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This is our trip report from our September 14 to 21, 2002 trip to St. Martin. We chose US Airways for the trip, booking around July, and got a voucher for an extra $60 off per person, when the price went down. Our flight left Washington National at 6 A.M., through Philly, then scheduled in to SXM at 12:15. We knew that Kevin NYC was coming in on an AA plane that was supposed to land 15 minutes before ours. We were a little early and were delighted, upon landing, to see that the AA plane was not there yet, so there was NObody in immigration. We had seats in the back of the plane and when they rolled out a stairway for the back of the plane, we were cooking with gas! We ran to the bus–which actually was nice this time, since it was pouring cats and dogs . First off the bus, and first in the immigration line off our plane. Only carry-on luggage, of course, so we were out of the airport, meeting up with Marius in the parking lot, grabbing our car and driving away in 10 minutes max. Cool!! BTW, car was the regular rice burner, not many dents, had GREAT a/c and great pickup (for a rice burner), and the pickup and dropoff service at the airport with Marius was GREAT! Thanks Marius.<br><br> We were driving away from the airport by 12:15 and we were beginning to not mind having gotten up at 3:00 A.M. any more. We have never gotten to SXM so early. We headed out to LaVista Beach, which was to be our hotel for the week. We had never stayed on the Dutch side before and enjoyed our stay at LaVista immensely. I’m not sure I would like staying someplace else that wasn’t quite so close to everything, but it was very nice in the evening coming home from the casino to not have to travel 30 minutes to get home. We still prefer the French side for Orient beach, but I could certainly see staying at LaVista again anyway.<br><br> We stayed in the new units at LaVista, LaVista Beach, which were just completed around December of last year. Everything in the rooms, pool, deck, etc has been completed for some time, but they are just now building a tiki bar on the beach, which will be a nice addition to the resort. We had a two bedroom unit, which was gorgeous! Rooms at LVB are similar to the older section–Caribbean in feel, not marble, etc., but clean, comfortable, colorful, restful. LVB has studios and two bedrooms, three floors, around 20 units altogether. All face full on to the ocean and have a lovely view of Saba. The two bedroom is set up great for two couples, as there are two full bathrooms–one for the master bedroom and one which opened to the hallway and also into the second bedroom, so that each couple could have their own bathroom. Standard amenities included refrigerator, microwave, TV’s in each bedroom and in the living room, with cable TV (for some things, it is kind of nice to stay on the Dutch side ) , VCR (tapes available in the office), clock radios in the bedrooms. There is a keyed safe, which costs $14 for the week. Each unit has a nice balcony or patio, with one chaise lounge and a table with four chairs, and a stairway going down to the beach from the balconies, with a lockable door. Parking was ample and close. <br><br> One thing that we enjoyed most about LVB was that, since it was such a small place, you got to know the other folks staying there. Since September is way low season, there were about 6 rooms occupied at LVB, it appeared. Almost every evening, we all kind of gathered around the pool, talked about our day, had drinks, and watched the sunset. It was very nice. The small size, great staff, and the family run business makes LVB a lovely place to stay.<br><br> We arrived at the resort around 12:20, checked in without any trouble, and picked up a nice note from ChrisMiss from TTOL, who had stayed at LVB the week before. We checked out our room and the refrigerator and appreciated the liquid refreshment left for us by Terri (LaVista Terri here) and admired the view. Well, we figured that we’d better get moving, and so we headed out to the grocery for essential supplies. Sorry, I still can’t find anyplace on SXM to match the cheeses at Match, so that’s where we went. No Pepsi at Match, of course, so we headed by Food Fair (by the bowling alley) and got Pepsi. BTW, Amigos Supermarket in Orleans, where we previously had found Pepsi, was closed, apparently for good. Supplies purchased, we came back to the room and received a phone call from Kevin NYC, inviting us over to the Belair for drinks, as we had planned from home. We went and checked out his 2 bedroom unit–GREAT balcony with view out over the beach. I could take that place also!! Nice unit, very comfortable, a little worn around the edges, but the view from the balcony was