We arrived on November 29th and Thrifty Car rental had our car waiting. We had reserved the car two months in advance and paid about $600 for two weeks.
We picked up our rental phone from Sharon with no problem. We always pickup a rental phone just incase there is an emergency; car breakdown, car accident, medical emergency, etc.
Picked-up some groceries from Market Garden, arrived on Sunday and the Grand Marches were closed. We then went to do our real shopping on Monday. The Grand Marche in Cole Bay has changed it’s name.
We stayed at the Simpson Bay Resort and the check-in went very smoothly, which could have been because we checked-in on Sunday instead of Saturday. We stay in the B unit in a renovated room. We lost power quit a few days and nights. The power was out over the whole Dutch side for several hours on several days. Nothing like taking a cold shower early in the morning.
Spent most of our days at Orient beach watching sand gravity and reading four books. Rented the chairs/umbrella for the week from Club O and paid $120. The weekly rental worked out real well as they also gave us 11 days of parking which normally would have been $5 a day. The weather was great, only had one day that actually was rained out. Orient has lost a lot of beach. We sat right near the Perch and there was really only room for one row of chairs. The one benefit of the narrow beach is that there is not a lot of room for the cruise ship gawkers.
We went to Grand Case for dinner five times and had five wonderful meals; twice at Piazza Pascal, twice at Spiga, and once at Ocean 82. At Spiga we had meals starting with the ravioli appetizer filled with spiny lobster, sweet peas and mascarpone, in a saffron cream sauce and for the entrée we had chicken wrapped in prosciutto and filled with provolone, in a cream sauce. At Piazza Pascal we always have their bruchetta which is the best we have ever tasted. We also had an entrée of ravioli stuffed with lobster and crab meat in a vodka tomato sauce and we also tried the sautéed chicken in garlic and parmesan cheese and spinach sauce on penne pasta. Both were spectacular. We also eat at Ocean 82 and had a great ceasar salad and an entrée of sea bass in a cream sauce A great meal and a great view looking out over the bay.
We eat dinner at Pineapple Pete’s twice, Skip Jacks and Taco Macho once each and the Buccaneer Beach Bar (BBB) four times. As usual we had good meals at all four places. I still think that the BBB has the best burgers and ribs on the island, just my opinion.
We eat breakfast at Zee Best every day and Tricia. Collen, and Naomi served us every day. They made us feel like family.
We spent most of our nights at the Hollywood Casino watching lights blink and wheels spin.
New things we found during the visit;
1. Found a coupon book called the “Meg A Coupon Book” which offered a lot of buy one and get 50% of the second meal ( must arrive before 6:00 PM) at places like Pineapple Pete, Skip Jacks, and Topper’s. It also has other discount specials at places like izi, Taco Macho, Grand Marche, Love of Thai, Bon Appetit, LaRosa, Tutta Pasta, Zee Best, Sint Martin Yacht Club, The Hideaway, Pizza galley, Sushitto, Harbour Queen, Charter House, and Red Piano. We will diffinitely look for this when we arrive next year. We found it in the lobby at Skip Jacks; and
2. Never knew you could go to the Grand Marche and buy sandwiches for $3 each. We went to the bakery department and had them make ham and cheese sandwiches, on French bread, and they were only $3 apiece; and
3. Global Entry is great-If you haven’t already signed-up for Global entry, you should, as it really helps getting through customs and TSA security.
Already counting the days until our 2016 trip.
.
