Trip Report 11/16 – 12/5 Todd and MJ
Probably would rate this as our best trip yet, still not perfect so we will keep going back until we get it right! MJ and I get to this island and we relax, like many of you it is like going to our other home. We really enjoy the November crowd that migrates south this time of year, and we also always look forward to seeing our resident island friends. The list seems to be growing, and we are thankful for that. This was by far our most social trip but we still found time to find space away to relax and just be. I am confident I failed on the spelling of some names and places but that is just the way it goes.
Best of the best – I will start with the “Best of our trip” notes just to make sure they are highlighted.
White Flag – This is on top of the building on the corner of Billy Folly Rd and Welfare Rd, above the grocery and Burger King. It is the floor above Prive. This place is simply fantastic, Natalie takes the time and care to bring in quality ingredients to make her food and drinks. It is Tapa’s style and from 5pm to 8pm there is always a deal either on drinks or appetizers or both. The Martini’s are 9oz and only about $10, and are very very good. This place was our new find highlight of our trip and makes a short list of places I can promise we will be back to several times per trip.
Dream Pool Bar as well as Marty’s Gyro – The Dream Pool Bar at Caravanserai is a great place to hang out as well as watch the sunset. Marty is a great host and a lot of fun, he keep things lively. Basic cocktails with some food, although we never had any of the food there. While if you are staying at Caravanserai as we were it is a no brainer that you will go there, but I know MJ and I will be back even if staying somewhere else. Marty’s Gyro on the other hand we did eat there and the food was excellent. With “Gyro” in the name it never pulled me in, and after going I do not remember Gyro’s on the menu but what we did have was very good. Medium priced food that is a value, MJ had fish and I had the Kalua Pork which is alone worth the trip. Try this place if you have not, right next door to Toppers. Do not let the “gyro” portion of the name stop you.
Shop and Drop Grocery – Jeannie does a great job with this service, first we have used it but it will not be the last. After getting back late from Saba to the Atrium it was nice to have some wine and beer as well as other food and snacks there. We have never minded shopping but now that we have done I am sure we will start all our trips having Jeannie get us started. I was really nice. We also did the Murder Mystery that she put on, way out of my normal comfort zone but we had a ball and again Jeannie did a great job of putting this together.
I will list some of our other favorites below, places we have reviewed before. The above new places that we visited I felt deserved a bit of the headlines.
Travel – MJ worked in the Columbia SC area so she drove down to Charlotte to fly direct, I flew AA from PDX. Second time we did not travel together down, first time not flying together back. The only issue was coming back via Miami I seemed to be the chosen one that Customs decided to hassle and search. I had the time for my connector so it was not a big deal but I sure got hassled and questioned about not flying with my wife. First time I have ever been hassled, and yes they went through all my luggage.
Lodging – First two nights were spent at Casa de Miller, which included a hotel shuttle as well as a DD for our trip home from Red Piano the night before we left for Saba. I would tell you more about this place but honestly we were so drunk and hung over when we left the place that we hardly remember it other than the hosts were absolutely fantastic. Will get to Saba and a brief report on Saba after the other places we stayed.
Atrium – We got room 401 which is updated. The unit has a view from directly above the Greenhouse with a wrap around deck that would go to the Billy Folly Road side. The staff at the Atrium and the security in the evening is one of our favorite things about this place. We very much enjoyed our stay here.
Caravanserai – I own week 49 in a studio here but were not able to stay for that week so we let some friends use that week and since we wanted to try the place we rented from Jackie at
www.caribbeanweeks.com . I have to say she really went above and beyond getting us a great unit, we ended up with C400 which is on the end towards the ocean with a fantastic view. We had 5 sliding doors out to the deck that wrapped around. We enjoyed our stay at Caravanserai very much, and while the place does have some almost surprising issues, not one was major. The staff was great and having the Dream Pool Bar and Marty there really adds to the place.
Azure – Last two nights, nice to be on the beach and while I do not see us staying much longer than a couple days at this place the price is right and you are literally right on the beach.
Saba – One night – Queens Garden. We took the first flight out in the morning, and thanks to our host and wake up call we made the flight after we were all but held hostage at the Red Piano until after 1am where we were forced to drink, sing and dance for our release. We arrived Saba and took a cab to Queens Garden where we were greeted by the Hotel Manager and after a quick check in we were given the room the Queen used while there. I will post pictures, but the room is an entire floor with a view that is fantastic. The service at the hotel is top notch, all the little things such as bringing little bowls of ice cream to you while sitting by the pool makes the place what it is. Pat gets the credit for suggesting this place, we considered other places but for one night we wanted a nice place. We took the last flight out back to SXM so we had a second full day there.
Upon arrival at Saba, we decided that we should go ahead and climb Mount Scenery. We decided rather than take a cab to the trail start we would go right from our place. It was a goat trail that was steep enough that we decided at one point that it was too steep to go back down so we continued until it met up with the main trail. The main trail consisted of about 1000 steps, which when you say it you think that is nice, we will have steps. Well, they are larger than normal steps and with some of the construction putting in conduit to run cables from the top down some of it was also slick due to mud. It was a trek, up and back down took us about 4.5 hours. The steps coming down when you legs are tired is probably the worst part of the trip. We came down a different way, pretty much one of the main routes down which ends by the Eco Lodge. Luckily as we were walking towards town from the trail end we ran into our Irish Cab driver Michael again and he picked us up and took us back to our hotel.
