TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Club O Beach Chairs and Esmeralda Pools

Hi Everyone,

New member, headed down to SXM on 3/29.

Questions - We are staying at Esmeralda but plan to go to Club O everyday. Will we have to fight for beach chairs? Should we plan to get their before 10am?

Does anyone have any recent reports of pools at Esmeralda still being able to swim in the buff? I see old posts about this, but nothing new.

Thanks for your help!

Tom--Regarding Esmeralda, it has always been a function of who else is staying in the building you are in. My suggestion is that you contact the resort and see if they can give you any instruction as to which building you are in and what the other occupants might want.

As far as Club O and chairs, for days when there are a bunch of ships in (check out the Cruise Schedule here), I would try to get there early. For days when little or no ships in and for the weekends, 10:30 or so should be fine..

For Club O chairs, you should be fine getting there by 10 AM. Not very likely that you'll be able to get front row.

Thank you for responses, I see that there are 5 cruise ships on my first day!

I can not speak about Esmeralda we have never stayed there but if you don't care if you sit in the first row ( that row is usually taken by Club O guests any way) you should have no trouble getting loungers
That time of year is starting to slow down
Last I checked Club O still had rooms open in most categories
Have a great trip

With 5 ships, you may not want to be on the front row

I have to say, for the 2 weeks we usually are on Orient in late feb, we walk through Esmerelda every day or 2, and we NEVER see anyone in the pools... So my casual observation is that you could almost do whatever you wanted in one of the pools, and no one might notice! (Esmerelda inhabitants might disagree :>) About beach chairs, I agree that the front row Club O chairs are almost 100% reserved by Club O inhabitants, but you should have little problem finding chairs in the 2nd or 3rd row. We actually like the chairs set up BEHIND the main beach, behind the fence... Lots of personal space, and you actually get a pretty nice view of the bay out over the tops of the umbrellas below you.

If your'e planning to go down to Club O every day why not just make the move and stay at Club O. You will be able to bring whatever you want to their beach, partake in the happy hour, swim in the buff at the beach and have reserved chairs every day. Everyone I know who has stayed at Esmeralda has left to stay at Club O and are much happier.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

COACHIE - I would love to stay at Club O, but my wife wants to stay at Esmeralda, and its her B-Day trip. So the next trip will be on my B-Day

We stayed at Esmeralda in November. Nude use of the pool was not a problem, as we had the pool to ourselves a lot of the time, and when there were others, they did not object. You should look for a map of the property and try to book a building that does not have a pool that fronts on to the main road of the property.