we had a wonderful trip!! ..flew AA, no delays or problems, and were picked up by AAA car rental in sxm..few minutes of paperwork, and we were on our way. Little nervous at first driving in the traffic, etc, but within one day we felt pretty comfortable and got around without any problems. I traveled with my sister-in-law, and never felt uncomfortable or unsafe as two women traveling at any time. We of course took all the precautions you all mentioned here. We stayed at the grand case beach club, and although i thought the room to be a bit shabby, it was clean and comfortable. On the day we arrived, our flight landed at 1pm, and we were on the beach by 2pm. Our first view of the beach was a little upsetting--there wasn't any beach to speak of on either side of the hotel--the surf was so rough and tumble with huge waves crashing onto the shore and the restaurant at the hotel(grand case cafe). After being told how calm it was here with a nice beach and good snorkeling waters, we were a little upset. But were soon told that some type of weather front had been hanging around, combining with the full moon, causing the rough surf and high tides. But no matter, we settled in for the afternoon between the pool ( no bigger than a large hot tub, but we were there for the beach so no matter) and the bar. After a couple of days the surf did settle down and it was quite stunning...Breakfasts and lunches were good at the cafe, but would not recommend dinners there...we ate one dinner there our first night since we were just too tired to bother to go anywhere else, and the service was atrocious--and they totally forgot our dinner, which was nothing to speak of anyway... Some of the restaurants we sampled were: Fish Pot(wonderful food, superb service, astronomical prices--we both had appetizers, dinner and dessert with two coctails each came to $160!!--not quite sure all was worth the price, but it was delicious)....L'Auberge Gourmande was a wonderful dinner--we shared a crab tart something for appetizer--delicious--and had dinners of shrimp and scallops, and red snapper--both excellent..very good service and considered the price pretty reasonable....L'Alabama was an excellent dinner too--had salmon, and pork tenderloin for dinners and service was great, and pretty reasonably priced also--we both live in the hamptons on long island, so these prices are all pretty comparable to what we are used to paying around here for a good dinner...also tried Rainbow which also was a fabulous dinner--red snapper with a crust of tomatoes, parm cheese and onions which was out of this world, and lamb chops with a wonderful spice rub--dinner was just delicious and superb service again...we both have said we would go back to st. martin just for the food we ate all week...not there for very long, so it was quite difficult to choose which restaurants to go to, but we were quite pleased with all of our choices, based on so many recommendations from this board...the only other beach we checked out was orient--which was quite pretty, but much too crowded for us..but we enjoyed a day of people watching, and had the best pina coladas and lunch at the bikini beach bar...we went to the butterfly farm, which we both enjoyed....there was a woman in our small tour that morning who had a large red and black butterfly attached to each of her ears dangling like earrings--they just attached themselves to her and stayed for the whole tour--quite amusing......went to marigot open market on saturday which was fun and walked around town a bit--came back later that evening and went dancing all night long at a club called pasha--very very young crowd, but we had a blast!!...did some jet skiing one day, which a boat from our hotel took us to a hotel i think the name was La Meridian?, in Anse Marcel (spelling?)...the beach was very sheltered, secluded and beautiful, the grounds of the hotel lush, green and tropical, and seemed like a lot of european people there--did our jet ski thing, which was a hoot, and returned to our hotel again....On sunday, the 11th, we went to the SSBB, which was jam packed with people!!..we met Neil Rooney who was very nice and friendly, and a few others of the TTOL--Augie and i believe his wife sue?..bob d and his wife betty(who lives within a half hour of us here at home!-small world) and a few others whose names i don't remember (too many daquiris and a severe hangover from the previous night!!)...neil was handing out name tags for everyone, and others not from ttol, so it was a little difficult to find the actual TTOL'ers...and there was no actual gathering together of the group from what we could see, so we wandered around and introduced ourselves to a few people, and met some very nice friendly folks.. a good time, for sure..honestly, i never did see where the web cam even was!!....on our last day, we stopped on our way out at the talk of the town for lunch---excellent food!!...the woman who waited on us laughed so hard--we had such a hard time deciding what to order, we got almost everything on the menu--she kept asking who all the food was for, and we insisted it was just the two of us--we got grilled lobster, grilled shrimp, ribs, chicken, stuffed eggplant, crab backs, corn on the cob, cole slaw, and finished every last bit...wonderful, delicious lunch with a very friendly bunch there......honestly, everyone we met was very friendly and helpful, with the exception of one or two women at the front desk at our hotel, but we really could never complain....after lunch we went to the ssbb again for our final dacquiris and plane photos--returned our car to AAA, got our ride to the airport and headed back home...we were both just about in tears and very sorry to leave--we thoroughly enjoyed our vacation and are already trying to get our men to agree to return this winter...my sister-in-law has a friend who has just finished building a house there and has offered to let her use it any time--so hopefully with or without them we shall return!!...our thanx to everyone's suggestions and posts in helping plan our trip--we couldn't have done it without you--(our travel agent was pretty useless).....hope this report isn't too long or boring....<br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 3/22/01 03:53 PM.</EM></FONT></P>