great! I am not sure I would like being that far from anywhere, but they are building a new road kind of over the mountain which I think will cut down transportation time to that area quite a bit. <br><br> Kevin was a great host–maybe too good of a one???? , but we decided that we needed to go get something to eat before long, or we would all just fall over in our drinks! We decided to try out the Texas Pit BBQ, since none of us had been there before. Eric and Kevin said that they thought their meal was pretty good. I will reserve judgment, as I wasn’t particularly hungry. We were headed home and decided to stop by Peg Leg Pub. Saw Sean there and thought we saw Moose, but he was limping??? Anyway, definitely time to go home to bed!!<br><br> Sunday morning I sent Eric down to The Village Baker for some most excellent chocolate croissant, which we enjoyed on our balcony at LVB. Thereafter, we headed to Orient, which was initially kind of cloudy but the weather improved later in the day. Lunch was a shared order of chicken, ribs and fries at Pedros, which came to something like $12, plus drinks, but was just the right amount of food for the two of us. No band, thank goodness, as I think they are just too LOUD. We left the beach early around 3, and went back to the room to shower and watched part of the late football games on TV. We went to Mezzanote for dinner (right next to the Boathouse). They were having a big beach party at Indiana’s and the bass could be heard quite clearly in the restaurant. I confess to being more than a little pleased when it started raining and the Indiana’s party broke up. Dinner was a very bland eggplant appetizer, an absolutely fabulous main course of pasta with sausage for Eric and an out of this world chicken in cream sauce for me and an (I swear!!) store-bought (awful) tiramisu. The main courses were absolutely fantastic and if the service had been better, we would definitely go back. However, the service was atrocious. Interestingly, we were asked by two different restauranteurs afterwards how we liked our meal. When we replied the food was good and the service was awful, they each responded that this was the general report on this restaurant. Also, a honeymoon couple staying at LVB reported almost exactly the same experience. The above meal, plus a bottle of wine and bottle of water, was $100. Doubt we will go back until we hear reports of better service.<br><br> After dinner we went to the Pelican (OK, OK, Hollywood Casino–can’t get used to calling it that!!! ) . We played for a long while, lost a little, and endured their horrible drink service. Headed to Tropicana, where the gambling gods treated us well again. <br> <br> Monday morning we had planned to go to Indiana’s for breakfast on the beach. Unfortunately we later learned from Neil that they were now closed for a month for maintenance, etc. Ah well. We headed over to Chesterfield’s and had a nice leisurely American breakfast – pancakes for me and omelette for Eric. Great coffee there, and a nice view of the Celebrity Millennium in port. <br><br> We had wanted to check out Mary’s Boon and so decided to just pop by and see if Dicky was around. Turns out, he was, which was good for us, as we had a very nice chat and he showed us around the place. I tell you, we were quite pleasantly surprised at the look of the place. There is a beautiful dining room with windows all round, right on the beach. The rooms upstairs which look out over the beach have amazing hand carved furniture and 4 poster beds. The kitchen and bathrooms have amazing, beautiful tilework. And along the back of the rooms, toward the ocean there is a fabulous shared balcony with chairs all along it, to enjoy the deserted beach there. There is a small pool with swim up bar, just lovely grounds also. We were MOST impressed with Mary’s Boon. I told Dicky that the pictures on their web site just don’t do the place justice...<br><br> From Mary’s Boon, we headed out to the Ocean Club and met with ocbill. He showed us around the Ocean Club, including the quiet central courtyard pool area with snack bar, which looked inviting. We also checked out the on site internet computer center, a nice touch for guests at the Ocean Club, and the stairway down to the ocean. Not sure I would want to climb that stairs after a hard day of pina coladas on the beach, but the view sure was wonderful! The resort is a quiet, comfy, nice place. <br><br> From there, we headed out to see Neil at Peg Leg Pub and talked about his new bar, Buccaneer Bar, which is to be right in front of the Atrium. The story is out now, so can report that Neil has sold Peg Leg. The new bar is supposed to be open around the end of November. There was nothing there yet when we were there, but guess just a regular beach bar won’t take too long to get together. Neil seemed to be looking forward to getting back to a regular old beach bar, somewhat like Sunset. He wasn’t sure that he could get an internet hook-up there, so no definite plans at this point for a web cam. [img]/images/icons2/sad.gif[/img] Apparently Sean is going to stay at Peg Leg. He’s a good man, and the food there is great, so we will be going back there!