TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip report 2-18 to 3-5

Our 7th trip in 9 years, it was particularly good to see familiar faces on the beach and on the Club O volleyball court. We stay in Orient, a bit up above the village, quiet studio. To say we were happy to be here this year might be an understatement, we might have even jumped for Joy <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

Had some great food moments this year,good meals at Le Piment, La Table d'Antoine, La Playa (up on the top deck for lunch), L'auberge gourmande in GC (seafood duo):
Also great buckwheat crepes and hand-cut fries at Max's place in GC, for a cheap date night.
We enjoy grocery shopping on SXM. Super U is good; we visited the Carrefour in Cole Bay for the first time, and with the exception of good Douwe and Egbert coffee, found selection mediocre and prices to be high; Petit Casino gets a semi-bad rap for having "beach convenience store prices", and for the most part I think this is wrong - their prices are so close to the other places, that it's a vacation non-issue. More and better stuff in there than most would suspect... unless of course your expectation is that they should carry all US brands for you (Doritos, Kellogs, budweiser...) - which DO tend to be expensive!
For those not in the know, reserve your rotisserie chicken at Macaron (pastry shop connected to Yellow Sub) in the morning, pay and tell them when you will pick it up. Great stuff!

Joy did beach combing in Grand Case, while I sipped a cool one on a beach chair

Had frequent early-morning rain, but little during the day; almost enough beach time <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" /> and some nice late-afternoon colors:

Overall, another great vacation!
One last note: Mobile passport (smart phone app) really can get you through customs and immigration faster!

Nice report. Thanks for sharing.

What a lovely report with beautiful pictures!! Thanks so much!

Thanks for writing and for posting the reports, which are different from the usual beach and food scenes (of which I'm guilty).

Beautiful report loaded with lovely photos and lots of interesting info. Thank you so much for taking the time and making the effort to share your trip. It is very much appreciated.....The beach glass collection is quite pretty. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

Those rotisserie chickens can be ordered with potatoes that have cooked in the chicken juices and they're wonderful. The two of us can't eat a whole chicken in one meal so we have great chicken and avocado baguette sandwiches on the beach the next day.

Totally agree about the chickens from Macaron. So glad we ordered the small order of potatoes! Delicious and enough left to go into a salad with the leftover chicken. I also agree about prices at Petite Casino. A great selection, especially after the ship from France comes in, and very fair prices. We just returned from our 4 weeks and did almost all of our shopping among Hope Estate Market, Leader Price and Petite Casino.The only exceptions were Bacchus for nicer white wines, Grape Wine for cheese and the pharmacy in Cul de Sac for Lancaster sunscreen. We did bring a small amount of meat with us. I think if we did want to purchase meat we would have to go to a larger store.
Thanks again for all of the goodies you left on our porch and in your fridge. Much appreciated.

P and P: I'm glad you guys were there to use our "leftovers"! Hard to beat good neighbors. And good neighbors in the Caribbean are the best! In terms of meat we actually bought some tiny hanger steaks from Petite Casino and they were pretty darned good! Especially with the steak spice we bought in the Marigot market. Oh yeah, with a little blue cheese on top!

What was the steak spice you got and whod you buy it from joy?

Kevin and his wife have a spice and produce stand most days in the Marigot market, close to the fish stand, nearly right across the street from Sarafina's. He just labels it "Steak spice." We also buy the "Fish spice" and "magic spice" from him, all 3 are good to our tastes. Each is a different blend. he says "No MSG" in any of it.