Hi all,
I'm sorry if this is too wordy but, as you have all become painfully aware with me, I'm new at it and love to "talk". Please skim (or ignore the post) if it seems too long.
We've just returned from our first trip (June 23rd to June 30th) and the views expressed herein are those of a first time visitor who spent a great deal of time researching the trip, primarily using the TTOL forum as a resource.
So, keeping that in mind...
Car rental – primitive but effective. We had pre-booked a vehicle through Paradise Car Rentals and it was arranged by Sonja Van Der Drift at Island Properties On-Line who rented us the villa.
Paradise Car Rental – After we cleared customs and retrieved our bags, we walked into the airport arrivals area to be greeted by several car rental agency folks standing in and around tiny booths waving and calling out to us apparently to offer to give us a car! Welcome to Sint Maarten indeed! It seemed a little like being a guest on Oprah but we figured there had to be a catch. I mean, how would we get it back in our luggage? Actually, once we saw our little SUV, we realized we probably could have taken it back with us but we already had the scuba gear so we politely declined their offers. We found the Paradise booth and let the gentlemen behind the booth know our name so we could confirm our booking. He smiled and said that wasn’t necessary since he recognized me from my many previous trips and welcomed me back to the island (I’ve never been and I became concerned that some tired regular customer would show up looking for his pocket SUV and be sorely disappointed). While we were being recognized as returning celebrities by the fellow behind the tiny booth, several other gentlemen not wearing any identification as Paradise employees were busy trying to run off in various directions with our bags. This was happening to all kinds of people so I figured it wasn’t just the sort of service given to folks like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and others like us. One of the baggage attackers finally managed to wrestle most of our luggage away from my now quite concerned wife and so I took off after him wishing I had my trusty Special Operations Group knife so I could kill him with extreme prejudice. Imagine that we hadn’t even made it through the airport and we were already becoming victims of the major crime that is legendary in the minds of some where Sint Maarten is concerned! We chased him out to a completely unmarked little van whereupon I was able to ascertain that he was going to drive us to Paradise Car Rentals. That was good since I really didn’t want to kill anyone with extreme (or any other) prejudice. We hopped in and then hurtled along a tiny strip of road that turns out to be the main drag along the airport and desperately (but unsuccessfully) tried to kill several people driving tiny little vehicles on any side of the road they chose at any particular time they wished. Suddenly we arrived at the rental agency and I thanked and tipped him since, even though he hadn’t charged us for our first island theme park ride, it sure was fun. He seemed genuinely appreciative (and a little surprised) at the cash but we were glad to have survived our first few minutes out of the airport.
Now we were greeted with a darling young lady who gave us our first Sint Maarten Wary-local experience. I greeted her and she sort of greeted me in return. I continued to be friendly and she eventually became quite ebullient. We were to experience this several more times and it took us a while to work out why it was happening (more on this in a later post). She scribbled out some paper work and took my American Express card, asked me if I wanted insurance (I took both types which just about doubled the cost of the rental which also didn’t bother me at all given the experiences of some of the folks I had read about on TTOL) and then handed me my credit card and a yellow paper with some strange markings on it that looked to be Klingon but turned out to be English. We then headed back outside with her to the front parking area of the agency, where there was room for about one and a half average American sedans (or about twenty typical Sint Maarten vehicles). This area was packed with various vehicles in all states of disrepair and I was beginning to get the point that many TTOL folks had said about getting a car with a “few dents” on it already. In my mind, a “few dents” is a few dents, not missing bumpers, doors, panels and windows. However, sitting quietly under a discarded MacDonalds burger wrapper (which blew away in a brief breeze) was our little Daihatsu Tieros SUV (Small Undersize Vehicle) with not a mark on it. This turned out to be a perfect little chariot for the two of us and we were mighty happy with it. We even managed to fit our luggage (including scuba gear) into it for our trip to the villa and to the airport on our last day. I can heartily recommend one. We circumnavigated the island twice (once on Sunday and once on Thursday) and I drove to the dive operator every day and we still only used 2/3rd of a tank which cost us the grand total of $30 to fill at the Shell station near the airport. This was the station where a kind Shell employee came to fill our tank (apparently there isn’t self-service, which I didn’t mind even though I rarely have anyone else pump my gas these days) and he tried several times to explain to me how to unlatch the fuel door (“it’s there… right there… see my finger? It’s pointing… It’s black… there… THERE!”). He was so patient with me. I finally found the lever to unlatch the fuel door and he must have figured I was pretty stupid. While he was filling the tank, though, I managed to strike up a conversation with him (it’s something I like to do with the local folk when I travel since they are the folks who really know stuff about the place and they are often really interesting) and he seemed to figure I wasn’t so bad after all. He probably realized I wasn’t used to driving a little hockey puck with wheels and might have thought I felt it probably was too small for gasoline and just somehow sucked energy out of the air as you drove along.
Returning the vehicle was painless although a little interesting. There was no one in attendance at the Paradise desk when I showed up. The shuttle van arrived a few minutes later and the other folks who were waiting for it shoved their luggage at the driver and piled in. I asked him what I should do about returning the car and he took the keys from me, looked inside the little Tieros and asked if I had any luggage to put on the bus since we would leave now. I’m not used to returning rental cars this way but “when in Rome…”… I went inside to gather my carry-on bags (I had already dropped Sonia and the main bags off at the airport on my way to return the car) and, just as I was about to head for the bus, a kind gentleman appeared from behind the counter and asked me if I wanted to leave the charges on my credit card or pay cash. I’m not sure if he had actually been in the building the whole time but I’m sure I looked pretty carefully when I first arrived. I said to leave the charges on the card and he cheerily handed me a completed receipt (which was for the correct amount) and thanked me for my business. I left on the shuttle for another theme park ride (but I was used to it by now, after a week of driving ourselves on the island, we were veterans), tipped the driver and chatted with him briefly since he seemed so pleased and took care to wish me a pleasant journey and hoped I would return soon.
We paid about $240 for the week for the car and another $25 per day for the two insurances which brought the total up to around $400 for the week. That was fine with me and in line with what I had expected. Sonja Van Der Drift from the Island Properties Online rental agency (ReMax Realty) arranged the vehicle for us and it worked out just right.
Thanks for reading... There will be more later on other various aspects of our trip. Hopefully there will be nuggets in there for some other newbie...
James
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