TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report - Part 1 March 11-18

Traveled with Wife, Daughters 21,19,19

Air: From Chicago Direct to SXM

• March 11th Left the gate and arrived 45 minutes early. 10 minute wait on the tarmac and immigration was a breeze. Bags out in 10 minutes.

• March 18th going home – 8 ½ hours late. Inbound flight broke down in D.C. and arrived into SXM at 9PM. Original departure time was 1:30 and we took off at 10:00PM arriving in Chicago at 2:30.

Chicago immigration and customs basically said just go through and leave.

Rental Car – Unity. $450 for a week Toyota Rav 4. Scratches but ran great. They picked us up right at the airport and a short drive we where on our way to Orient beach

Villa – Villa Joie De Vie in Orient Bay. https://www.vrbo.com/136461 We have rented it before and it’s one floor with three bedrooms and 2.5 baths. Private pool and about 3-5 minute walk from the beach. It has internet, Satellite TV with American stations and an outlet strip with 110V power. It’s surrounded by 6-8 other occupied houses and always felt safe.

Saturday 3-11 After unpacking, we headed into Grand Case and went to Pizza Pascal for dinner. Donna is a great host and had a nice meals. I’d say the highlights of the meal were the mushroom Risotto, Carbonara and a seafood special.

Also nice was the lasagna. Thought the Veal was a bit tough

Sunday 3-12 --- Breakfast from Good morning (Every day). Had a nice day at Sun beach clubber. The food is wonderful and the beach boys are great but..as an american I felt like a second class citizen. All the front chairs are held for the owners friends. We heard the beach boys talking how they could let someone sit up front as their boss was holding them for the bosses friend. He’d run out everytime someone showed up.

Also, they specifically said you had to eat a meal there to rent the chairs. So, I have to pay you and eat a meal. The food is very good. Love the wings, tomato mozzarella to name a few.

Dinner was at LePiment. Fabulous. Red snapper prepared in a foil pouch with potatoes is out of bounds (Guy Fieri). Lasagna, Carbonara and Dover Sole shut the front door delicious. Tiramasu also.

Monday – 3-13 - Le String - $8 for a chair – Food was great and the weather. L’Aubermand Gourmand for dinner! One of the top two dinners of the trip. Frog legs, Onion Soup, Rack of Lamb, Tuna with Soya sauce and Sea Scallops with shrimp unbelievable!!! Dessert was Le Crepe en Rose crepe truck.

Tuesday – 3-14 – Bikini – Chairs included with our villa rental. Food was good. Dinner at L’Ptit Bistro in Orient Village. This probably has some of the most French dishes of any restaurant. The Tartiflete (basically augratin potatoes with bacon) and their other Potato and cheese dishes are true French cuisine in SXM. Bravo. Dessert…just to full.

Wednesday – 3-15 Phillipsburg – We needed a break from the sun and headed into P’burg as there was one ship. The girls wanted Longchamp bags and had done there price shopping and they are a deal in P’burg. Bev got a necklace to replace one she lost. We price shopped Shiva’s, DK and Kay’s and DK’s was by far the best deal and nicest.

Dinner was at Pizza Mimo which is that storage container in the Cadisco gas station parking lot outside Orient. Great pizza and a Nutella Calzone for dessert.

Part 2…..Tomorrow.

Eagerly awaiting part two and thank you. Sounds great so far....

The pictures of the villa are from 2009, any updates?

Great start; looking forward to part 2!

A comment about the front row chairs at Sun Beach Clubber. It being Sunday, I would expect that most of the front row seats, in most of the beach bars, are reserved for local residents. Sunday is their day.

Thanks for the report. The food sounds wonderful!! Regarding Sun Beach Clubber, you have to EAT there in order to rent a chair?? Wow. Were they busy? I have to say, I can't think of any food that would be good enough to put up with that kind of attitude...

Is L’Ptit Bistro located in the old Le Chapelle location?

The villa looks the same as the 2009 pictures.

They were pretty busy. We didn't go back because of that attitude. The food is very good but the way it's presented to you just turned us off from going back.

They did chase away several people that showed up after 1PM because they still insisted that you eat. My other gripe with them is for $3 they give you a cup of Coke/Diet instead of a whole can.

To many other places to go to instead of putting up with that BS.

I would not have even stayed, if they said that you had to eat there in order to rent chairs. Too many other great places to eat..

I'm glad you had a good time MBROTT. Sorry about the 2009 pix but the villa really hasn't changed that much, except the trees have gotten bigger. I'm taking some more new pix when we get back this fall. In 2 weeks I'm finally putting in the last long section of fence so it should look allot better on that side of the property.