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Jan 5th, 2026
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Returning in June and a note of appreciation
wabid
6 hours ago
Finished ironing out most the details for a 2 week stay at SBR in June. (Leslie, we will be in contact soon  ) . After a long absence we are now on a two year cycle for visits and now that life is becoming more "relaxing" we hope to visit more and more....
With that in mind I want to express my appreciation to everyone who manages and contributes to this forum. I don't contribute much but I have learned to love the trip reports and advice over the years. Because of you we avoid being fish out of water when we arrive.
Also special shout out to Whaletail this last few weeks. As a fellow SBR visitor your trip reports are very helpful and fun.
All that said, don't get your hopes up with my trip reports. They tend to be boring: Woke up, drank coffee on deck, watched boats, headed to beach, snorkeled, rested, snorkeled more, migrated to pool, rum punch, made supper, bed, rinse, repeat. JK. we do get out, but we really enjoy the down time.
So with that. Thanks everyone!!! And, I hope to get a few good reports filed in June. 
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Trip Report 1
Teresasxm
7 hours ago
The 2 a.m. alarm was nasty.
However, with our annual St. Maarten trip about to begin, we were out the door pretty quick and walked right into a mix of freezing rain, ice pellets, snow, and high winds. We live in Toronto and this winter has been a mean one. The high winds and freezing rain had slicked the highway up like a shiny skating rink and at -9 degrees Celsius, the snow had started to fall. Our car went from sliding down the highway in a blizzard to bursting through large snowdrifts in sections because the plows hadn’t come yet. We drove in icy silence as we white-knuckled it towards the airport. Thank goodness we made it safely and were soon on our 6:30a.m. flight direct to SXM.
One of the best things about getting up so early is that we landed at 11:15a.m. with the entire day ahead of us. We picked up our car from Triple A and checked into paradise for two weeks at Mary’s Boon. We really love it here with its character, charm and beach front units that are only 23 steps to the beach. The next few days were spent enjoying sand gravity, chilling out, swimming, watching airplanes and being boring. We’re usually very active during the day driving from beach to beach, picnicking on the sand and at night going out for lovely dinners but with a lot going on at home with work and renovations, we were exhausted. The restaurant at Mary’s Boon was quite frankly, perfect for our first two days. The first night we dined in the Bar with the waves of Simpson Bay crashing right in front of us and the next night some friends came over and we dined in the restaurant, also right next to the waves. Highlights for us were the mahi-mahi in a lemon butter sauce, a tasty Thai curry, clams and mussels in a garlic cream sauce and a Fettuccine Alfredo that put my husband into a garlicky, cheesy food coma. Their wine list was more than adequate, and we had lots of leftovers for lunch. The food was two thumbs up!
It was extremely windy and little stormy the first few days of our vacation. I’ve been following the weather and realized what we were experiencing was quite lovely compared to the solid days of rain that others had experienced. We were happy when the wind slowed down a bit but then the sargassum arrived in Simpson’s Bay and rolled in with its stinky brown carpet clogging up the shoreline. So far, it’s been manageable and nowhere near what they are experiencing in Cul De Sac on the French side, so no complaints from us.
Pre-Carnival events have started in St. Maarten and Friday night we went to the Causeway Jump Up. Starting off in Simpson Bay, the three gigantic, double decker semis loaded with DJs and bands thumped and bumped their way down the road followed by lots of excited young islanders. We joined the fun near the airport and walked the entire length of the Causeway not once but twice to get back to our car. There were lots of police around and we felt safe as we walked and danced our way through the streets. Afterwards we stopped off for ice cream at Dinghy Dock and called it a night.
We spent a day at Maho near Driftwood people and plane watching. We had stopped at Zee Best for a French Rosette Sandwich (butter, mustard, French salami, lettuce, tomato, red onion with little cornichons) amazing! We also chose a ham and cheese sandwich that was equally decked out plus two almond croissants for dessert. What a feast. All afternoon we bounced around in the waves, cautiously took in some sun and watched the big jets glide over the beach. We finished up at Tortuga’s for their happy hour. We decided on two pina coladas and they were outstanding, carefully made by master mixologist Marco who topped them off with Italian maraschino cherries that apparently cost $24USD for a small jar. As far as I’m concerned, they were worth every penny that the bar paid for them, and we were so glad Marco decided to share with us!
The sunsets have been beautiful so far, and so has this trip. You couldn’t wipe the grins off our faces if you tried right now. Out of all the people that love TTOL and St. Maarten, we’re sure you understand and have had similar moments over the years when you sigh, smile, and say, “I’m so happy to be back in our Caribbean home”.