<br><br> Sounds like we had done a lot so far, but it’s only lunchtime, so we headed to Orient for lunch, at one of our favorites, Kakao. It’s sort of like a Grand Case restaurant, on Orient. Eric had chicken with various spices and I had the chicken and shrimp in curry sauce, which is out of this world! Great lunch, life is good, looking out at Orient, enjoying a lovely lunch! We were pleased to note that the waiter recognized us from prior trips.<br><br> We did some more driving around, including checking out the Divi (just from the outside) and Great Bay Beach Hotel. Wow, not sure I would go for GBBH, regardless of the price. [img]/images/icons2/sick.gif[/img]<br><br> We had made plans before leaving home to meet up with Ric (of Ric’s Café) at his house to help him with some computer problems, so we met he and Kathy at his house on Monday afternoon. The house was delightful, with a view that was out of this world! Basically unobstructed and no view of any other houses around, with a view of several islands. Wow! Of course, Eric did his computer guru thing (You know how it is, girls. There’s something wrong with the car and you can’t figure out what it is, screwing around with it for 2 hours. He comes in and in two minutes fixes it. Well, that kind of describes my life with Eric and computers. ARRGHH!) Anyway, that’s the way it was with Ric’s computer, five minutes and it’s all better. We had some lovely conversation with Ric and Kathy, enjoyed the lovely views, and headed back home. <br><br> We had made plans to meet with Kevin NYC at Ric’s Café for Monday Night Football. Ric has at least two big screen TV’s and a couple of other TV’s, so it’s a great place to watch a game. Any of you TTOL folks who want to plan a get-together for football, Ric’s is the place, as they have great drink service and appetizers. We had a great time with Kevin regardless, but the game STUNK! Or should I say, the REDSKINS stunk. We nonetheless enjoyed the hospitality at Ric’s, and in fact we stayed for the whole game, and they kind of had to pitch us out at the end, as we and Kevin were having a good time. We pulled out of the parking lot and noticed Kevin didn’t follow us. We went back to see what the trouble was, and found he couldn’t get the car started. Eric sat down in it and started it right away (don’t you just hate that???) and we sent Kevin on his way. We thought it was a problem with the alarm, but turned out to be the steering wheel being locked in place.<br><br> Tuesday morning we had a free continental breakfast at LaVista. Think maybe they do it every week, usually Monday though. Nice fruit and pastries, juice and coffee. Guess that’s where they do some selling, although timeshare sales are very low key at LaVista, one of the best things about the resort. We saw Terri also helping folks with planning where to go and what to do during their stay. Tuesday we hung around the pool at LVB and Kevin NYC came by to take a look at the resort. We had lunch at LaVista, all enjoying burgers and fries. Nice lunch. <br><br> Tuesday afternoon we met with Richard from the Today newspaper, who interviewed us for the paper, and then arranged our meeting with Lynne from the animal shelter. Lynne needed to be home to hopefully receive some calls about contributions for the shelter, so we went to her house to present her the check from TTOL members, along with some ink jet cartridges they had requested, and some dog toys, leashes, collars, etc., that we had brought along. Lynne was very appreciative of everyone’s generosity on TTOL and wished to thank everyone personally. We told her that we would convey her thanks on the BB.