We just got back yesterday from our first trip to St. Martin. I am a part-time travel agent, specializing in group travel to “all-inclusive” resorts. My wife and I have traveled extensively to “all-inclusive” resorts in Mexico and throughout the Caribbean. This trip was for our 30th anniversary, so we wanted to try something different. We choose St. Martin primarily based on reading the postings on this and other websites. St. Martin seemed to have everything we were looking for, and we were not disappointed. I want to thank you all for helping to make our trip a complete success.
Although they are not a sponsor of this website, we rented our car through St. Louis car rental. We wanted to rent a car, cell phone, beach chairs, and umbrella. St. Louis offered all of that for one low price, all to be waiting for us at the airport. When we arrived, the car and cell phone were waiting, the chairs and umbrella were not. They assured us those items would be delivered to our villa in the morning. Since our villa was somewhat difficult to find, we did not see the chairs for a couple of days. Fortunately, we didn’t really need them until the last half of our trip anyway. Also, with the late delivery, they did not charge us for them. We were very satisfied with our experience with St. Louis, and don’t understand why more of the local car rental companies don’t offer cell phone and chairs. It sure makes it simple when you get them all from one place. Perhaps some TTOL sponsors should take a lesson.
We wanted a very private villa for part of our trip. The villa we selected, Villa Canoua was absolutely perfect. Canoua overlooks Happy Bay. It is only a two bedroom villa, which makes the price more reasonable, but was plenty large for the two of us. It has a very private pool and patio area with a fabulous view of Happy Bay, Anguilla, and the sunset. The owner met us at the villa, himself. It is obvious that he is meticulous about keeping this property first class. I believe it is about two years old, but looks brand new. Everything we needed was provided. He even followed up with a couple of phone calls, to make sure everything was ok for us. If a one or two bedroom villa will meet your needs, I HIGHLY recommend Canoua. It is fairly hard to get to, and the road is very rough getting back there. But, that just makes it more private.
Happy Bay was a very enjoyable little beach. It is not “hidden” or “undiscovered”. Early or late in the day, it was pretty empty. However, during the late morning to mid-afternoon hours, groups of boats or jet skis would “take over” the whole bay from time to time. The nice thing about staying so close was that we could time our visits to avoid these crowds. We really did enjoy those private times on Happy Bay Beach.
On Sunday, a large local contingent drove cars down to the beach, and had a big party/picnic. There is a road all the way down to Happy Bay that is part of the abandoned hotel. Shortly after you turn off the main road, onto the road to Friar’s Beach, there is a security gate for this hotel property. That gate was always closed and locked, except on Sunday, when the locals had their picnic.
We had noticed evidence of someone possibly living on the beach. A small ‘hut’ had been created back under the trees. On our last day, we saw the apparent resident stroll onto the beach. He looked like he was coming back from Friar’s. Since no one else was on the beach, it concerned us at first. However, the man never bothered us, or even came close to us.
For the last few days, we moved to Esmeralda. We hated to say goodbye to Canoua, but it was nice to be right on Orient. The resort was okay. Nothing spectacular, but clean, and fairly well maintained by Caribbean standards. We had gotten spoiled by having the pool at Canoua, so it was nice to have a pool close by at Esmeralda – though not as private, it is still nice after a day at the beach.
My wife is an avid walker, so she wanted to walk every morning. Most mornings we were on the beach by 5:30 or 6:00. Not very many walkers that early, but absolutely beautiful weather. Orient really is a beautiful beach, and offers something for just about everyone. As previously reported on this and other sites, the CO section at COCO was nowhere to be found. I don’t know if it is new or not, but there is a sign posted where you enter the COCO property from the Esmeralda property that indicates “string required”.
We brought our snorkel gear, and had some pretty good snorkeling experiences. Saw a large variety of fish off Happy Bay beach, Orient Beach – in front of Perch Bar, and off both sides of Pinel Island.
We ate several meals in our villa in order to meet our trip budget. We also ate twice at Talk of the Town, and once at Sky’s the Limit. I have seen several reports equally recommending both of these LoLo’s. In our opinion, Talk of the Town was far better. We really enjoyed taking their ribs back to the villa to watch the sunset on our patio dining table.
We had very enjoyable meals at Toppers, La California, La Main a la Pate, and Baywatch. One of my favorites was The Green House, because I had the jerk chicken wrap. It was the best jerk I have had outside of Jamaica. Our favorite meal, by far, was Tabba Khady. It is such a romantic setting. You feel like you are sitting around the pool in someone’s back yard. The food was fabulous. I had the pork mafe (peanut butter and tomato sauce – I know, it sounds weird but is really good). My wife had a cubed lamb dish that was also excellent. The presentation is very good as well. I don’t think you can go wrong there.
Other than some baggage problems caused by United Airlines, and delayed flights coming home, it was a fantastic trip. We will definitely add St Martin to our list of places to return. Thank you all again for your helpful input.
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