Arrived last night, staying in a townhouse behind Kakao. The West Jet flight almost full, 3 empty seats, lucky us, the middle seat was empty.
Dinner at Little Italy, food was OK. However the server and the bill both said TIP not included - didn't like that practice - will wait and see what the other Orient resto's say on their bills
Walked the beach - the 8 new builds - hmmm - appears only Aloha and Sun Beach have propane hooked up and both were working before 8 fixing up. Aloha, most northerly [blue] has roofed over their deck and added a bar unit. Sun Beach - red - next door to the south - is using the sail as originally shown, but seems farther along inside, Further south Adam and Eve has roofed their deck and look close to opening
Kontiki has pushed as far south as they can - maybe even too far
Too bad as enough beach in front for lots of beach chairs
Those concrete "stalls" beside the bath house - just for garbage
More to come

J&B

Hi. Thanks for the update! Any chance you could post some pictures?

I took some pics, but not yet post literate
J&B

Hi. If you want to email them to me, at the email address in my profile, I can try to get them posted. If you send them to me, please send as an attachment, not imbedded in the email, if possible.

You can be assured a 15% "service charge" (also known as a tip) was included in the menu prices. I find it best to never ask about this as I have only found one place on the French side that was ever honest about it.

Thanks for the update and enjoy your trip!

Hi Carol. I don't know if you are on FB or not, but there are so many pictures on different "pages" every day of the progress on Orient as well as other "happenings" on the island. That's where I usually get my "fix" for pictures.

No, I am NOT on Facebook and many others here are not either.

OK Carol. Just wanted to pass along some helpful information, as you said you wanted pictures and there are many, many pictures posted everyday from locals as well as visitors. There are many SXM pages/SXM Groups on FB. A lot of helpful information as well as many beautiful pictures and trip reports. There is also a lot more information on the progress of Orient as well as a lot of helpful information regarding the island.

And none of that information is available to those not on Facebook.

We never went to Little Italy. But when we were there 2 weeks ago there was none of that "tips not included" stuff on any restaurant including Le Piment, Cote Plages, La Voile Blanche and Le P'tit Bistro.

Bernd <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Carol, don't you think your response was a little snippy? I do....just saying.

Not to speak for Carol but not everyone is on facebook and the world does not revolve around facebook or any other social media site. Sadly, some people assume that everyone is on facebook.

As JD said, many people assume that everyone is on Facebook, which is not at all the case..

Chicki, that's where I get my picture fix too! There are plenty of places to catch up on news on SXM. Someday, it may be easier to post pics on TTOL and then we'll see more here! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

Hi five to Ruralcarrier and Carol. A lot of us have our yearbooks and not into Facebook

It's really pretty easy to post pictures now, so long as the picture is already on the net somewhere. OR!!! you can upload the picture to the TTOL St Martin photo gallery and then post the picture, using the IMAGE tag. Very easy..

Thanks Carol, will have to try that! It's a pain to put a photo in Photobucket and then re-size and post it in the forum!

All you have to do to post in the photo forum is to make it smaller, which is VERY easy to do, by emailing it to yourself. I think the size in Outlook is 'medium', and then upload to the photo forum.

Both Traveltalk and Facebook are excellent SXM resources. But Traveltalk will always be my favorite !!!

Good Morning -March can't come soon enough for us ---If you want an update on island activities checkout this blog.

https://sahlmanartblog.wordpress.com/

I AM on FB and I can't find any of the groups with pix of the OB progress. Can someone please recommend some groups? Thanks!

Most are "closed" groups and you have to be added by their administrators.

Perhaps someone can private message you information.

Hi Jamie. I'll look and let you know in a few. Don't know if they're closed or not. There are so many pictures of the progress as well as many beautiful pics of the island in general.