Brian and Maria visited SXM from July 22-30 and met some great TTOL people. The biggest laugh came at the Sunday night party at BBB when Maria "outed" Soon To Be Nude (figuratively speaking, of course). Turns out Richie and Joanne live only about 30 miles apart from us Florida and we're planning to stay in touch.
Don't want to bore people with details about every beach and restaurant we visited, though a few are worth mentioning. One of our highlights was renting a kayak at Cul de Sac and paddling over to both Little Island and Isle de Pinel. It's $40 for the day including the snorkeling gear and, while the snorkeling was only OK, both are beautiful spots. As for eats, our definite highlight was the Wed. nite buffet at the Mini-Club in Marigot. It's $50pp but when you figure in the drinks (included) and all the food ... one of our party who will remain anonymous ate six lobsters! Everything was delicious.
Other observations:
-- After hearing about all the chair problems we brought two chairs and wound up using them once. We did see a sign on Orient Beach for a chair with a drink included for $7; that was the best deal we saw. Wound up leaving the chairs behind and wouldn't do that again.
-- People need to be aware of a scam going on down there involving scratch cards. Two girls stopped our car while we were driving and gave us each two cards; one comes up a "winner" every time and there's a big celebration. Problem is you have to go to Philipsburg to collect the great prize, and that leads to an endless runaround with no result. So when people approach you with these cards politely decline. We started telling them it was against our religion to gamble and they left us alone.
-- Leave the golf clubs home. The one course near Mullet Bay is in disrepair and out of the three times we passed it, only once did we see people playing. We saw a guy from Atlanta at the airport with his clubs and asked if he played. He said the fee was like $90 or $100 and said he didn't bother. That area clearly got hit hard by the last hurricane (Lenny?).
-- While we agree with others that the French side is nicer, also figure on it being much more expensive. We stopped at Friar's Bay for a drink on our first day there and paid almost $20 for two frozen drinks. The local beer, Carib, which tastes a lot like Corona, is $2 at a lot of places including BBB. Rum is $5-6 a bottle in the stores, gin and vodka a little more expensive. Australian wine is pricey so look for French or Chilean wines; you can get a good one for $4-5 a bottle, also in the stores. (Also be aware that a lot of times the products in the stores where the locals also shop are priced in guilders, which is about 1.8 times the US dollar. We got scared off a couple times before coming to that realization.)
-- While we were told many times, "You can't get lost in St. Maarten," we did on several occasions as the signs are not very clear and often nonexistent. (This was Maria's first time on the island, and my first trip back in 15 years.) More disappointing was to find several beaches have effectively been closed off due to construction in the area; Dawn Beach is one example. Baie Rouge is very nice but we went by it three times before finding it; simply put, when coming from Marigot, the road will turn left at some garbage cans and it's right in front of you. Very nice, but the sand sticks to you and while there are two restaurants, there are no facilities.
-- The one area we really came to like was near our timeshare at Pelican, around Simpson Bay. There's a great little bakery on the left heading away from the airport and a nice bagel place the locals frequent near the "7-Alive" store about a half-mile the other way. The Lady C hosted a TTOL get-together on Monday, when they have an all-you-can-eat rib special for $11.95. There's also an RBCC bank right there where you can get U.S. dollars at no cost at the ATM.
-- Happy to report we had no problems with security, but we were very careful to lock our car every time we left. Speaking of cars, we rented through Alamo/National and regretted it when they gave us a clunker. We wound up paying nearly $200 for a decent Corolla; contrast that with Kenny's Car Rental, who offered to meet us at the airport with a Corolla that would have run $150. Live and learn.
-- Spent our last two nights on nearby Saba and had a great time. Took 'The Edge' ferry over from Simpson Bay and flew back on WinAir. Maria in particular got caught up in the annual "Carnaval" celebration that coincided with our visit. It's a very unique island of 1,600 friendly inhabitants with great diving. That stay could be a report all by itself.
-- Finally, it was great meeting all the TTOL'ers; as it turned out, we had enjoyable company for dinner every night we were there and it was a great way to share the experience. If you hit the welcome party on Sunday and make the effort to meet-and-greet, count on having a very sociable, enjoyable week. We did!
Brian & Maria
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