TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin TRIP REPORT WEEK 1

Mario's new restaurant at the Cliff's is very, very nice. Virus rules at the casio take all the fun out of it. Vodka is good.

Well, that was succinct!

What do you mean about the casino rules? I have been wondering what casinos are like in the pandemic..

Rules are no sitting at the bar(which is where I spend my time when my wife gambles) No smoking(which I do only when we come down here) If you have a cocktail you have to remask between sips or drink it under your mask. Most importantly, there are very few people. That goes for the whole island...I'd say the resorts are about 10%. We came down on the AA flight from CLT and there were only 6 people on the plane.

No smoking in the casino would be a LOVELY change, to me. What is happening at the tables? Are there glass screens between the players? How do they handle roulette, with people touching chips, stacking them on top of each other, etc? What about cards? Do they sanitize the cards??

I am frankly shocked that they flew a plane with 6 people on it..

I am shocked too. They supposedly are losing money even if the plane is full, but to fly with only 6 pax? Unless the return flight from SXM to CLT was full and they needed the aircraft to get those passengers back.

Yes, I was thinking they could just combine it with the Miami flight, and then I remembered that the Miami flight is earlier now, which to me is totally STUPID, but hey, what do I know? The Miami flight has always been around 11 am to 12, 12:30, which allows for connections from other places. Now it's like 10:30, and connections from other places become a lot more problematic.

The plane was the Miami flight...that's why they had to fly inbound with only six people.

OK, I was confused, thought it was a nonstop from Charlotte. That's even worse, that there were only 6 people from Miami. Like I said, that flight is now too early...

Carol. i don't get what you are referring to. I am scheduled for the MIA to SXM in two weeks. It departs at 11:17. Bout the same time it has been for years now?

Sorry for the confusion. We were on the nonstop from CLT to SXM with six people on board. The plane was flying from here to Miami which is why they had to get the equipment here. I think AA knew that this flight was going to have a very lite load. I booked first class tickets for 20k points and we were the ony people in first. When they boarded they announced on the pa sytem Mr. and Mrs xxxxx, you can board now. I'm a 3 million miler and never had anything like that happen.

Ed--respectfully--NO. JET BLUE has been doing that morning flight for several years. Pre Irma, AA flights were always later.