We went to the islands to celebrate our 25th anniversary.
I spent about a year planning this trip so it would go off without a hitch…, oh yeah I forgot about timeshares and airlines, it seems that they have their own agendas and no matter how much up front leg work I did they had it in their mindset that no one should have a perfect trip…..that being said, we had a BLAST this year and are ready to return as soon as possible.

Flights….to the island went smooth as silk. KC to Dallas for an overnight and then early departure for Miami and on to SXM. Everything was either on time or…ready for this early. American seemed to get that they had screwed up over the last month with their maintenance problems and everyone was fantastic, even a bit over nice…if there is such a thing. This would change on the way home and things were back to normal in a big way.

On the way home …..seems as if the late American Eagle flight from San Juan didn’t make it in from the night before so there was no outbound flight for the 7AM folks. We stood in queue for close to 90 minutes and when we got to the ticketing agent she said that they had routed us on US Air thru Philly but after standing in Queue for quite some time at US Air they said not so….flight full. All worked out and we made the flight and got home about 8 hours late and without our large bag which had our dive equipment in it. This was eventually found and returned to us as well….

Anguilla was our first stop for three fantastic days. I told the hotel we would be there around 5 PM on our Wednesday travel day. Got off the plane, still had the old down the stairs and across the tarmac entry….I so love the smell of warm tropical air mixed with a bit of jet fuel to welcome us back to the islands. Made a quick trip thru immigration grabbed our bags and a taxi and headed off to Marigot. Hopped the ferry and next stop was Blowing Point Anguilla, then cabbie dropped us at the Allamanda at 4:58 PM. We slid into the office a whopping two minutes ahead of my ETA. Rob and Mary are now on vacation!!!!!!!

Our room at the Allamanda was great, and just a short walk down the path to Gwen’s Reggae Beach bar….the world wide hub of relaxation and great beach bar food. We dropped in to see Gwen and the gang just as they were closing. I talked them into a couple of rum punches and we headed out to soak our tootsies in the surf and watch the sun set on our travel day.

From here I will shorten my post in order to save everyone’s eyeballs and I would hate to be accused of posting the cure for insomnia.

Anguilla was fantastic we ate at Gwens a few times, also Zara’s for a very nice dinner at what I thought was a reasonable Anguilla price…$120 for the two of us…drinks, appetizer, main course and deserts. Also ate at Johno’s on Road Bay. Visited Anguilla rums Ltd. Made my annual purchase of bottled Ambrosia but was disappointed that they no longer allow pictures in the bottling facility. We rented a car and drove the island. This was the first time I had driven a right hand drive car and it was a lot of fun. Visited the Silly Cay area and even the beach at Junks Hole. The find of the stay was a little bakery in the Silly Cay area, Bon Pain….wow fantastic pastries!!!! We also both snorkeled and dove with Shoal Bay scuba. This was a professional outfit and enjoyed them very much. Anguilla is growing up on the West end much like Dutch ST Maarten but the East end is as quiet as we remembered.

We then headed for ST Maarten and checked into our timeshare. Had some issues with the timeshare that pretty much ruined the first couple of days…got it all worked out and didn’t look back from there.

Beaches
We spent time on Rouge, Orient at La String as well as at Club O and also Cupecoy.
I swore I would give Cupecoy another shot….We did and I wont go back till construction is done. Just not a comfortable feeling at all. There used to be lots of folks there but the day we went we were one of two couples until about lunch time which was when way too many of the construction workers broke for lunch and began hanging around on the cliffs above…

Dining out,
We hit Halsey’s, Mark’s place, Toppers and Peg Leg.
Had reservations to end our stay with dinner at Stone but they were mysteriously closed on the Thursday and Friday nights before we left so if they are still in business maybe next year.

Had dinner with several TTOL folks celebrating their anniversary the week we were there and was a great time.

Security
I have always been a bit cautious but this time I must say I saw more Gendarmes and Dutch police presence than all of our trips in the past combined. Hopefully their more public presence will help curb the crimes on island.

We had some friends on island with us for 4 days and then met some great new friends as we were much more social this year than in the past.

We are already starting to make plans for our return next year.