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Quick visit crmoores Yesterday at 11:09 PM Stopped in for a short 8-hr visit from Celebrity Beyond. Quiet port day, and so we were looking forward to visiting our old haunts for a quiet beach day. But Mother Nature had different ideas for us…
Man - the island is busier than I remember!

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Brief Trip Report SXMBND Yesterday at 09:52 PM Short notice trip to paradise from 4/8- 4/15, the stars aligned for a cheap non-stop R/T on Jet Blue from Boston, and BSV had an opening during that window....... it was a no brainer. Even though we had just left there on 2/6 we can never get enough island time.

Flight: Jet Blue RT Non-stop from Boston, great wheelchair service and early flight. Arrived @ PJA before 11:00 a.m.
Lodging: Beachside Villas in Beacon Hill, great location and staff.
Car Rental: Alain at AAA great price and service.
Activities: Rain Forrest chair lift (fantastic views) Rendezvous' Sunday Jazz (great performances by all) Sand Gravity (can't get enough, what can you say???)

Restaurants Good:
JAX, never disappoints great French onion soup with surf and turf (Maine lobster) and Lamp lollipops for the boss.
Lee's, first time at newer location, pleasantly surprised, 3# grilled lobster smothered in garlic butter and 1st taste of grilled Wahoo for the boss. Great friendly service.
BBB, Arrival grilled cheeseburgers and fries hit the spot, surprisingly good service for how busy they were. Would never swim at Kim Sha......
The Palms, Filet grilled to perfection, garlic mashed could have used some help, ribs for the boss. (she loved them)
Tortuga, two great breakfasts and one fantastic thin crusted pepperoni pizza. (best we've had on the island) Great friendly service with fantastic views.
ZeeBest, two great breakfasts as usual along with the service. Did not realized that they have added indoor seating with bath access, nice addition.
Re'veil Matin, Great breakfast and service (super large portions, could not do it daily)
Altro, Decent sirloin and Lamb for the boss. Nice setting with good service.

Restaurants Bad:
BBB on a Sunday afternoon. Completely different quality and service than the arrival lunch. Well underdone cheeseburger and a skewer of shrimp in the boss's chicken & beef bbq. Waiter disappeared from the premise after he delivered incorrect orders and forgot the boss's wine.
Sunset Beach Bar, no front row seating unless you order food and somewhat pushy waitstaff. I'll take Tortuga any time.
Driftwood, feel like I need a shower after going there, but not there. Porta Potty and no real wash sink is a big turnoff for us, but not for the overflow over served crowd.

Great week of weather only rained briefly one morning, remainder of the time mid 80's with a nice cooling breeze. Already planning for the next trip.

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Car rental Houston Yesterday at 08:25 PM How much should I expect to pay for a car rental for 8 days in June?

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Weekend Activities cruzer Yesterday at 03:16 PM Saturday was Marigot Market day, but the venders were sparse this Easter Eve. Mrs. Cruzer found a purse strap and we found some almond candy and a salt fish patty. Stopped by Le Gout du Vin for their Saturday wine tasting, and bought 3 bottles of nice reds--a syrah/grenache blend and a cab/merlot blend, plus a few bottles of champagne. We'd picked up some nice Marsannay from Sylvain On Thursday, so we have something in stock now--at least until the weekend.

Off to Le Tropicana for lunch, where we split a truffle sandwich, smoked salmon, and I had the lamb trilogy. The accompanying pan fries were perfectly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. An excellent meal overall. An interesting aside--they didn't recognize our reservation, so I asked to see the list. No Wysocki there. Ah, but they did have a table reserved for White Soggy. Close enough. Oh, and I think the smoked salmon is approaching Le Bistrot Caraibes' in excellence.

Sunday was our first dinner as we usually do a big lunch, so Bistrot Caraibes it was. We've gone back to our appetizer-only style. Smoked Salmon is our favorite, and the best we've found on the island. Next up was Carpaccio--good, not great-then the very flavorful goat cheese in a crust with smoked duck breast, and lastly the shrimp and scallop duet. We finished our excellent meal sharing a creme brulee and 2 cups of decaf cappuccino. Our first week closed on a perfect note.

Some observations after a week. Water temperature is 82 with occasional rain and lots of breeze. Sunsets are mostly a bust but I'm always out there. The standard exchange rate seems to be $1.10 per Euro, the same as back in January, but now I charge in $. Super-U offers $1.05 for cash. Bourbon doesn't seem to be too popular (I'm a Wild Turkey 101 fan) but Jack Daniels is $30/l at Carre Four, but only $20/l in Super-U. I think it's slightly cheaper in the Chinese markets.

