trip report from this past week

just returned last night. great trip. travel down was excellent. no flight problems. headed to simpson bay resort to check in. a fiasco! rooms that were originally given to us were now changed. eventually things were sort of straightened out. my wife and i had a studio room in the lower B building. it was really nice. weather for whole week was outstanding. went to mullet bay most days. a couple days the surf was rough. the other days it was very calm. the Buccaneer Bar was great as always. took some first time travelers to Sunset
Beach bar so they could watch the planes take off and land. One night we ate at Jimbos. food was ok. service was good. Owner came over and spoke with us which i thought was nice. Tried Lee"s Roadside Grill. Good time there. Also tried the Pizza Galley. Did the shopping day in Phillupsburg. We went on a sunset cruise on th Lambada which was great. our flight home was another story. Supposed to depart SXM at 12:40 pm. US AIR/AMERICAN say they close doors 10 minutes prior to departure time. well 10 minutes AFTER the scheduled departure time the doors open and a family comes on then a US air crew member catching the flight comes aboard. We depart 30minutes late. in Charlotte we now have less than 1 hour to clear customs, get though security, and get to gate which happened to be the one farthest away. we had a group of 8 to get thru this . 3 of us had pre -check, the other 5 did not. thankfully our flight was the only one at customs. everyone got through quickly. none of us had checked luggage so we were off to security. the 3 of us who had pre-check got thru in a flash. the other 5 not so fast. we ran to gate and told the agents that more were coming. They said "we are closing doors in 8 minutes" . i called and relayed message. the rest of the group got to the gate with 2 minutes to spare..My wife was pissed! She told them that in St. Maarten they held doors open after the 10 minute time and that why couldn't that be done here? They just said thats not how we do things here. Anyways we are home so i guess it could have been worse. Can't wait for next year!

Tough that the final leg of your vacation went that poorly. I'm sure you'll soon forget that and remember all the great times you had on the island.

Thanks for the report and that we soon get some competition for USAir and American.

Glad you had a good time. As for your return flights - you can't really have it both ways right? You were ticked that they held the flight for people who were late getting on at SXM but pissed that they *didn't* hold the flight for *you* when you were late (which would have potentially made someone else late for *their* connection).

I do agree that they should try to be consistent, but when you have people on the ground making a judgement call, and caught between being accommodating and a cascading disruption, it's tough.

Glad it worked out in the end.

i sort of agree up to a point. If they didn't hold the flight at the place of origin *SXM*, we would have made the connection on time with no problem. Since the flight from Charlotte to Hartford was one where Hatford was the final destination, no one would be missing a connecting flight. Again, all's well that ends well.