salad and the best calamari and accras we had the entire time. My husband doesn’t like lobster and he thought he would splurge and get it and he loved it. Everything was prepared wonderfully. The service was great and the crepes for dessert were wonderful. We had read several reports on this board about service etc and I have to say that this was our favorite dinner in SXM. So if you had any hesitation about going, don’t and enjoy.

Wednesday
Had lunch at the Marina Royal in Marigot. Ate at a place we had not been to before. Brasserie de la Gare. Excellent and really loved the misters at the restaurant which kept us cool.

Thursday
Main a la Pâte – we had been to this restaurant 7 years ago and loved it and again we were not disappointed. Had a pizza and lobster fettuccini which were both delicious.

Friday
Kon-tiki – great pizza and wonderful to just sit at the beach. This was the Tiki hut part and not the restaurant. The restaurant has sushi but my husband is not a fan so we skipped this.

Week 2
Ate in a great deal and did have one of our best lunches in the island at La Tropicana at Marina Royal. WOW, everything was great and service was super.

We ate lunch at the Belle Epoque and we were very disappointed with the service. Slow and not so friendly. The food was good.

We stopped at Kakao for lunch on a Sunday and were very disappointed. This had been one of our favorite Orient Beach restaurants 7 years ago. We were seated by the kitchen and it was very hot which didn’t help the experience although that is not their fault. We ended up just having a drink and an appetizer and left and had lunch in Grand Case instead which of course was wonderful. We went to La California, all great; although my husband was a bit disappointed with his chicken kebobs (he had great ones at Koko Marina so he expected them to be the same.)

Our last meal we thought we had saved the best for last. Seven years ago we ate dinner and lunch at Paris Bistro in the Maho area multiple times over a two week period. The food and service was always superb and we really enjoyed our dining experiences there. Unfortunately we were very disappointed and ended up with an expensive dinner which was very mediocre. Should have gone back to Grand Case.

[i]Diving[/i]
We went diving as we were trying to get our Advance Open Water certification. We had dove with Dive Adventures seven years earlier so we made arrangements with them again. Unfortunately our favorite dive instructor no longer works there and is no longer in SXM, so we missed that. Overall the diving was very good. We felt bad that we were late on our first day and that the dive boat waited for us. If anyone on this board was diving there (May 7 in the morning) our huge apologies. We had no idea that traffic had gotten so bad. We had timed it the day before but were not prepared for the morning traffic and ended up being about 20 minutes late. Again our apologies and thanks. We dove the porpoise on the 2nd day which is a wreck in 85 feet of water. This was very cool. We did get certified and that is a huge accomplishment for me given that I barely know how to swim and only learned about 12 years ago. My husband really enjoyed the fact that for the first time I was comfortable in the water and he didn’t have to hold my hand the whole time. We learned a great deal and had a good time which was great.

On our 2nd week we were staying near Philipsburg and rather than deal with traffic to Simpson Bay we ended up diving with Dive Safaris at Bobby’s Marina. They were great and we wish that we would have had more time and been able to do the shark dive which looked awesome (they have video in their dive shop of a typical shark dive). Being a bit afraid of sharks and never having seen one I thought it would be good especially given my new found courage. Next time I guess.

Unfortunately at the start of this dive my underwater camera case started leaking and ruined my digital camera. The pictures on the SD card were fine, to my surprise. My DH was sweet enough to buy me a really cool Canon SD750 to replace my camera and this one comes with an underwater case made just for this camera so hopefully it will work a little better and last a little bit longer. I love my new camera, small and so many cool features.

Other Activities
We did go parasailing this time. It was our first time and we used the guys next to Kon Tiki. It was $90 for a tandem for about 7-10 minutes. It was an absolutely wonderful experience.