Included are 2 pix of the new GCBC pool bar, which is supposed to open in May.

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Happy Easter SXMScubaman 04/20/2025 03:43 PM He is Risen.

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Fire at Marina Royale Marigot SANFILIP 04/19/2025 09:29 PM https://fb.watch/z3PL3PjvC3/?fs=e

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AA changed our direct to a stop in Miami Lancer 04/19/2025 04:22 PM That was rich. I was going over our SXM trip notes and thought I'd check our flights. I've received several "your flight has changed" notifications over the past few months for a trip we're taking in early May down to Orlando to see our daughter, and thought I was on top of them all. I discovered our direct for PHL to SXM on a Saturday later in May was changed to a 1 stop in Miami. We have about 45 minutes from landing to the MIA - SXM plane departs the gate. I'm hoping the gates are close. Our direct flight home two weeks later in June is still a direct flight.

Anyone ever have that happen?

Regardless, we're very stoked to be going back again this year. Anyone else going May 24 - June 7?

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Went to Pardon My French cruzer 04/18/2025 08:30 PM I'm doing a stand-alone report as there seems to be a bit of interest in this place. Quick summary...it's now part of our regular rotation.

What attracted me the most was the prix fixe menu scheme, more like mainland France than island France. MY previous experience with island prix fixe is an app choice of soup or salad, a decent selection of mains, and ice cream for dessert, for what amounts to a 10% discount. And yes, I know, Le Pressoir is different but they are in their own league. The 3 courses have decent variety and the $34.95 price is reasonable, especially since we tend to do lunch as our big meal of the day.

They've been open 2 weeks, so are still working out some kinks in service. While they have prix fixe meals, they also do ala carte, or you can order partially from the PF menu. Mrs. Cruzer had the ala carte Beef Bourguignon. She pronounced it the best she's had on the island as it had a very clear, distinct wine taste to it--something missing from the other island offerings. I had a gravlax entree, mussels(PEI) for my main (available as either an app or main)and chocolate mousse for dessert. A bottle of fizz water, 3 glasses of wine and the total came to $101 pre tip, with no tip added. A pricey lunch, but as it's our main meal today, well worth it.

They currently have seating for around 30 people, open only for lunch, and only had 2 tables available at 12:30 today. I'd highly recommend reservations. They start dinner service in about a month, and there's an upstairs room still under construction.

Thanks, for all your comments on this place. I think they will do very well.

Last picture--we were a minute too late going back to GCBC.

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2 weeks at Divi caribfan 04/18/2025 06:16 PM Arrived at Divi on March 29 after a nice flight from Philadelphia on American. Down the Jetway(!) and into my Unity rental car in a half hour. The property was beautiful with plenty of beach chairs and umbrellas. The weather didn’t cooperate with high winds and some intermittent showers. It did not deter us from enjoying beach and big pool.
Food highlights
Best meal Sale e Pepe, I had chicken Parmesan wife had short ribs pasta.
Roma was a close second with veal Parmesan and veal manicotti.
Divi food ranged from excellent to okay. The pizza at Slice was delicious. Several meals at Gizmos were very good. Great French fries!
We did two buffets at Pure Ocean. Italian was pretty goood. The deserts were amazing. Would rather have my meals served to me but small point. On prime rib night the prime rib was cooked to order and sides were good. Seabreeze was just okay.
Other notables meals were at Aziana, stirred fried beef and vegetables.
One hilarious/annoying incident. Leaving church on Sunday morning my wife noticed a sandwich board advertising breakfast at Big Wood. This was at 10am. We sat down and ordered coffee.
After we had our order taken Waiter came back and said coffee machine was broken. Ugh. Time passed and no food. I asked a server when we were getting our food and she said soon they just have to flip my waffle(?).20 minutes later apparently no one had flipped my waffle. My wife and I got up and drove to Chesterfields for a delicious breakfast
Tai Savannh at Star casino was a wonderful Thai meal.
My only complaint about Divi is one I’ve had since Covid- they don’t come and throw out your garbage. Has anyone stayed at a resort that expected you to throw out the garbage?

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SXM Entry Card Randy and Wendy 04/17/2025 04:26 PM We are traveling to St Martin in a couple weeks. Does anyone know if the entry card is still paused while they work out the kinks?
The website doesn't even seem to allow for entering information.

Thanks!

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