TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Best Denominations US $$ to Bring

I have viewed several posts on $$ vs. credit cards, but wanted to get feedback on best dollar denominations to bring with us. We will be mainly spending $$ on meals on French side to get 1 for 1. Otherwise, we have a foreign transaction-free CC. Thanks in advance.

You will want an overall assortment of denominations. Smaller bills for tips, etc. and I have never had a problem using larger bills in restaurants. Once in a while you will see a sign indicating they do not accept UD $50 or $100 but that is usually smaller places.

When on the French side you will likely get your best exchange rate (or 1:1) when using cash and I doubt denomination will be a problem..

Not sure if I am reading your post right about the credit card and fee. If you want to consider a card without the foreign fee, Discover does not charge the fee and neither does Capital One.

50's work well for us, you will accumulate the smaller bills.

We bring a combo of 50s and 20s. Seems to work well for us.

We bring a pack of 5's and the rest 20's. The fives are for various tips and the 20's for meal purchases and trinkets. We use our Capital One for the lodging and rental car. Take more than one type of card in case one gets compromised.

Grand Case restaurants may cost you between $100 and $200 for 2, depending on the place and how much you drink, so hundreds and fifties can be useful for that.. Beach drinks tend to be $6 -$8, so for a couple, 20s can be useful. As said, you will accumulate ones, fives and maybe tens. We brings 100s and 20s.

All our Citi bank cards did away with the fees a year ago.

We bring an assortment of bills, but mostly 100's especially for dining at night. Gourmet dinners are always over 100 at the best restaurants. Even beach days at the really good beach restaurants will be at least that much or more for spending the day there, chairs, umbrellas and lunch with drinks.

Hard to overstate the importance of taking multiple cards.

I think a lot depends on how you plan to pay for what. We use credit cards for everything that we can, and only use cash if credit cards aren't accepted at a business or if the credit card systems are down. Because of that, we bring $50s and $100s, and generally only use about half of the cash we bring. The current exchange rate isn't that high, so we don't concern ourselves with 1:1. We also bring a stack of $5s to tip our housekeeper each day.

And to repeat what has been said, we always bring at least three different credit cards, just in case.

If I'm reading this right, your cc does NOT have any associated foreign exchange fees. When we used TCs almost exclusively, we only brought $100 denominations and once we started the change over from TCs to cash, we carry the bulk of our cash in $100 and $50 denominations just to avoid a lot of bulk in our wallets. That said, we usually do bring about $200 in miscellaneous denominations, including about 5-10 dollars in singles and a bunch of five dollar bills for tips for bellmen, and for the maids and such.

I haven't been to a restaurant or a jewelry store yet that has a problem with larger bills and even the larger grocery stores accept them without issue along with credit cards.

As a follow up question are the room safes secure?

Depending where you stay. Some are safer than others.

I usually bring 1 lb of each denomination!!!! LOL!!

ATM....take out what you want.

I bring primarily $100 and $2 bills. I can have the former "cashed" at Divi's front desk if I'm going to a beach bar. I use the $2 bills for tips, and they are always accepted enthusiastically.

We bring smaller bills,20's and 50's. CC for dinners and excursions and rentals. If you get points, use the CC's

For us bringing fifties and hundreds works, with twice as many fifties as hundreds, equaling the same.

$2 bills make me think of Neil Rooney.

Just heard on the news that the government is thinking of no longer printing the $100. It is the bill that is reproduced illegally the most. Gonna need a bigger pocketbook soon since you'll have to take twice as many $50 with you.

Really? That seems dumb to me, as then folks will start forging $50 more. $100 are much more convenient, if you need to carry a larger amount of money.

Yes, $100's are much easier to buy a bottle of Dom with.
So are you buying?

Not me, been a couple of years since I have been down for Regatta, so the Dom is on you! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Maybe a better question is how much do people take in cash with them? We usually bring $1,200, which usually lasts about 7 days. Going for ten days, we wind up at the bank machine with the remaining three days left and withdraw another $500. That said, about 80% of our meals and drinks out cost is paid by cash so the credit card is seeing little activity.

While reading this thread I noticed there is no mention of bringing euros. I will be staying in Marigot and planned on bringing half my cash as euros. Do I not need to do this?
Are USD all I need? Do most of the establishments on the french side do the 1:1?
I thought I would need them for grocery shopping, etc.
Thanks for everyones great advice on here.

You don't need euros. U.S. cash works everywhere on the island. Grocery stores were doing 1:1. Not all places are 1:1. A lot of the restaurants are not. Yellow sub in orient village was though. Enjoy your vacation!