<br><br> We had not been to Grande Case for dinner yet, so planned to go Tuesday evening. We were surprised at how few restaurants were open. Perhaps there were others on down in either direction, but of the restaurants in the section from Bistrot Caraibes down to Hevea section of GC, we saw ONLY Bistrot Caraibes and L’Escapade open. We thought we had eaten at L’Escapade before, but unless they have redecorated inside, we thought after we got inside that it did not look familiar, so we’re not sure now. We will definitely be back though!! We sat down at a table away from the water and when a couple next to the water left, I asked to be moved to the water table. The waitress wasn’t happy, but she did it. I wasn’t hugely hungry, so decided to go with the French Onion soup and a scallops appetizer for my meal. The soup was wonderful, and the scallops were also. Five scallops for an appetizer, at $10. Great deal!! [img]/images/icons2/joy.gif[/img] Eric had an absolutely fabulous melted brie appetizer [img]/images/icons2/joy.gif[/img] [img]/images/icons2/joy.gif[/img] and a monkfish entre. Service was very slow, as the WHOLE restaurant was full–every table–the whole time we were there, but the food was outstanding. A $30 bottle of wine, plus a bottle of water and above meal, was $101. Great meal. <br><br> After dinner, we headed to Dolphin, where I proceeded to have the most fun of the whole week, winning $400 at blackjack. The drink service, as has been the case there lately, was horrible, but the experience otherwise was pretty good. [img]/images/icons2/wink.gif[/img] We couldn’t leave it there, of course, so headed to Tropicana, where we lost a little bit and were able to great drink service, as is normal there. <br><br> Wednesday morning I slept in late and Eric finally woke me at 10, telling me I was sleeping the day away! We got a note from the kind folks at LaVista that Bulldog had been looking for us and wanted to interview us for his radio show. Seems Peter, the owner (IN GERMANY!!) sent an email to Andrea, his daughter, there in St. Martin and said that Bulldog said he was looking for us and to call Bulldog to tell him where we were! [img]/images/icons2/grin.gif[/img] Anyway, we set up Friday morning to go on the radio and headed to the beach. Unfortunately, beach on Wednesday wasn’t to be, as the weather was crappy. It was pretty cloudy and absolutely not a BREATH of air. Our TTOL flag hung absolutely limp on the pole. It was sticky and hot, although we were somewhat glad it wasn’t full sun, with the lack of wind. A huge rainstorm came up, as we were all pretty much gathered at Papagayo’s. We had lunch with our friends James and Teera from TTOL. BTW, for those who know him from Baywatch, Carlos is now at Papagayo’s! Apparently he has been there since about July. Said he was going to give it about a year there. We tried to head back out to the beach in the afternoon, but a huge thunderstorm with LIGHTNING came up, and we decided we should leave! [img]/images/icons2/yikes.gif[/img] We had a tough time getting back to LVB, running through foot deep puddles in Dutch Quarter, but eventually made it “home”. The weather cleared off a little and Eric laid out by the pool, I on the balcony for the afternoon. <br><br> That evening, we weren’t super hungry so headed to Hot Tomatoes for dinner. We happened to be seated right by Dicky and some friends of his, out on the patio. We ordered the jalapeno poppers. Oh my GOD, they were hot!!!! They should have a warning label!! Had a pizza also, which was great. Good service, good food, nice view over the lagoon. We headed to the casino, lost a little money and home to sleep.<br><br> Thursday morning we had breakfast at Ric’s Café. I had great blueberry pancakes, Eric had the 2 eggs breakfast. Good food, fast, good service. What more could you want for breakfast?? <br><br> Generally, at least once on the trip we bring lunch to have on the beach. This time we brought cheese and grapes from our fridge and stopped at LeBounty in Grande Case for a rotisserie chicken and a bottle of wine. We were somewhat disappointed, by the way, that they don’t have any wine cold there, which seems kind of dumb, considering they have a lot of gourmet food items. BTW, if you don’t want to go to LeBounty and you’re in the Orient Beach area, there are a couple of other places you can get a rotisserie chicken. They have them at the restaurant at the top of the hill overlooking Orient, where it used to be a mexican restaurant and a hardware store at different times, can’t remember the name at the moment. They also have them in the store in the little shopping center on Orient, right behind L’Hoste area. Price seems to be about $8 for the chicken. Make sure that you have them whack it up for you a little. We bring plates and silverware, etc., although of course you don’t have to do that. <br><br> From LeBounty, we knew that we needed to replenish our supply of Ma Dou Dou, and to purchase some for a friend of Eric’s at work. (We’ve gotten her hooked on the stuff also, like some junkie!!) [img]/images/icons2/grin.gif[/img] We were lucky to find the “factory” open. A child who spoke no English came up, and then the lady came up, who speaks English. We asked for four large bottles of banana vanilla. She smiled and said “You’ve been here before”. [img]/images/icons2/grin.gif[/img] She produced our bottles and we were off! <br><br> Thursday, the