ok, here goes! definitely some likes and dislikes...........kenny and I drove across alligator alley on friday the 9th and got a room at the wyndham so leaving early sat. morning would be no big deal. oh, how wrong we were!!! our room was nicely situation between I 95 and 2 family reunions, literally no sleep, but who cares, tomorrow we're off!!! left lauderdale on time on AA into SJ. picked up luggage and changed to CS airline to deposit luggage - 1st lesson - will only fly non-stop from now on. We were delayed at SJ for 2.5 hours. our friends, peg & john are waiting at sxm to pick us up. luckily, i told peg if anything happens meet us at SSBB. they checked back and viola, we're here!!! off to Royal Palm, great hotel, great room, great view. very satisfied. so far not meeting too many smiling (friendly island) faces....but, hey maybe they're tired of tourtists. anyway, that nite Peg leg and the BEST dinner. drinks, steaks, lobster.....very good meal. sunday chilled at the hotel beach, although it's the bay, the beach is very nice. we then spent the rest of the day sucking down cocktails at the pool bar. good time & lots of laughs....still not too many happy "friendly island" faces......maybe they hate their jobs? rode up to grand case to check out the gourmet restaurants and decided on L'auberge Gourmond (sp?) Ok, without wanting to get beatup over this, the four of us had the WORST possible meal. we were soooo disappointed. the only explanation we came up with was that the refrigeration had broken. My pork tenderloin and Peg's filet tasted ranscit. The taste of meat that had soured....yech. oh well, not to be deterred, we opened a bottle of champagne and off to an italian joint across the street for dessert. Yummy! Monday we went to Orient Beach. pretty beach. We acted like school children when we saw people el' natural.......must be our boston uptight blue blood rearing.....what a riot! we were expecting supermodels, don't ask why, we were very surprised. Baywatch for lunch.......not impressed at all. shrimp were in beer batter....so if you like shrimp donuts, they were great! peggy had the same and got nauseated, why cover those lovely shrimp in so much batter? burger & ribs both ok, nothing to write home about. Tuesday Pinel, GREAT TIME! snorkeled, had champagne with lunch on the beach, does it get any better? that nite we were all in the mood for italian. got a tip that mama mia was very good, so off to Maho. Wow, we loved Maho! although mama mia was closed, as well as a few others, we really took to Maho. We had dinner at La Rosa Too (excellent by the way, great food & service), went to the show at Cheri's and then to Royal Casino to try our luck. Kenny won $300.00 - I won $200.00 and Peg and John left with $147.50. not to shabby ey? Don't remember wednesday........Thursday it was rainy so we went to phillipsburg (oh before i forget, we did hit phillipsburg earlier in the week to see Deepti, she was busy with customers so her brother waited on us. I was in the market for a diamond bangle and he showed me, my husband and peg & john some. I decided on one and the price was quite good, so after all is said and done, the price changed. he had made a mistake in quoting us (on 3 separate occasions mind you) and the bangle was now one thousand more dollars than quoted. sorry, didn't feel real good about this mistake and decided to shop around)) we had lunch at Toula Mangos. John's Mahi was not fresh. My Cuban sandwich was missing all ingredients except the pork. Peg's steak sandwich was good and kenny's hamburger was ok. so much for toula's........Banana's had prime rib on special one nite, so we checked it out. Neither Kenny or John or Peg believed that it was truly prime rib. I'm not sure what that means, but they were not thrilled. I had the grilled lobster. It's was good and there was plently of it. One nite we had dinner AGAIN at Peg Leg's (by the way it is my best friend peggy's nickname) What an awesome evening. The owner Jack and his wife were there. They are the nicest people we met on the entire trip. Their staff is happy and so nice. He is a truly gracious host and she is so sweet (sorry, i forgot her name). He advised us to try Laguna for dinner sometime. We did. Laguna was very hot inside (uncomfortably so) our meals were ok, Peg & John had alfredo, which was dry and could have used some more sauce. On friday we took the Edge to St. Bart. OH MY GOD!!!! now the captain informed us that it is always "a bit bumpy" but this day was particularly bad........10 foot seas.....Wow what a ride. lots of sick people, but our foursome stood tough! a few times the boat came completely out of the water and slammed down. WILD. the water was coming into the windows and Peg & I were getting completely soaked. Rented a car in Gustuvia and off to St. John's and Nikki Beach. By far, the most beautiful day. The entire restaurant is draped in white billowing fabric with sofas and large pillows. Wonderful cabana's to relax in. I though either Mick Jagger or Madonna would come down the stairs any moment. the food was EXCELLENT, grilled lobster & lobster ravioli combo. we ate and drank like kings & queens. and got a bill just like them as well. hey who cares, we're on vacation! the boat ride back was smooth and that nite (our last) we went to Le' charlois (sp) in Maho. again, Excellent meal. filet mignon all around, champagne & great company. a great way to finish......one more trip to royal casino.....grabbed a few more bucks and back to royal palm. By sat. morning we were all pretty much ready to go home. Hey, partying like we did is hard work! get to sxm at 7:30 to find we're delayed until 11:30.....like i said, nothing but direct flights from now on. all in all the vacation was good. I didn't see the "overly friendly" people spoke of here, and the food was not as "outstanding" as we had thought, but all toll is was very nice. that's my story and i'm sticking to it........
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