We have been going to SXM for apx 20 years and it seems electric outages have been more often in the past year or so. On the French side it seems to be rare to loose power but on the Dutch side it happens a lot. We normally stay at Mary's Boon in the Simpson Bay area which is a small hotel and it has a fairly new big generator which kicks in within a few sec which powers the entire hotel as do most of the bigger hotels so we really never notice any power issues. Also when the power goes off so can cable TV which even if the power is not effect in your area. Anyhow...just one of the things we take for granted in the USA that this small island in the middle of the ocean deals with. Small price to be in Paradise as far as I'm concerned! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/toast.gif" alt="" />