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Arrival and Day 1
StMartinFan
9 hours ago
Flight in on Sun Country from MSP went smoothly, and for some reason the security person at the airport randomly diverted the 3 of us from the long regular line to the nearly empty one for crews and residents. A great start to the trip!
Picked up our car from Lesley Bruce and headed to Divi only to get stopped at the end of the runway by a massive traffic jam. Inched our way down Welfare Road, often just sitting for long periods. The usual 15 minute drive took us nearly 2 hours! Later learned there had been a fatal accident when a scooter hit a parked bus, so that plus rush hour traffic at 5 had created the bottleneck.
Dinner at Divi with a surprisingly good experience at Gizmos, with fast service and two well made salads. Not usually a fan of food or service at Divi but they got good marks this time.
Sunday beach time with a small amount of seaweed along the Divi beach and some in the water. Not pleasant for swimming. When we drove out for dinner, we saw a large mass of seaweed had accumulated in Great Bay along side the road out of Divi. Nice dinner at Mark's Place, as always. Never been there on Sunday night before and realized it's a good time because the grocery store is closed.
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Sargassum Update Simpson Bay
Whale Tail
21 hours ago
I looked out at the Bay earlier today with my binoculars and the bay looked like people have been busy cleaning it up. Except along the airport stretch where nobody cleans it up
Then we came home from Rendezvous and went out to the balcony to check out the neighborhood and then we saw it!!!!
No longer are there streamers going by. But instead there are huge and I mean really huge mats of it just off shore to the south approaching Simpson Bay. Where it will go I don't know but I'll check in the morning. It doesn't look good.
The pictures might not represent what I saw but it is there.
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Rendezvous Last Visit This Trip
Whale Tail
Yesterday at 11:38 PM
Well it was a good one!! We met up with WWll also known as Warren a long time visitor to the island and we gained the knowledge of his years visiting. I think that he enjoyed himself as he was singing along and I don't think that he has ever been to the Rendezvous brunch. And Warren you shouldn't have not done that and next time it will be our treat, thank you. Warren did not know how to attach pictures to his posts and I think that I have him straightened out on doing that. Post away Warren. Then we had a nice lady that came over to our table to meet us as she saw my Whale Tail necklace and wanted to meet us, kind of embarrassing. She has been a member of TTOL since 2013 and has a total of 2 posts. Very nice to meet you.
The band was awesome as usual but was missing Ronnie Santana this week as he wasn't feeling well. Whatever bug is going around down here is still around. We had friends come in from Halifax last week and 3 out of 5 got it and they were only here for 1 week.
WendyK was present as always and was having a good time dancing, always good to see her. We also thanked the owner of Rendezvous Nathalie for looking after our reservations and changes every year we come. We book months in advance and she is in a picture with the 2 horn players with their arms up.
Rendezvous has a new menu for the Sunday Brunch which is scaled down from their new menu that I posted maybe a couple of months ago. I think that with the expanded seating and limited staff they could not keep up with a large variety of food orders and my sliders are no longer on the Brunch menu. D*m!!
But I figure that during the week you would get the full menu. We just had an order of wings and fries to share and they were dry crunchy and big.
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Day 3 and 4
eilandmens
Yesterday at 09:32 PM
Contential breakfast for 2 on patio. $10/person includes orange juice, coffee, yogurt, butter, jelly, 2 pain au chocolat, 4 mini croissants.. very good and served to room. Went to Orient lots of sarragasum but the breeze was great. We did not find 14mph breeze sandblasting. It was cooling. Relaxing day. Wine, complimentary for our stay (repeat customers )on porch. Later we went to Rancho del Sol for dinner. A first for us,made reservations online, ( all in French). My wife taught French so we were cool. Menu online is French with no English translation. My wife came through again.we had Jack Daniels on the rocks, a very generous pour for both of us. I had flank steak with “smashed” potatoes; she was not hungry and had an app -roasted oysters, (never heard of it) not oysters Rockefeller, but oysters roasted in oven. She liked them. I recommend the place.
Next day going to timeshare on KimSha beach. Traffic not too bad on a Saturday. Check in about 2:30pm.went to Carol’s favorite place Garden Market for supplies. Gin and tonic on patio. Then walk to BBB for dinner. Walked on Welfare road to avoid beach which is dicey since Roxy left. Buccaneer Beach Bar was crowded. It was our fave night reggae night. A fun night. The food was disappointing though. Had better there in recent past. Hamburger over done, fries ok, same with my wife’s Maui Maui burger overcooked. Reggae night was fun however. Love that music. January our food was great.
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