Did some shopping in Phillipsburg. My sister loved the knock off shops. Most purses are about $40 - $60 and you can bargain but it is hard to get them to come down too much or at least it seemed that way for us. I bought a couple of cheap beach outfits at one of the t shirt shops for a couple of dollars each. Low quality but for $2 well worth it. Bought a fake Rolex for my husband for $55 and had the links fixed at the jewelry repair place for $3 (unbelievable) – here in the states I’d pay $10 - $15 to have a band resized. They were very quick as well and did it while you waited. Very nice people and very friendly. Some were from the Dominican Republic and since I speak Spanish we got to talking and had some laughs. They all speak English as well.

IMO one of the best places to shop for souvenirs and clothing is Paradise View. They are not open on Saturdays. There is a place to buy liquor there and it is a bit more expensive than what you can find in Philipsburg or even Marigot but supposedly some of the proceeds go to the animal charities. I liked that they were low key and they did bargain a little. Most of their stuff said Rimas on the label so maybe Rimas would have better pricing unfortunately I never made it to Rimas although we drove by it a lot, just parking was a nightmare. I did get a wrap which you can also use as a shawl at the Marigot market. I paid $20 for it since it had sequins and it was very nice quality. I thought I had gotten a good deal but when I went to Paradise View the same thing was there for $10 so be careful at the market and know what you are buying. We bought my husband a hat at Paradise View for $5 and they were $7 to $10 at the Marigot Market. I think they are geared towards cruise passengers etc, so a bit higher.

Found interesting the many stores selling absinthe?? It is a green liquor made in France out of woodworm. It is supposed to be a hallucinogen and it is outlawed in the US. I asked one lady at a store once since we saw so many people asking about it. She said that it is licorice flavor and that it is 70% alcohol so it is very strong and it is suppose to be like a mushroom trip. You would not believe the number of cruise ship passengers trying to buy it and trying to figure out how to smuggle it into the ship and possibly back home. There were signs that said it was legal to buy but not to resell but I think it is silly that people would risk something like this, but to each his own. Bizarre, I had just never heard of this at all and we were recently in France and don’t remember this even in the stores although it is supposed to be popular there.

Getting Home
Of course it was sad to leave and we wished we had a bit more time there. The weather had been so nice and it was hard to leave paradise and return to the everyday real life. Checked in, and we were first in line so very easy. Went then returned the rental car and got back to the airport very quickly. They do have a nice lounge for $20 a person but we were not going to be there that long so we decided against it. We left on AA with a connection in San Juan and then Chicago on United. Flights were fine in general. The Chicago flight was running a little late so we were about 45 minutes later than expected getting home but overall it was fine. All of our luggage made it without a problem which is always a plus. San Juan was fine but it was busy. We had landed and there were no other flights in front of us, as far as people in immigration, etc. We got through immigration very quickly. The immigration officer wrote a #2 on our customs form for some reason. We waited for our luggage which took exactly 30 minutes from the time we landed to the time the first bag started on the belt. We then went to leave the area and some officers who were just standing around asked for our customs declaration form, we showed it to them and they put a red circle by the 2 and directed us to another line. Next thing we were told to go to the agricultural screening and had to put all of the bags on the x-ray machine. Not sure why we were flagged as I had put no to all of the questions and we were not carrying or bringing back any food items but maybe they have to do so many or something. After doing all of that we went and dropped our bags for check in at the AA area – bags everywhere so I wondered if we would get ours. My sister had all of her bags lost for a day from Puerto Rico to home. We did get all of ours so they made it through the mess I guess. We had a long layover and went to a sports bar and had a sandwich, not that great and expensive, but I guess that is what you get at airports. We flew 1st class since we used miles to upgrade and to our surprise we could not use the lounge in Puerto Rico. We were told only for flights to Europe and South America and Asia very strange.

Miscellaneous, Other Impressions and Tips
My father’s memorial service was absolutely perfect. We rented a boat from Dive Adventures with a Captain – Herash I believe was his name. He took us out where we each put some ashes in the water and said nice things etc. The sunset was beautiful and the weather was perfect. We could not have asked for a better day or turn of events.

