TravelTalkOnline Forums Trip Reports (Read Only) SXM Trip Reports and Photos SXM--first timers trip report

First of all, many thanks to everyone who helped us plan this trip. Your advice and suggestions were appreciated.<br>We left Chicago on 3/25 on American and connected through Miami. Everything went well, in fact we arrived 10 minutes early. Had reserved a car at Hertz through Mr.SXM. Car was ready and at the price quoted, took all of 10 minutes from signing contract to leaving the lot. Didn't see very many white cars(ours was gray). Stayed at Cap Caraibes, only got lost once trying to find the place. They were friendly and had our reservation ready. If you stay there you must try to get a room on the third floor, the view of the water is breathtaking. Slept every night with the sliding glass door open, listening to the ocean. Our alarm clock was the sun coming up over the ocean! Five minutes after check in we were on the beach and ten minutes later at club O. Won't bore you with too many details, weather was great the whole week(mid 80's very few clouds). Did Tiko Tiko on tuesday, what a great time!!! Met some fantastic people and we stayed in touch with each other the whole week. Ate at the Rainbow on monday, great view of sunset and excellent food. Ate at Testiven(sp) on wednesday, were dissapointed in food and service. Find of the week...L'Hibiscus, dinner here was probably the best we have ever had any where!!! Very highly recommend this restaurant if you haven't gone there yet. Great french food(they call it new style), great service in a cozy(10 table) restaurant.<br>Best part of trip was when we were suppose to leave and American could not get a pilot to fly our plane to San Juan in time to make connection and had to put us up for two days at their expense at the Maho. It was like a whole new vacation for us being on the Dutch side. Found out that we much prefer the French side. Finally got out on Sunday, and then got bumped at San Juan and had to spend the night at the Inter-Continental and flew out the next day(first class i might add) to Chicago. Wound up with three free extra days in paradise. This was going to be a short report, sorry, but everyday was a great day and we did so many great things that I had a hard time cutting some of them from the report. <br>What a great island, what great food, what a great time!<br><br><font size=+2 face="BrushScript BT">Please don't ever stop the carnival!</font face=brush><br><br>Paul<br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 4/13/01 04:30 PM.</EM></FONT></P>