Going to St. Martin since 1989 we decided to do a real lazy vacation in Orient Bay. Having stayed everywhere from Mont Vernon, Esmeralda, L’Hoste, Villa Belle Vue to Club Orient we wanted to stay in Orient village, not renting a car, not worry about driving, having a place with a private pool and escaping winter for 9 days.
Thanks to TTOL it is easy to do.
What do you do if you don’t know where you want to stay? You contact Jim Ruos of CITS. After a few suggestions we settled on
Villa Josephine a 2-bedroom townhouse with pool in the village.
What do you do without a car? You contact Wilfred Brooks Taxi.
And, of course, you have the place stocked by Shop and Drop.
Wilfred picked us up at the airport. It Was Harmony Night in Grand Case, traffic was a disaster. The trip to Orient took more than an hour. He stayed with us at the rental office until the agent showed up and drove us to our home.
The villa was spotless, the groceries were there so all was good.
We had Wilfred take us one evening to Grand Case, he picked us up in his private car and unfortunately, going out of Orient, between Esmeralda and the main road, he got rear-ended by an SUV damaging his bumper, tail light assembly and trunk. The other driver had a policy issued in France and he was told settlement of the claim might take up to six months.
Our days were spent between Kakao and Bikini Beach, evenings were spent between Le Piment, La Voile Blanche and Cote Plage with one dinner at Le Tastevin and one lunch at Marina Royal. We won’t bother going back to the marina but we look forward to our next trip.

Bernd <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Sounds like a nice relaxing way to spend 9 days!Sorry to hear about Wilfred's unfortunate accident.

Yeah,and he said it was his first one ever

We are going to have the same sort of vacation starting next Thursday - if you walked out your back gate towards Kakao, suspect we will be in the same compplex
La Voile Blanche is on our list to try, any comments
Petit Casino, did you shop there, any comments on what they have [fresh items] and pricing - Euro only - 1:1 or?
Sorry to hear about Wilfred's car, we have him picking us up next Thursday, I'm sure we'll hear the story!

J&B

We did La Voile Blanche usually after Le Piment for something lighter. I enjoyed their tuna tartar and my wife their beef carpaccio. Petit Casino - selection somewhat bigger than the old Tap 5. They don't do 1:1 but close to it, maybe 1:1.09. Didn't shop there for any fresh stuff.
Wilfred's van is ok. You won't havw any problems. Enjoy your stay. Btw my wife is raving about the filet with blue cheese topping at Cote Plage

Bernd <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the report! Sounds very relaxing!

I am curious about your comment that Petite Casino wasn't doing 1:1. For the three weeks were were there in Dec/Jan both Petit Casino and Yellow Sub were doing 1:1. Has that changed since then?

My kinda vacation. The more often we go, the less we do.

It was and thanks to TTOL planning and booking took less than 30 minutes. It doesn't get any easier than that.

Bernd <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Don't know about Yellow Sub but I don't think Petit Casino did. To be honest we didn't pay much attention about exchange rates. Our Cdn $ is so low that it's best to ignore the whole thing

Bernd <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Jim Ruos always takes great care of his clients!!