Hi everyone,
Just wanted to say thank you for all the help and advice. We had a wonderful week in SXM and wish it could've been longer. But, for what we had, we packed alot in and relaxed too. The weather was stellar. Only one day with a 20 min shower.
Anyhow, wanted to break this down into parts.
We arrived on island Saturday 9/12. We had already been notified that there would be a 30 min delay on our flight on AA. I called Fox Rentals customer service and was told not to worry, that our car would be held for 12 hours.
When we arrived on island, a little after 10pm we claimed our luggage and went directly to the Fox kiosk. Noone was there. But both rental car agencies on either side had reps there and were happy to rent us a car. But alas, I had already given CC info to Fox so we called the numbers listed on the card at Fox's desk and also customer service and could not get hold of anyone. So, we booked a cab to our Simpson Bay Resort. By this time, it was close to 11pm. We were tired and hungry. Thankfully, we had eaten something in MIA, but we had bought duty free liquor (YAY US) packed snacks/food (YAY squared) so we ate and drank and went to bed.
The next day we arose and my hubby called Fox and spoke to Alberto who picked him up at our lobby and took him to the rental car company. At first, he was going to give my husband a small Kia that was in very sad shape, but my husband (who is kind as he is firm, I would've probably would not have been as gracious) informed Alberta that we had booked a standard car rental and we were swithed to a Nissan that was new and clean. Also, with my husband's prodding, we were able to get one day's rental subtracted. Something that Fox was not offering. BOO FOX. I advice against them for anyone who is thinking of using. THeir excuse for not being at the airport was that the taxi drivers had told them that the flight was not landing until 11. Really? What rental car agency listens to a taxi driver? BS! DOUBLE BOO. and SHAME on Fox Rental Car on SXM.
After getting this sorted out, we went directly to the beach at Simpson Bay Resort. Let me digress a minute in saying that we were in the Beaumontia building at SBR (building B) which wasn't too strenous of a hike(we're all in good shape) from the beach and close to two pools and the Peli Deli (we were able to provision ourselves with the rest of our food and felt the prices were very reasonable for the island....they have a fine selection of produce, cheeses, meats, beer, and wine and liquor). Our condo (2 br) was very nicely furnished with new furniture, stainless steel appliances, etc. We were very pleased with our accomodations
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On to the beach, we got our chairs (their are employees at the beach who happily set up your spot under a Palapa which has a table) and started relaxing. The beach is very nice here and there is a bar that has decent food including burgers, fish, conch, calamari etc. and really good drinks.
We enjoyed lunch and water and then about 2, there was an announcement that there would be a party with crab racing, dancing, contests and drinks, so why leave? We just enjoyed our beach time until the pahtay started. What fun!! let me tell ya. The emcee got everyone in the mood to dance with music and blue curacao coladas; which were potent and delish!!! So much so, that my usually reserved hubby was joining in the fun. Our friends also were in the dancing mood and when the contest ended, our female friend took first prize (which was a Diamond International certificate for a tanzanite necklace...NIIICE!) My hubby came in second and I, fourth...but, no prizes for us, unless you count the free drinks and a SUPER FUN TIME!! We didn't win the crab race either, but hey....no one was losing any sleep over that! Kudos for SBR for making our first day such a pleasure and a BLAST!



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Well, we had all the fun we could take for the day, so we went back to our room, cleaned up and went out to eat. Lee's was closed so we went to Sint Maarten Yacht club and had a deliscous meal. My husband had grouper fingers, and seafood pasta I had the caprese skewers and a great ahi tuna dish (the ahi was just as a like, very rare ...just seared). I can't recall what our friends had, but everyone enjoyed. Glad we discovered it!


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All in all it was a great first day. More to post later.
Merci again to all!!

Grouper have fingers?! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" />

Just kiddin'. Thanks for sharing, sounds like a fun first day. Hit the beach hard.

Despite a late arrival and the car rental problem you started out great. Hope to hear about more fun as time goes by. Watch out for sand gravity!

Enjoyed your report. Was happy to hear positive comments about SBR. We are timeshare owners there & love it but most people have a bad opinion about the place because of its history. We hope you will return. Looking forward to the rest of your report.

Thanks for the first part. Is it only me but the photo links are broken?

Thanks for the report and pics. Grouper fingers at SMYC are great.

Some of them are broken and the rest are WAY too wide..

Photos are wonderful ...The size of the photos and the written report are out of wac ..Written text is very small and hard to read ....Not sure if there is a solution .

Eric might know, but he is out of the office today.

My quick-n-dirty solution was to resize my browser. I needed to reduce about 40% in order to read without a magnifying glass.

Yes, I see them now but they fill up my monitor and it's a wide screen monitor.

Norm -- I keep hearing about these grouper fingers. I think you've sold me on them!

I believe the answer would be to limit the size of the photos being posted ..Eric most likely would understand the relationship between font and photo sizing ..This isn't the first time that I have size issues .

We changed some settings recently in that respect because of some other issues, but may have to go back to the previous settings. The 'scrolling' issue in general usually is only with older monitors.

I can't read it either. Too wide.
Why?

The screen is stretched because the picture is too wide. I understood some people to say that the print was small, which doesn't seem to be a problem to me.

Carol
On my screen I have to sweep across to be able to read the text and see the entire amount that was photographed. I had to go about half a screen width to take it all in.

Same here....huge pictures (all great, btw....) that cause me to have to scroll across the screen to see them completely, and tiny, tiny print?

My print was normal.

Hi all. Thx. We did start out good and we enjoyed SBR. Second time there. First was when it was still Pelican. I'm not sure what's up w pocs. They look fine on my monitor. I'll try reducing. More reporting to do. Soon come!