Up early for the drive to O'Hare. We were able to get a great price on the non-stop from ORD-SXM. Parking at Avistar. Great price of less than $60 for the 8 days by choosing the prepaid option on their website. The flight was full!! No empties anywhere that I could see except possibly 1st class.

The flight landed a couple of minutes early and we were off to meet Lesley Bruce for our rental car and a phone we had reserved from Sharon Harris. After a bit of waiting, we were off to LaPlage. Smooth check in process and a great room on the 2nd floor on the hotel side just as we had asked. Ms. Lucy Smith in the reservations department had exchanged our street side RCI assignment for this one. Very comfortable place. I wanted it on this side as you have shade on the balcony for most of the day. Great place to wake up w/coffee in the morning & cocktails before dinner in the evening without being cooked by the sun. The view of the gardens, pool, beach, etc. was relaxing. Thanks Lucy!!!

Cindy was off to the pool & I went out for supplies. Market Garden was my choice as it was still early afternoon & I knew they would have everything I wanted. We normally do most breakfasts in the room. It's just an easy way to start the day. We did have one at the Tortuga Cafe on the grounds at LaPlage and another at Zee Best in Simpson Bay. Both were excellent. An early pizza at Soprano's and a trip to Casino Royale topped off the evening. The pizza was quite good.

A day by day rundown isn't appropriate for this trip as we did very little except relax.

Lunches were mostly out. Mark's Place was great. Our first time there and certainly not our last. Sunset Bar & Grill was good as always. Tortuga was pretty good and very handy. The Palms Grill @ Sonesta Maho was overpriced and just OK.

Dinners varied from barely OK to very good. Soprano's falls in both categories. Our 1st evening pizza was very good with service to match. A second visit (due to the 1st and it's proximity) was awful. Marinara that appeared to be crushed tomatoes out of a can w/no seasoning and chicken parmesan that could have come from the grocery freezer section. Poor service. We had to ask for the bread that is supposed to come with the meal. Waiter came back only to deliver the bill after I asked him twice. There were lots of service people and only 5 tables of diners. Not on our short list any more. Pizza Pasta performed well as always. Not outstanding, just very good and fairly priced with comparable service. A very competent place. Pineapple Pete's provided a good meal w/better than average service. The guitar player was excellent. Light jazz at just the right volume level for conversation. Our first trip to Bavaria was a hit and it will be on the must have list next trip. The schnitzel was excellent. So was our server. Izi again provided the best meal of the trip. The people on this board who compared this place to Olive Garden must have the best one in the world near them that also makes homemade pasta. Our dinners and service were memorable. Especially the limoncello and dessert. My only complaint is that the portions are so large that it is hard to have a dessert. My entree was so good that I wanted to eat all of it right then and not take any home. My homemade tortellini amatriciana and her gnocci with cream sauce were excellent. Our last meal was at the Rancho in Simpson Bay to take in the Flamenco show along with dinner. We split the "Carnivore Special". 2 pieces of 2 different cuts of steak, 2 pieces of BBQ chicken, 2 pork rib sections, and 2 sausages. Great meal and a very entertaining floor show. We normally try to go there on Saturday for the latin band and dancers but were too tired the first night so this was a pleasant experience.

As far as activities, we really did very little. A day at Le Galion beach was lots of fun and a bit of shopping for booze & cosmetics in Phillipsburg. We had a hard time dragging ourselves from the pool and beach at LaPlage. It served our needs so well that if we can stay there again, we will probably not rent a car for the entire week but just a few days. I know that there are lots of things to do on the island but total relaxation takes precedence in our vacations. If we had 2 weeks, we would probably do more running around to other beaches, the zoo, butterfly farm, historical sites, and maybe even an excursion to Anguilla or another island.

I had some pretty serious problems with getting my home and wireless voicemail while on the island. AT&T kept locking me out from remote retrieval of those messages and my e-mail. I am in the process of actively searching for a better job and really needed to be in touch with that information. What a hassle!! I spent hours trying to repair broken passwords and logins. We missed the TTOL party at the Summit and the BBQ at LaPlage as I was on the internet for quite a few hours on both evenings live chatting with tech support to get these connectivity issues resolved. Unbelievably, they appear to have finally resolved themselves upon returning home. I now have ready access to everything again. We have never had these kinds of connectivity issues while on SXM and I hope we never have them again. What a damper they threw on my attitude!!

Our return trip had a couple of hiccups. Flight was delayed by 30 minutes, we spent 45 minutes boarding and then sat on the approach waiting for takeoff for quite some time in an exceptionally crowded plane that had little to no air conditioning. What a steambath!! The pilot must have put the "pedal to the metal" as we only arrived in Chicago an hour late. Pick up from parking went without a hitch but they forgot to pull my car so we had another few minutes wait before heading north for home.