We later had Michael pick us back up and we went to the Eco Lodge for dinner where you have to walk in using flash lights to see the path. It was not a long walk, but could not imagine without a flashlight. Dinner was excellent there, as was desert and we had a nice conversation with the Pedersons from Booby Hill that were dining there that evening. The next morning we stayed at the hotel, relaxing by the pool where we enjoyed the service of the hotel. We will go back to Saba, it is very clean and the people are very nice and welcoming. We look forward to going back for a bit longer the next trip, all goes down to so much to see and so little time.
Rental Car – Unity, as usual for us. Same great service, all went excellent, never a hitch.
Cell Phone – Sharon – Long live the Queen. Very nice to have to communicate with our island friends.
Traffic – I have for years heard people complain about the traffic, I for one have never had an issue with it so I dismissed all the reports of bad traffic due to the construction as if somehow I would again avoid it. Nope, it was indeed horrible. We changed a lot of what we were going to do based on the problem traffic, of course we made the best of our trip but we certainly had to adjust like we never have in the past.
Food and Beaches – Noting the traffic, we still hit many of our favorites.
We have a short list of places I can pretty much guarantee that we will visit as well as visit several times per trip. We do try to find new places, but some just pull us back time after time, places that are so comfortable to us that they really make our trip. White Flag is the newest on this list, Marty’s and his Dream Pool Bar are on the edge of the list. We will have to see if it holds true on our next trip but I think it is likely we will spend several days with Marty again.
Places already on our short list:Lal’s –I am a fan and we made a few trips there this trip. Great as always.
Karakter – We had a day there with slower service but…all in all it was great each and every day we spent there. Good food, drinks and one of our favorite beaches. Still the best beach bar on the Dutch side. Other than MJ’s fish she had one day I think the appetizers are the best things on their menu. All excellent.
Dany’s – Cupecoy – Beyond basic, you get ribs or chicken with salad and some of the best Rum Punch on island as well as cold beer. We spent several days at the far end of the beach in the pools of water on the beach side of the rocks. It does not get much more relaxing than hanging at Cupecoy. We also were lucky enough to make preseason Lemon Drop Gang ceremonies and became part of the gang. I will say that Cupecoy has some of the nicest people on island, each trip we go more and more to this beach. Dany is a quality person, smooth, and “smooth is always in season”.
We stopped by the Ocean Club for breakfast twice on our way to Cupecoy and for the $9 or so it is a good deal and includes coffee. We are early risers and usually have breakfast in our room but it was nice to do this a couple days.
Other places we tried not on our short list but likely to go back to.
Kakao – First time spending time there, Georgia hooked us in and we really like it. It was nice going with Georgia and David because we got “hanging with Celebrity” treatment there. It is always good hanging with celebrities. I had one of the better steaks I have had on island here for lunch, and when asked for rare I got it perfectly rare.
Palm Beach – We enjoy the music as well as the food and drink here. Also probably the most comfortable beach chairs on island. I had a flank steak here that was folded over cheese that was the best meal at the table. Their menu seems to have gotten smaller but still good.
Red Piano – We have gone before, but never had the fun we had this trip. Much of it was the company of great people like Elaine and Bill, Annie, David and Georgia, David and Elizabeth, Marvin and Sue, and many other friends that we ran into there. We had the Gomez Brothers playing during this time and we enjoyed it, a few trips to see them and enjoyed each one.
Baie Rouge – We sat near Chez Raymond this time, normally we have gone to the area near Gus but tried something new. Beach was nice, sand soft, minimal waves, food was good. One of the prettiest beaches and for some reason we do not go here enough.
We were going to go to Happy Bay but on our way in I felt uncomfortable for some reason, just a chill I suppose. While I do not scare easy I felt like it was best not to continue and with that gut feeling we turned around and left. No good explanation other than gut feeling. Oh well, this ended up being the day we went to Baie Rouge.
Shopping – Only went to Front street once, mostly due to the bad traffic. Did my damage at
Gulmohars and did a bit of a visit with
Deepti at DK.
I Love My Island Dog – We had a great evening at the fund raiser, I did pretty well in the raffle, probably a lot to do with having a lot of tickets. Much better event this year and I would bet the next year will even be better. Ursula does a great job with this foundation, Bikini did a great job of being the host site. Proud to be a supporter of this cause.
Regrets, we wish we could have spent more time with more people. Only real solution is to spend more time on island which we will continue to work at. I am close to scheduling our next trip, probably will be arriving April 14th for two weeks. That puts us at about 120 days until we return.
As I already stated, it was a great trip and we really enjoyed our island people. We actually came in a couple days early to make sure we saw a couple before they left and are happy we did. Hardly need an excuse to spend a few extra days, but always nice to come up with one.
Take care all and we look forward to seeing you on an upcoming trip.
Cheers,
Todd and MJ
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