weather wanted to make up for Wednesday being such a crappy day, I suppose, as it was perfect! So, this day, when the weather was absolutely as perfect as could be, with a very nice light breeze and not a cloud in the sky, we enjoyed our lunch on the beach. We pulled up another chaise lounge to spread out our food, etc., and had a lovely lunch. <br><br> Thursday evening was the TTOL party at the Greenhouse and Conan proved to be a great host! [img]/images/icons2/thumbsup.gif[/img]. Every night they have 2 for 1 drinks and half price appetizers from 4:30 to 7:00. Conan arranged so that we had that deal for the WHOLE evening, plus lobster at $13.95 a pound! With the half price appetizers and 2 for 1 drinks, this is a great place for a party! BTW, there is a parking lot on the left side of the road heading back toward the Greenhouse, past the Diamond Casino but before you get to the Greenhouse, which has plenty of parking. We had around 20 people show up, on and off, including several folks who live in SXM, and Barbara and Dicky. We had a great time and again KevinNYC, Dicky and Eric and I kind of closed down the bar, and toddled on home. Great party! We enjoyed it. Conan took a picture, but waited until half the people had already gone home! [img]/images/icons2/crazy.gif[/img]<br><br> Friday morning we were up early, to go on Bulldog’s show on Laser 101 at 8:30. We actually had a good time on the radio and stuck around there till probably 10:30. We met with another potential advertiser at a jewelry store, then finally it was time to head to the beach!! We were somewhat disappointed that Baywatch wasn’t open (A & S are in New York right now) and since Carlos is at Papagayo’s now, guess they couldn’t find someone else to take care of the restaurant for them. So, we didn’t want Pedro’s or Papagayo’s again, so I ended up sending Eric to Le Petit Pizzeria in Cul de Sac for pizza for lunch. Upon returning with the pizza, Eric got a strange look from one of the security guards at Club O, to which he responded “carry-out”!!! The guard laughed heartily! We offered to share it with him, but he declined, saying he had just eaten. BTW, if you like thin crust pizza, theirs are great, and cheap! <br><br> After a hard day’s work on the beach, we packed up most of our stuff and cleaned out the refrigerator before enjoying a final sunset on the pool deck at LVB, and then heading to Grande Case for dinner. We were very much hoping that Bistrot Caraibes would be open again and it was. In fact, it was packed, as we took their last table. The restaurant was full the whole time we were there. I enjoyed a blue cheese salad and the steak, Eric the lobster bisque and the veal scallopini and we shared a creme brulee, coffee, bottle of water and a Santa Rosa merlot. Dinner was $110, and wonderful, as always. Once again, our waiter recognized us, which is nice. After dinner, we headed to the casino for a while, losing some, then home to bed.<br><br> Saturday we debated about going to the airport early to check in, but the US Air agents don’t open till 10 AM and we figured that the check in wouldn’t be crowded anyway, so we just checked out of our hotel and went to Orient. We left the beach around 1:30, taking a shower at the Club O guard shack, and headed to the airport. Our flight was due to leave at 4:15. We arrived at 2 PM, met Marius to drop off the car, with no problems. No muss, no fuss! This is the way to rent a car! There were NO lines either at US Air counter or any of the other counters, for that matter. Check-in and departure tax paid, we had an hour and a half before we were supposed to board, so we headed to the restaurant upstairs. This is really a nice place to sit and relax and wait to leave. They have great food, service isn’t bad, and the view can’t be beat!! Eric had the spaghetti bolognese, I had the quiche lorraine. Around 3:30, we went down to the departure area and saw that poor KevinNYC was still there!! His plane was supposed to have left at 1:15 and they were just then calling them to board! Poor guy! I don’t know the whole story, but they sat on the ground in the plane for forever also, as they still had not taken off when we left, a few minutes early, around 4:00 P.M. No problems on the flight going home, EXCEPT for Philadelphia Airport, which pretends to call itself an international airport. I’m not sure how many international gates they have there, but we ALWAYS have to wait for a gate there. We arrived 40 minutes early, and guess what???? Had to wait on the plane for 40 minutes for an international gate. Frustrating, but we made our connection with no problems.<br><br> Great trip, as always, too short, as always! Let us know if you have any questions!<br> Carol & Eric<br>