Trip Report
Mar 31 - Apr 14
Sorry if this trip report is a bit long! If you care not to read it feel free to go directly to some photos we've put together on our trip:
http://www.sxmphotos.com/Gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=trip07Flights
Air Canada from Vancouver (red eye) connecting in Toronto.
Accomodations
Mary's Boon (5 days)
After hearing good reviews about Mary's Boon we decided to go for it. This is an excellent establishment in a great location. The rooms were clean and well decorated. Friendly staff. Beach is quiet and long and it's located close to Simpson Bay area restaurants, etc. Honor bar which we liked as well. Great viewing area for planes landing/taking off. Will definitely go back!
9/10
Anguilla - Arawak Beach Hotel (2 days)
We stayed here last year. This hotel is very unique, the rooms are shaped in little colorful cabins (1 room up 1 down). Cute place with a very friendly feel. Maria, the owner, is a super person and she makes you feel like family. Even when the kitchen was closed she made us sandwiches. Clean rooms, located about 5 minutes drive from Shoal Bay.
9/10
Royal Islander - (7 days)
I'm sure many of you have stayed here. This is a clean and modern resort in Maho. Location is great in terms of things to do, night life, plane watching, casinos, etc. And like in many cases the larger and fancier places lack the close, friendly feel the above two places offer. However we enjoyed it very much. THe only unit available was the center Penthouse which was ridiculously huge for a couple but that's all they had available.
8/10
Some beaches & trips we took:
Simpson Bay - Quiet, great for swimming and even a morning jog along the beach.
Dawn Beach - Nice beach, not exactly large so gets a bit crowded. Good snorkeling!
Orient Beach - Probably the best beach on the island, overall. Sand, swimming, facilities, nothing lacking here. Had a great couple visits there.
Friar's Bay - We loved this beach on the French Side.
Maho Beach - I consider this to be the "coolest" beach in the world. Always something interesting happening on this beach, and of course the plane watching is unreal. Several times swam far out in the middle of the flight paths and it's thrilling to be under a large jet. On the last day we experienced a Delta 757 approach VERY low and caught a good jetwash, in fact several seconds after the plane landed we heard noises similar to electrical surges surrounding the water around us, something out of a sci-fi movie. This was obviously wind from the aftermath of the plane coming over the water. Saw my first aborted landing by a large aircraft (KLM), made for something interesting.
Cupecoy - We hit here to catch a sunset at Cliffhanger. Love this beach, alot of construction going on here now.
Prickly Pear Island - We took the "Lambada" to Prickly Pear. This catamaram trip was loaded right up, lots of people. Once we got to the island we jumped off the snorkeled to shore. We decided to walk along the beach to the end where it got rocky. It was a 15 o 20 minute walk to the end. It was one of the most gorgeous walks we had, nobody was around us and the water was perfect, blue, clear etc. It reminded me of walking along the stretch of Shoal Bay to the end and I considered this just as nice. Someone along the day who brought his boat to shore told me baby sharks hang around the end of the stretch (before the rocks), I went to the spot but didnt find any.
Shoal Bay Anguilla - Had a great time on Shoal Bay (who wouldn't though?) The whitest sand I've ever seen and considered one of the best in the Caribbean. This time around we didnt spend as much time as we wanted on it. The weather wasn't the greatest and the beach was a bit crowded as well. On this particular trip, and realizing this wouldn't be the norm, Prickly Pear was more beautiful.
Saba - We did this trip last year as well. Our main reason for going was to hike up to the top of Mount Scenery again. Took the "Edge 2" catamaran to the island. Many people have pointed out that the trip can be very rough and it deifnitely is not a smooth ride over but we had no problem with it and it seemed as though most people enjoyed. However if you do get easily sea sick then you probably will. The weather was good both ways so if the seas were rough we may have had a different opinion
Upon arriving it seems that you can't really hop in your own taxi and just get to where you want to go. You end up in a van with a bunch of other people and the taxi driver does the tour for you no matter what. Even on the 2nd trip to the island the tour is fun and you learn something new every time. We didn't mind it but by the time we got to the bottom of Mt Scenery we had under 3 hours to make it back to the taxi and get to the ferry again. We hiked to the top and had lunch overlooking the entire island. It was was an unreal view! Being a rainforest you catch all sorts of neat plantlife, vines, jack fruit, bananas, mangos, flowers, geckos, snakes (small and harmless), and the random unknown animal noises
Its a great hike. The island itself is a heritage island and it's absolutely amazing. Rooftops, shutters, etc have to have the same color. People are extremely friendly and if you hang out on their main street in Windwardside you'll likely see the same taxi or car go by you if you wait long enough. Small island.
Pinel Island - Absolutely loved it. Worth the trip over.
Restaurants / Bars
Sunset Beach Bar - Let's start with the most talked about and somtimes controversial place.
