After the AA debacle in DAY on Sunday, missing my connection and staying overnight in CLT, I finally arrived Monday afternoon. Met a couple of friends while waiting for the rental car (SAX) shuttle, got the rental and onto the Atrium to meet Bill and Mary (mort). Had a few beers (after several scotches on the first-class upgrade from AA for screwing me over) and met my long-time taxi friend, Junior Bruney, for dinner at Mark's Place. They were busy and good as always. Mussels, mahi and shrimp pasta along with garlic bread were the choices with a couple bottles of wine made for a very nice meal. Mussels and pasta leftovers that were consumed yesterday.

Tuesday, I stopped by Horny Toad for a short visit, got the tires checked at SAX as a light was on and then into town for some jewelry repair. Two ships in port and it was pretty dead. Very little foot traffic and pretty much just repeat customer of the jewelry stores providing what little business there was. For those who know Max and AJ, formerly of Caribbean Gems, they have started their own store. Diamonds and Design is the name, I visited them for a bit, along with the usual stop at Caribbean Gems and House of Jewels. As I said, not much going on in town.

A little down time at Atrium and then Greenhouse for HH with Bill and Mort. They were mildly busy, then off to Chesterfield's for dinner with Max. Chesterfields was very busy, lots of reservations and walk-in and totally full when we left. Coconut shrimp (the best I have ever had) appetizer and Coquille St. Jacques appetizer made my meal while Max had the Scallop dinner. All was very good, reasonable and good service.

Drove back to Simpson Bay in hopes of making a couple of stops but every place I went had no parking, was full and a total shock compared to the previous day here. I parked at Atrium, walked to Lee's and could not even get a seat at the bar. Glad to see the business was good for the places I went by.

Weather has been very windy, some rain showers and clouds but warm. It beats 32 degrees and flooding back home.

WIFI here at Atrium is spotty and non-existent until yesterday in the late morning. I am able to use my Spectrum phone on wifi calling (when we have wife) and otherwise their international rates are supposedly between 2 cents and 7 cents per minute. I also still have a SXM cell with a lot of time as the last time I was here was when Covid hit and I loaded extra minutes on as I knew I might need them. If this Spectrum international plans works as advertised, it will be what I use if I make any more trips down here. That will ONLY happen when the mask mandate for flying is dropped, all testing dropped, all entry approval dropped and I have a better choice out of DAY than one AA flight with a 42 minute connection window.

Today will either be a beach day or possibly a last-minute day sail on No.1 SXM, if they can still get me on. As of last night, they could. Woke up to a heavy rain during the night, some wind and it is clearing now as I type this on the balcony of the Atrium penthouse.

I am trying to extend my stay by a day or two due to losing a day (Thanks AA!) but the current price of my return on Delta is substantially more than what I paid.

Thanks to Carol and pat for checking in on my travel dilemma and offering help and others who did the same. I was at the mercy of the ineptness and incompetency of AA management and maintenance and pretty much stuck with it. It was the biggest $hitshow of a travel day I have ever experienced and the pilot from DAY to CLT admitted as much. He was brought on after the first crew timed out after 2+ hours of "waiting on paperwork and fuel. Once I am back home, there will be a very scathing letter written to AA about the situation but I will also mention in a positive manner the one agent in DAY who seemed to care and the senior flight attendant from CLT to SXM who did the best she could do to make up for the fiasco from the previous day. Mechanical issues are one thing but another 3-4 hour total delay is inexcusable.

Thanks.

Glad you finally made it JD! I'll get with you soon on dates we can get together.

Kick all that bad juju to the curb for now!! Life is good! You're "home"!!! About AA, IMHO, they just don't give two sh*ts about what goes on with there service. As along as people buy there tickets, they will continue to treat customers like crap! If they were the last carrier to fly anywhere, I'd wait it out for JB or Delta!! Glad you are safe on the island! Kick back, let sand gravity do it's thing!! How about that SAX service!!! OHHYEAH!

So far, SAX has been good. First time renting from them. Their rep was not there but another rap called and he came within 5 minutes. They were aware of my delayed arrival as I had emailed them. The car is decent but they really pushed the "insurance'. We will see how it goes on the return.

A couple of other tidbits, AA did not want to give me my checked luggage in CLT, as I was told they would do by the DAY agent. NO WAY was I going to trust AA with my bag overnight and getting it to SXM. Too many lies during the day. Got stuck for a few minutes on the elevator at the CLT hotel, not a fun few minutes. JB is not close to me unless I went to drive 4 or so hours. When you do not live near a major city airport or hub, your choices are very limited. In my case it is AA or Delta.

Off for a 1/2 day sail on the No 1 SXM.

I'm glad you finally arrived. Hope you are able to extend your trip eventually.

There is no excuse for what happened in Dayton on the way down. However, for future trips, I think you may want to ditch Dayton altogether. I know it is so convenient to your house, but if something goes wrong, you have zero options to fix it the same day. Perhaps drive to Cincinnati or Columbus and spend the night and leave your car at a hotel there for your stay in SXM?

You're already long gone I guess, but hope you have a good sail.

Glad you made, I was wondering. We certainly hope all the mask and testing is magically gone by our trip end of April as it seems like nothing but a wasteful stress Inducement process with iith little value added.

Liliana

Glad you finally made it to SXM. Enjoy the rest of your stay.

Glad to hear you finally made it J.D.! Relax and enjoy!!

Do enjoy your trip.

Glad everything worked out in the end and your trip is off to a good start.