This was our second time on the island after being there for a week three years ago. Unfortunately this time we were there for only 5 days, so we had to plan everything out to get the most out of our time there. I would normally prefer a little less planning, but I'm glad we did because otherwise we would have never been able to do as much as we did.

We left DC on a 7am Sunday flight to SXM (connecting through Charlotte). The flight was smooth and on time. We had only slept for about 2 hours the night before so we were extremely tired. However, when we arrived in SXM, excitement took over and we got a new burst of energy. We were the only major flight at the time at the airport, so we went through passport control pretty quickly. However bags took longer than I expected to come out. Once out, we found the ACE/Panoramic guy and after a quick ride over to their office, we were on our way to Oyster Pond (where we were staying). We only made a quick stop at the Grande Marche for a six pack of Caribs.

Once in our room, we changed quickly so we could still get to Orient at a reasonable time (it must have been around 3pm at this point). We were starving so we had lunch at Baywatch. Pretty good food. It was beach time afterwards, albeit only for an hour or so. For dinner we drove back to the Simpson area, despite being extremely tired. We had planned to go to Wayang Doll (spelling?), but after driving up and down a couple of times, we couldn't find it. So we went for Pineapple Pete instead. The lobster thermidore was delicious and the atmosphere fit us fine because we needed something laid back. After dinner, we were done for the night, so we drove back to our room.

Monday was Pinel day. We had lunch in Grand Case in one of the Lolos. It was just as I remembered from three years ago. Good, cheap (at least by SXM standards) food. Afterwards we drove to Cul de Sac for the Pinel ferry. We got there around 1pm. A few drinks and hours later, we drove to Anse Marcel just for the scenic ride. Dinner that night was at Sol e Luna. We found it without a problem, although we had never been to that area before. Great food and service. I think this was our most expensive dinner on the island, but it was good.

The next day we were supposed to go to Anguilla for the day. However we forgot our passports at home and since we were already kind of late we decided not to go back but just swap the day's plans for Wednesday's. Since it was relatively early in the day for us, we decided to get a late breakfast in Marigot before heading to Orient. We ate at a place at the marina. I think it was called Le Galion or something similar but I'm not sure. Later on at Orient, we got chairs at Kokomarina, mainly because we wanted to do lunch there. This was our best lunch of the trip. The great lunch was followed by an equally good dinner at Spiga. It was Harmony nights at Grand Case that day so parking was a little annoying, because we didn't know that Spiga was not on the main strip. After finding the exact location through my Blackberry, we had no problem locating it. Dinner was a nice change from the routine French or seafood we had been getting so far.

The next day, we did make it to Anguilla. We encountered a friendly cab driver who gave us a mini tour of the island and took us to Shoal Bay East. This was our first time in Anguilla. It was so quiet that it made SXM seem like Vegas. At Shoal Bay East we were dropped off at a resort there (the name escapes me at the moment) where we had lunch and then got some chairs on the beach. The beach was absolutely great, but I couldn't stay in Anguilla longer than a couple of days. I would be too bored. On the ride back to the ferry, the cab driver called a local radio station where we got a personalized greeting message with our names. It was a nice touch. Back in SXM, we walked over from our place to Capt. Oliver's for dinner. There were a couple of dogs roaming around and that made for an uncomfortable walk down that hill from the main road but in the end nothing happened. We got to the restaurant around 9. The food was good, but the service left something to be desired because we felt rushed. We specifically went to this place because of our great experience at Tabba Khady three years ago, but it wasn't the same. Later that evening we made our way to the Maho area and spent an hour or two at Bliss.

Thursday was our last full day on the island and in the morning we went to Philipsburg for lunch. We parked at Bobby's Marina and walked down the boardwalk to a random restaurant for lunch. Afterwards, we went to Maho. Being a plane geek, I had checked the flight schedule and this was the only day when all three heavies (Air France, KLM and Corsair) were in town. We got chairs on the beach and saw as plane after plane landed and took off from the airport. Traffic getting to Maho was horrible and this was our first time we had encountered such bad traffic. We waited for the sunset and left the beach around 6:30pm. Little did we know that traffic was even worse then. It took us about an hour and a half to get back to Oyster Pond. I'm all for people being on island time and I certainly don't want to tell people how to drive in their own country, but this was a little too much. Dinner that night was at Le Cottage. The food was great and the service was extra attentive. A wonderful way to end our vacation. We couldn't have been happier.

The next morning, we drove to the MaDouDou distillery where we bought a couple of bottles before heading to the airport. On the way back we were flying Continental and even though we had already selected our seats, they managed to change them and give both of us separate middle seats. Thankfully we were able to swap seats with other passengers and be able to seat next to each other. We managed to buy another two bottles of Guavaberry Rhum at the airport. When we arrived at Newark, it was a mess and our connecting flight was delayed, but we still made to DC by 9:30pm.

Overall, it was an amazing trip. One thing that I tried to be very attentive of during our stay there was crime. We didn't encounter anything that made us uncomfortable. We drove all over the island at night with no problem. We even walked alone in certain places with no worries. I'm not saying that crime doesn't exist, but we didn't experience any and we didn't exactly curtail our activities to avoid any unpleasant situations. I don't know when we will be back, but it couldn't have been a better vacation, even though we doubled our body weight from the great food. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

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