SXM Trip Report
November 10 - 16, 2010

We headed out to SXM on November 10th out of Denver, changed planes in DFW and then on to Miami. Spent the night in the MIA Hotel in the terminal. Again, nice room and really convenient. Caught the late morning flight the next day from MIA into SXM. All flights were on time and we had no hassles. Clearing customs was quick and easy as we were the only large plane to land at that time of day so there was no line at all at customs.

Marius of St Louis Car Rental met us at PJIA as usual and we were off and on our way to Orient Beach. We’ve always used Marius and he’s NEVER disappointed us in any way - I recommend St Louis Car Rental.

Arrived at Palm Court about 4 PM and checked in. This was our first time staying a Palm Court. Our “normal” hotel is L’Hoste but they were totally booked up with a group and we couldn’t get a reservation there which was disappointing. However, our stay at Palm Court was excellent. The room was clean, spacious and had a nice king-size bed - the room layout is very similar to the layout at L’Hoste). Check in went smoothly and we were up in our room in no time at all. All of the employees at Palm Court were courteous and friendly. The breakfasts out around the pool in the mornings were good and the service was also quite good (and again, very friendly). I’ve read various reports about Palm Court - some good and some bad. All I can say here is that we were VERY pleased with our stay and I would definitely stay there again.

Sand gravity set in almost immediately and we only left the Orient Village area twice. We had pizzas from Tap Five and ate at Safari Grill - both were very good. We bumped into some old friends the first morning (whom we were very surprised to see) and made some new ones. Lunch each day was at Andy and Cheryl’s. We were not disappointed - Cheryl was her usual gracious self and Andy was - well, just “Andy” - you gotta‘ love the guy. It was good to see Adrian and Ross again. We stopped by to say “hello” to Luis.

We had dinner one evening at the Sunset Café at the Grand Case Beach Club. We’ve eaten there numerous times and have always been pleased. This time was no exception. I won’t go into the details of the food here but it was wonderfully prepared, beautifully presented and the price was quite reasonable. The service was excellent. While there, we met John and Cindy, the lovely couple who own Tijon, the perfume shop across from Spiga in Grand Case. We had attempted to stop by a couple of times before during other SXM trips but never found them to be open. They invited us to stop by the next day between 6 and 8 PM. They have a lovely boutique. Joan decided to go ahead and take the short class and develop her own fragrance. It was quite a unique experience and we both found it to be a lot of fun. Joan named her creation “Jonee” and is very pleased with it. I never realized there were so many different fragrances to select from. A drop here and there with the different formulas and the entire overall fragrance changes. Ladies, put this one on your “bucket list” - it’s a GREAT experience.

Travel Woes <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/hammer.gif" alt="" />

We left Palm Court at about 1:00 PM on November 16 to drive to PJIA to catch our flight over to Tortola to meet our friends on their sailboat for a couple of weeks of sailing the BVI’s and USVI’s. Our scheduled, prepaid WinAir flight out was to depart SXM at 4:10 PM that afternoon. We dropped the car off to Marius at about 2:00 PM. When we arrived at the WinAir counter, the agent looks at our reservations and tells us that we are late for our flight because it left at 12:30 PM. I begged to differ with her and showed her our reservations. She then tells us that the our flight was for the following day. I again disagreed and pointed out the date on our reservation. She then told us that the 4:10 PM flight had been cancelled that day and that we had been notified by e-mail of the cancellation. I asked her WHEN were we notified. Turns our the e-mail was sent to us that same day at about 12:50 PM after we had already left Palm Court for the airport (BTW, Palm Court has free WiFi in each room). So after much additional hassling back and forth, the WinAir agent agreed to try and get us on a Liat flight out which didn’t leave until 8:00 PM that night - which they finally managed to do. What a great way to spend our afternoon - six hours in the PJIA airport. Suffice it to say we were NOT very happy with WinAir so be warned about how they handle things. Bad experience. At least we did manage to get to Tortola that same night, albeit a lot later than we had planned.

We spent sixteen wonderful days sailing and returned home on December 2 to a lot of snow on the ground and cold temperatures. But we got the skis out the next day and headed to the slopes at Copper Mountain and had a GREAT first day of the season skiing.

Another GREAT trip to SXM (and the BVI’s and USVI’s).

Jerry & Joan <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/circle.gif" alt="" />