First few days...#1

This trip was a bonus, since our 3 year old grandson was hospitalized during our January stay (he's fully recovered!) and we had to rush home. Although our deposit at Mary's Boon was non-refundable, they offered us a voucher, good for a year and Lesley was able to reschedule our car rental, so we decided to come in June rather than the winter as is our usual time, as we could not make it back before a year if we tried for the winter. Trip down was uneventful and Lesley was waiting for us as usual with the car... a couple of minutes to sign paperwork and we were off!!

After dropping our bags and changing clothes, we went to Dany's at Cupecoy for a rum punch, our favorite, and saw sand on that beach for the first time. We stayed for a while and then headed back to Mary's Boon. We have a King Studio upstairs and it's not luxurious, but it's very clean and "islandy" - perfectly fine for our needs. Staff has been lovely. The sargassum is horrible here at the moment, but we know (hope!) that will pass... we are here for 11 nights. We enjoy going all around the islands to beaches, so we had not planned to camp out here anyway, so not a big problem. I'm not sure if it's because we are on the 2nd floor, or the direction of the wind, but there is no smell when we are outside on our "balcony".

We headed out on Monday to just drive until we found a good beach. First stop was at Mullet and it looked perfect. We chose chairs toward the rocky end of the beach because of the easy, sloping entry to the water there. It looked like a cliff in front of Rosie's and a lot more wind and choppy water toward Kalatua. We split a Philly cheesesteak sandwich and fries for lunch at Da Waterhole and it was good and plenty of food. We got there early and got lovely first row chairs and stayed until early afternoon when we felt we had too much sun for our first day. We went to the bar to get our drinks, rather than chair service - but I actually prefer it because there's no problem bringing your own cooler with drinks. Back to The Boon for a quick dip in the pool and resting until dinner.

Food: The first night we just split a cheeseburger and fries in the bar at Mary's Boon as we had been eating all day in airport lounges and on the plane and weren't really very hungry. The moon rise was stunning... my picture doesn't do it justice! Last night we decided to try Altro in Porto Cupecoy. This may have been reported earlier, but they have raised their prices and dropped the service charge, which I think will serve them better in the long run...The Prix fixe menu was $39 and my husband got an a la carte filet for $36 (he got the crab cake with slaw as an appetizer and very much enjoyed it as well). I got the prix fixe - Lobster Bisque (slightly thinner than I'm used to, but very good), slow cooked beef with horseradish (like an upscale pot roast, but very tasty!), and the chocolate-coconut mousse, also good. Our meal plus two cocktails and bottled water was $114 plus tip. Very reasonable for what we got (I'd read that portions were small, but I couldn't eat all of mine) and we will definitely return.

PS... Carol, I included a pic of the chair placement at Mullet for you, since you typically ask!

Thanks for the report and the pictures! God, I'm so predictable, asking about chair placement at Mullet!! But that does look very reasonable, as far as how far apart they are. We definitely want to try to get to Altro this trip.

Have they attempted to clean the beach every day there, or just let the seaweed lay? Hopefully maybe the wind will change soon!

Good morning Dear and do enjoy your vacation rest .

That's the way the chair placement is on that side of beach. Worth the extra dollars.

I am looking out to the SW from our balcony in Cupecoy. Pretty close to Danny’s and the seaweed is 500 yards out at least. It came to within 50 yards once this week.

Thanks for posting those pictures. Definitely a much more desirable location. Chester is great, but I'm afraid I have to go near the rocky end near Da Waterhole. Scuba....I thought it was mentioned that chairs were less expensive at this end. Did I misunderstand?

I have to say, I never noticed the chairs being that far apart at TWH.
Must be for the slower season, but better than Rosie's , unless they have changed.

I never say anything negative about Rosie's, but did mention in another post, that they were
pushing the chair issue. We didn't go too often in April.

Thanks for the photos

Was 30 per set included bottles of ice cold water too.

Carol - we haven't been here during the day, so I'm not sure, but I don't think so. There was so much on the beach and in the water, I don't think they could have mad a dent in it manually. There's quite a bit less today than the other two days, so hopefully it's improving! We saw some out in the ocean at Orient today, but wind was blowing right to left and it appeared to be washing at the far end of the beach past all the chair vendors as far as I could tell. It looked like a machine had cleared the beach at Orient this morning.

Lots of big patches of seaweed sliding past Flamingo heading towards BSV and the Boon today.

lhbsurf--hope you're correct, and not Scubaman..

We love love Mary’s Boon and it’s great staff. They are always very accommodating to our needs. Great trip report.

Definitely improving at my spot... here's the beach at Mary's Boon this morning, 6-7

Good to hear it's letting up for you.

Thanks for the report. The Boon is one of our favorite places on the island. We also really like Karakter down the beach. The food is good and it's a good place to lay under an umbrella enjoying Caribs and munching away. We've never seen sargassum there but your photo says it all. Hopefully it will pass with the wind. We're staying in Orient Village starting this Saturday. Can't wait!