The population has doubled so it seems. The increase in population and tourists caused the traffic congestion (only one stop light on the island) and there seemed to be more crime reported. We saw a great deal of police presence. While we were there, there were a lot of police checkpoints and we witnessed several arrests in Philipsburg. When the cruise ships are in town Phillipsburg is a zoo and there are not too many days where there are no cruise ships. You are better off waiting until mid day to go there if you really want to so that way you have missed the morning wave off the ships and be sure to leave before they all return from their tours.

We didn’t think that Orient was crowded, not even on cruise days. We did think that the chairs were expensive and the service was not always the best. We did rent chairs at Koko Marina and of course service there was superb. Kakao had horrible service and Kon Tiki was a little better but not the greatest.

If you go to Marina Royale don’t forget that there is a guy that will want money to supposedly ‘watch your car’. We felt we had to pay as he was very aggressive and followed us until we gave him something. Of course I couldn’t find any ones so he got $5 and I was a bit upset that we were so pressured to do this. In the scheme of things I know that $5 is not that big of a deal but it is the principle of it. We ended up parking by the ocean several times and just walking over.

We bought wine from Le Gout de Vin and this is always one of our favorite stores. Although I don’t speak a ton of French it was nice to try and chat with them in French. They speak English perfectly well but I wanted to try the few things I knew. They were very pleasant and they have a good selection of wine. They may be a little higher than some others but they store their wines well which is important if you are going to pay a bit for a nice bottle.

There use to be a deli very close to them when we were there 7 years ago and we were sad to see that they had closed.

We tipped at all of the restaurants 15% to 20% except for La Chapelle were we received horrible service so we only left 5% and thinking about it we should have left zero.

The gas stations on the Dutch side can be a rip off if you don’t have Guilders. They will do their own math and round up a great deal (I overpaid $5 one day but no sense in arguing as they wont budge). I got gas on the French side and paid in dollars without a problem. They had a calculator and showed me the calculation very honest. We used the station close to Marigot coming from Grand Case on the right hand side. It is not a big name one but more of a repair shop that also sells gas. They were very nice and polite. I was surprised at the number of times that we went to gas up and there wasn’t any gas in many of the stations so we had to wait or drive quite a ways to find one that had gas. So plan accordingly when leaving. We gassed up the night before for fear that in the morning we would have to run around trying to find gas. Gas was expensive but I guess it is expensive here too. It took about $50 to fill up the tank with a quarter left on the Corolla.

Driving is more aggressive and there is a lot of traffic so plan accordingly or just don’t be in a hurry. Be brave and stick your nose out in traffic otherwise you will never get across any roads or merge into traffic. Drive slow on the roundabouts, they don’t know how to drive in them either so it makes it interesting. My husband and I drove in Europe and Scotland last year and learned the proper way to use a round about (no matter which side of the road you’re driving on) but SXM drivers didn’t seem to care they just got on the round about and went whatever direction they wanted without regard to the car next to them. It was comical at times. This did make for some major traffic jams especially at Phillipsburg during rush hour traffic.

We went to St. Barts last time we were in SXM and thought we would go to Anguilla or return to St. Barts this time but just ran out of time. You see, two weeks is just not enough. We did try to relax and enjoy the beach and the great food.

Overall a great time. We are sad of how crowded it was and although we didn’t feel threatened and always felt safe we certainly were more aware of our surroundings this time around given that there are more people and there seemed to be more report of crimes here and there. We never had a problem, but again we were never out really late and we always made sure that we were in a group and were smart about things in general.

Feel free to PM with any specific questions or just respond here and I will try and answer what I can. I know this is a bit late but I learned so much from all of you before our trip that I really wanted to make a contribution to this board. Although we are not planning an SXM trip anytime soon (too many other places to visit yet and still only get limited vacation, until we retire of course). I will continue to read this board as it is very interesting, full of very nice people and just nice to relive some memories. I will also post some pictures soon. Thank you again to everyone who contributes on this board I think it is such a great service and really SXM tourism board should pay something to this board given the amount of information all of you provide and the promotion that happens. I am a member of this board and have been for a little bit so I will continue to contribute what I can when I can.