After all the drama with testing, etc., our trip down was relatively drama-free. We were up at 3 AM, drove 3.5 hours to Miami and left the car at Miami Park and Fly, which is highly recommended. Cost was around $10 a day for covered parking. You pull up, leave the keys in the car, get your bags out and head to the shuttle to the airport. They give you a claim check that you hand to the bus driver upon your return, so that your car is waiting for you at the bus stop. Last time, the pickup service at the airport was extremely prompt. . Hopefully it will be this time also.
You get an email from AA to check in online, but you can't do so, because they supposedly have to look at your EHAS stuff. This wasn't a big deal for us. BUT that's a reason to not do the real cheap seats on AA because you don't have an assigned seat until you check in, when you book those cheap seats.
We arrived at MIA at 7:30, for a 10:30 flight. Overkill, as it turned out, but I personally would rather get there way early than to be rushing around like OJ.. It took about 45 minutes to clear the HUGE line for assistance. They checked our passports TWICE in line, but when we arrived at the counter, the lady asked only "do you have your Covid stuff". Eric flashed a stack of papers at her, and she didn't even look at them. Security was pretty quick, and we were actually at the gate at like 8:45.
We got a sandwich and a salad there to eat on the plane and eventually boarded a totally full plane. Supposedly the flight was overbooked, according to an email we got a couple of days before, wanting to know if our plans were flexible. I guess they got some people to change, as they were not asking for volunteers at the gate.
Thank goodness we arrived early in SXM, as we arrived just in front of FOUR other big planes, Air France from Charles de Gaulle, AA from Charlotte, Delta from Atlanta, and Jet Blue from Ft Lauderdale are all scheduled to land within a half hour of the AA from Miami. We were very happy to see only a Jet Blue and a United on the ground. AA had a ramp to deplane from the FRONT of the plane, but of course we were at the back of the plane. We were parked a pretty good distance from the airport, so used the bus. We were almost the last ones on the bus, and thus among the first off, so we were almost at the beginning of the immigration line, which went very quickly. The lady at the immigration counter looked fairly closely at our EHAS form, and took one look a the Sint Maarten immigration form that they had us fill out on the plane, and threw it to the side with a disgusted look.. Well, no sh*t, the questions on that form are EXACTLY the same ones on the EHAS pre-clearance form.. Whatever.. We actually cleared immigration so quickly, we had to wait for our bag, but we were soon out the door, by around 1:45 PM.
We were picked up by AAA, our ride for the week, to their place in Beacon Hill for paperwork, and drove up to Beachside Villas by 2 PM.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.traveltalkonline.com/gallery/40/full/8724.jpg)
The electric was off when we arrived, but clicked back on before we even had unloaded our mini-cooler and dumped our bags and put some stuff in the safe.
We headed out to Carrefour by Mark's for supplies and got pretty much everything we needed, except enough wine, as we had planned to go to Super U the next day. The only wrinkle of the day was stopping by Captain D's for some food for an early dinner. It is more kind of a sit-down restaurant now, not the pick up and go place it used to be. They lost our first order and it took forever, but eventually we headed out with food. $15 for a half chicken with WONDERFUL scalloped potatoes, some OK slaw, and some frozen french fries, which were a 0 on the French Fry scale.
It had been somewhat raining ever since we landed, but we sat outside and ate our dinner, watched TV for a bit and in bed by 8 PM. Thus endeth the first day.
FRIDAY
Those who know me know that I am NOT a morning person. SO happy to be here again, I suppose, I actually got up at 5 AM, which I believe is probably the only time I have ever done so voluntarily.
As fate would have it, the only sunrise I will ever see in SXM was a bust, cloudy.. Ah well. I had some cheese and crackers early and waited for Eric to awake.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.traveltalkonline.com/gallery/40/medium/8725.jpg)
Once Eric got up and we had some breakfast, we headed out to Super U for some wine, and some wine glasses and a couple other things. One of the few things I HATE about BSV is the 'jelly-jar' wineglasses they have, which are an insult to drink even cheap wine out of! Usually we go to Ace and pick up some glasses, where you can buy them by the stem for around $2-$3 each. This time we just bought 6 kind of tall wine glasses at Super U for $10 which double as champagne (for mimosa of course!!), and as wine glasses.
Shopping all done, we headed back to BSV, for burgers on the grill for lunch
![[Linked Image]](http://www.traveltalkonline.com/gallery/40/full/8732.jpg)
We enjoyed just watching the water for hours
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, and eventually steak and baked potatoes for dinner. And another early trip to bed. Thus endeth the second day.
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