This was our 6th trip in 18 years, and 4 years since our last trip of June 2001. The island looks great – very green from recent rain and generally cleaner and tidier than we recalled from our last trip. Traffic on the island was never a problem, except for the one trip we took into Phillipsburg – absolute grid-lock and minimal parking. I can’t imagine how it gets in the high season. All-in-all, we had a wonderful time on St. Martin and will be back. For us, St. Martin is the gold-standard for Caribbean destinations. We had good weather, great food, met lots of neat people on the island and created some new friendships – what more can you ask for?
Transportation:
Used United FF miles to book flights from PHX to SXM, via PHL – primarily on USAir. Everything was on time, but I have to say that USAir is not my favorite airline given the minimal legroom, worn out seats, $5 headsets, and unhappy flight attendants. We over-nighted at the airport Marriott in PHL both directions (using points, of course), which made the trip from PHX much easier. The Marriott is connected to Terminal B via a covered walkway and has a nice bar and restaurant.
We carried on our bags for the flight to SXM, and were through immigration and in our Tropicana-Tropical rental car within 30 minutes of landing. Mickey put us in a standard issue car (ie: light colored and pre-dented) and sent us off to the office to do the paper work. We stopped at the Royal Palm on the way and picked up a cell phone from Sharon which proved helpful throughout the trip. Then off to Ram’s for the basics (beer, wine, gin, cheese, etc.) and on to Dawn Beach.
On our way out, we decided to check our bags so we didn’t have to lug them around all day. We headed to the airport at around noon (for a 4:05pm flight) and it took us all of 15 minutes to check our bags, get our boarding passes, and pay our departure fee. We then headed to SSBB for lunch and a couple of brews before returning to the airport at 3pm to go through security and roast in the waiting area. Saturday is NOT the day to leave SXM; in the future, we will consider mid-week flights…
Accommodations:
For the first week, we stayed at the Oyster Bay Beach Resort on Dawn Beach via an Interval International time-share swap. We had requested an ocean-front unit (based on recommendations from fellow TTOL-ers) and were not disappointed. We opted not to pay for the air-conditioning and never regretted it. OBBR is one of the best time-share swaps we’ve experienced. The lounge at OBBR is very nice and we enjoyed many an evening night-cap with the bartender Marco, while watching music videos on the big-screen.
We had a terrific view of St. Barths from our balcony and sipped our evening cocktails listening to the surf and enjoying the ocean breeze. We got up early one morning and watched the sun rise through our bedroom door - fantastic and we didn’t even have to get out of bed <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Cool.gif" alt="" />. We did have one issue with water leaking through the bathroom ceiling and onto the counter (dousing everything on it, of course). We were on the first floor of a 3 floor building and management kept telling us it must be the people above us, but the leak events were perfectly synchronized with rain showers, so you be the judge <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Blush.gif" alt="" />. Anyways, we just shifted most of our toiletries to the other bathroom and it wasn’t a problem.
For the second week, we rented a villa in Terres Basses through Jennifer’s Vacation Villas. The villa is on a cliff and has an incredible 180 degree view including Baie Rouge, Marigot, and Anguilla. This was our second stay at the same villa, which we absolutely love for its privacy, comfort, location, and view. We had one minor hick-up with the villa which Jennifer’s took take of immediately; but otherwise, an absolutely perfect week.
Weather:
The weather was the weirdest it’s ever been for us, but never really impacted our plans in a big way. We had several mostly-cloudy days the first week and got chased off the beach a couple of times, forcing us to go out to lunch or wait out the rain at a bar or something <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drinking.gif" alt="" />. Toward the end of the first week, the sun came out in force! The temperature and humidity went up and stayed up for most of the remainder of our trip. The improving weather conditions brought with it an increase in bug activity, but it was never really too bad.
Beaches:
We spent time on Orient, Dawn, Guana, and Friars the first week. We’re too cheap to do the chair and umbrella thing very often, and are typically content to plunk our towels down on the sand and chill out for the day – read a book, have a beer or two, cool off in the ocean, etc. Having said that, Orient is becoming less appealing to us over time owing to all the noise, construction, aggressive merchandising, etc. In my mind, Orient has become a little too successful, but the beauty of St. Martin is that there are lots of beaches to choose from and there’s something for everyone.
The second week found us at Rouge, Plum, Long, and Cupecoy. Baie Rouge continues to be our favorite on the island, followed closely by Cupecoy (not much sand this trip), and Plum (for the sunsets).
Food:
We had kitchen facilities for both weeks and took advantage of them for many meals, particularly breakfast and lunch. We didn’t bring any fancy clothes with us, so meals out were restricted to casual venues:
• Beau Beau’s – we had 2 very good dinners there and especially liked their ribs and Caribbean chicken. We also got to know the bartender Tony and enjoyed our conversations with him.
• Turtle Pier – ate lunch there during a rainy spell. Perfectly fine, but nothing to write home about.
• Mr. Busby’s – very good dinner, with our feet in the sand. I had their steak special which was very good. Cheryl had the shrimp, also quite good.
• Captain Oliver’s – expensive and pretty darned average.
• Le Fregate – very nice light meal of a mussels appetizer, a pizza for two, and a bottle of wine.
• Barefoot Café – decent, inexpensive breakfast; walking distance from OBBR.
• SSBB – enjoyed their Monday lunch special of $1 Heinekens and ½ price burgers.
• Kissing Fish – phenomenal breakfast. Chloe and Thierry are delightful people to be with and their banana pancakes are not to be missed. They also know how to make proper scrambled eggs (not the overcooked and dry version found at most restaurants).
• Boathouse – the menu is a bit limited, but dinner was pretty good.
• Bananas – excellent dinner of shrimp scampi for Cheryl and tuna (rare) for Bob. If you like garlic, Bananas is the place. The tuna was of very high quality and nicely prepared.
• Chez Raymond – Rib plate lunch w/very good ribs and excellent sides (rice, salad, potatoes).
Miscellany:
• Anguilla – took a day trip to Anguilla to re-visit Shoal Bay East and Uncle Ernie. The island looks great and appears to be prospering. Shoal Bay has built up a little bit, but is still absolutely beautiful. Hopefully the Anguillans will continue to manage their growth very carefully and retain the easy-going and comfortably quiet pace of the island.
• Geocaching* – Headed off in search of the Kissing Cache at around happy-hour time on Monday the 23rd (full moon evening) since we knew from the cache logs that it was near a bar <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/busted.gif" alt="" />. Our trusty GPS guided us to the Kissing Fish Bar and Grill, where the cache owner’s father and Thierry were in the process of painting the cache box bright green – needless to say it wasn’t too hard to find. We ended up spending the evening with Chloe and Thierry and a bunch of wild and crazy people and had a blast.
We had a wonderful 2 weeks and will, of course, be back. We don’t go to St. Martin every year, but certainly do count all of our trips there amongst the most enjoyable.
* - Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches (typically a waterproof container that is hidden – legally and with permission) all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. Check out
www.geocaching.com 
.