Let me just say that since coming to the island in '02 (yes I know I'm still a rookie to some) I have never seen this bar as busy as it is now. Initially on this trip it was my understanding that it had a new owner (as per taxi driver) but upon speaking with a bartender it's been the same owner for a few years. I'm not going to talk about the guy on this report but whatever he did the place is definitely busier. Is it a better beach bar because of that? That's debatable. It seems that it has multiple personality - during the day it's this neat beach bar with a good lunch and a nice place for all types including family, kids, beach chairs, etc. Plane spotting is definitely the best from this place. However at night it's very lively, young, loud, and most of the people get pretty wasted. Coming from a 32 yr old who loves to go out and drink it up at night both me and my girlfriend thought it was a turn off at times. No exaggeration but every night we were there she either seen someone puking in the can or someone already did and they haven't cleaned it up yet. I never seen any guys getting sick but a few seemed definitely on the verge. I'm not saying that this shouldn't be tolerated or anything, it's a bar for god's sakes, people drink it up and get blasted. But it's evident that alot of young (not saying underage but pretty damn close) people like to go there and have a good time and get a little irresponsible like young people do. As for the bartenders, staff, I feel that it's a big improvement. Previous years it took forever to get any service and it seemed disorganized (ie. not keeping track of who's next to be served). Now they seem to have a more competent staff that are friendly and do their job well. Overall I would say this place has improved. 2 things that I believe about this place, and remember this is just one man's opinion, 1- It lacks an identity 2- A place like this on the french side wouldn't last. Oh and the Percy Rankin bonfire band's great if you like Reggae!
Lee's Roadside Grill
Of all the places to eat on the island for some reason we kept going back here. 1 reason: fish. Yes, it can be tacky. Lots of tourist, the same synthesiser reggae band playing "Brown Eyed Girl", fries and potato salad on the side. The fish itself, especially the mahi mahi, we feel is very fresh, bbq'd perfectly, and tastes great. We went here about 5 times. Another thing that impressed us was that the owner or owner's brother was there 4/5 of the times. When an owner is there looking after things it's always a plus. A plate for around $20.00 was well worth it.
Ms Busby's
We went here on a beach day at Dawn Beach. We had a problem with this place and it had nothing to do with the food. Bearing in mind that we understand the concept of "island time" and at times it could be lengthy to get served at a table, we had a server that really pissed us off. After waiting then going up to the counter to ask if it was ok that we took 2 menus and found a seat, she purposely avoided coming to our table. How do I know that? Well here's a clue: After keeping our menus face down on the table looking ready to order I actually had eye contact with her twice. After she seen me for some strange reason she thought it was imperative that the counter get wiped or another table (one being right next to ours) get served. She took her time and had the atitude of "You're lucky if I serve you". A similar european atitude that I've heard of before. I'm sorry but that really pissed me off - I would rather she have not served our table at all then look at me and give me the "I'll do it when I feel like it" atitude. The food was good, good ribs and grilled chicken, but I probably won't go back again just because "I feel like it".
Driftwood Beach Bar
A great little hangout on Maho Beach. We think they make the best mango coladas. Very friendly staff...
Buccaneer Beach Bar
Whenever we craved a great burger this was the first place that we tried to go to. They make great burgers (and I'm sure their other foods are good) and overall it's a decent beach bar to visit.
Zee Best in Marigot
Highly recommend it for breakfast! Excellent crepes, pastries, coffee, fruit salad. As an added bonus Benecio Del Toro, we are 100% sure, was a couple tables away. Was going to ask him if he was when he walked by us but he was on his cell phone. Anybody else see him on the island during that time?? Server at Zee best said that she also thought it was.
Scilly Cay - Island Harbour, Anguilla
As some of you may have heard this is a small island just off the shore of Island Harbour. It's very small and has a special lunch bbq 3 days per week. We decided to give it a shot. To get to the island all you have to do is stand on the dock and wave at the ferry guy, he comes along and picks you up. This is a well manicured island and a great place to experience. The lunch was lobster,chicken, or lobster/chicken combo. If you wanted something like snapper you needed to pre-order it a couple days ahead. Fortunately we shared one dish and it was pretty big and tasted good! Guess how much the bill came to for the 1 chicken/lobster combo and 4 drinks? Over $100.00!!! Good food? Yes. Good value? No way! I can understand it's supposed to justify where you are and the surroundings, etc but it's still not worth it!!
We also had the opportunity to meet the owners, can't recall their names but the wife was very nice & the husband, well, he is an interesting character. Not saying anything else seeing as this is a trip report and not a gossip column
Odds and Ends -
As you may or may not have heard the airport fence at Maho Beach was stretched out right along the road. This is only on the part where the serious jetblast occurs when they take off. I can see how this is needed if people have taken some damage there but as I've mentioned in a previous message a few days later people were still holding onto it even though they had to stand on the street. In most cases vehicles would stop when a 747 takes off anyways so it's hardly inconvenient for them to wait while people are getting jetblasted.
Traffic on the island wasn't great but if you lower your expectations it should be fine. We found that taking the Cupecoy/Marigot route can sometimes be better, especially when there are bridge issues. Traffic in Philipsburgh was not good either.
Election signs all over the dutch side (including Saba since its part of the dutch antilles). They had a massive rally just before the bridge in Simpson Bay. Traffic that night was at a standstill. Instead of taxiing back to Maho we walked past the rally then caught a bus. Actually saved more time.
TTOL meet on Apr 13 - we are so sorry that we didn't make it guys!! It was our last night there and we ended up with too many last minute to do's before leaving. We heard it went well.
UNITY CAR RENTAL - We rented a Mustang convertible from Michael. Great guy, great service. Highly recommend Unity Car Rental for your rental needs. Also rented from him last year.
Overall -
St Maarten still intrigues me very much and I keep getting drawn back there. We are planning to go back in 2 years and get married there. I proposed to my fiance on Happy Bay on this trip.
TTOL - Thanks very much as usual for being around, this is the #1 place for info on SXM and I salute the individuals that run this website.
Albert & Rachel
Vancouver, B.C.
