TravelTalkOnline Forums Trip Reports (Read Only) SXM Trip Reports and Photos trip report (much shorter than the last)

Flight
Jet Blue 787 from JFK to SXM, American Airlines 660 from SXM to JFK. Both ways were uneventful, pretty much one long nap. I parked in longterm parking at JFK, which cost $18 for the first 24hrs, then $6 per every additional 8hrs.

Car Rental
Made our reservation with Kenny's Car Rental and once again satisfied customers. P had arrived a few days prior to me, so I missed Lesley's smile this trip. Although Lesley did not have any cars available, he met P at the airport along with his friend from Rodael (not sure about the spelling), who would be providing us with the car for this trip. I was surprised when I called P upon landing and he told me he'd be out front in a silver corolla. Thought Lesley may have gotten a new fleet of corollas.

Phone
We made our first purchase with Sharon the Queen of SXM. Prior to joining P on the island, in the middle of one of our conversations he got notification that he was running out of minutes. Previously we purchased TelCell sim cards from Talk Cell along the Salt Pond, but after the recent thread about sim cards decided to go with Chippie this time. We noticed better coverage with Chippie. Thank you, Sharon, for replying to my "urgent!" PM and helping us out. Add me to your list of happy customers.

Accommodations
We stayed at the Esmeralda Resort in Orient once again. We keep thinking it's the last time, in anticipation for our condo renovations to be complete, but we keep finding ourselves back there. We like the resort, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. This time we were in room 525, which had two full size beds. The original plan was for P to come down on a solo trip, otherwise we would've requested a room with a king size bed. We didn't bother requesting for a room change because it wasn't worth the hassle. Also, we discovered that we were able to connect to a network for WIFI access, hence no desire to move rooms. I'm not sure if this is available resort-wide. If so, this is a very recent upgrade, as it was not available just over a month ago.


One of the reasons why we love Esmeralda: privacy, peace, and quiet. I have a few more (boring) pictures of the actual room where we stayed; i'll post if anyone want to see them.

Coco is the beach venue offering complimentary beach chairs and umbrellas for Esmeralda guests. The beach guy was kind enough to give our two friends (who are staying at the Divi) complimentary chairs as well for one of the afternoons they came over to Orient to join us. We made up for it through drinks and a generous tip. In comparison to our last visit, there were more people making use of the clothing optional section.

Food and Drink
Places that P went prior to my arrival are Bacchus, Topper's, Bikini Beach Bar for lunches and Cote Plages, Piazza Pascal for dinners. I was sad to have missed out, especially Bacchus, but P enjoyed all places even without my good company.

Places that P and I went together...
for breakfast: Safari Grill
for lunches: L'Oasis, Kakao
for dinners: Yvette's, Le Ti Bouchon, IZI
for drinks: Chez Pierrot, Buccaneer Beach Bar, Coco, Bikini Beach Bar, Tai Club, Kontiki


Fireball at Buccaneer on Friday night


Crowd at Buccaneer

In trying to keep this short, I won't elaborate over the details, but ask away for further feedback.

Shopping
Fortunately, I wasn't down long enough to do major damage. My purchases include Yvette's cookbook, MaDouDou, hotsauce, and champagne.

Yvette's first cookbook, titled "From Yvette's Kitchen To Your Table", is now available at the restaurant for $30. Felix, head chef/owner, says the cookbook is selling like hot cakes. Can't wait to sample some of the recipes. It seems most recipes are simple with majority requiring common ingredients. I bought two copies, both signed by the staff. One copy will be mailed out this weekend to a fellow TTOLer.


Looking forward to tasting this. I actually picked this up at the airport at the Last Stop duty free shop, when buying last minute gifts for our dogsitter, so I'm sure that I could've purchased this for less elsewhere. I paid $13.50 for the banana-vanilla MaDouDou (50CL). The MaDouDou hotsauce (20CL) cost $7.39; it looks strikingly similar to Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce. Looking forward to trying it.

http://store.ethnicfoodsco.com/grocery/P...countryorderid=

Dom Perignon 1999 Vintage purchased to celebrate completion of our kitchen renovation. This will be any day now and can't wait to pop open the bottle. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Banana.gif" alt="" />

Good company of people and four-legged animals
During our stay, we were adopted by "Kitty" and "Buddy" and while they took a liking to us they did not like each other. Their first encounter was extremely funny to say the least.


Kitty


Buddy


Buddy chasing Kitty

We also had the pleasure of spending time with some island friends, including Bill, Elaine, and Luci of SXMCooks as well as other local friends. We even had the pleasure of spending some time with our contractor, who is on vacation in St.Martin for three weeks with his wife. I passed along a voucher for two to travel to St.Barths, which they are both grateful for. It'll be their first time going, so I forewarned them about the sticker shock.

Randoms
Two randoms worth sharing for anyone interested...

There is a flea market in Orient Village on Sunday morning, which we stumbled upon during our breakfast at Safari Grill on checkout day. Nothing of interest for us, but there was a decent crowd.

Swim noodles are available at the newstand next to Tap Five. Someone inquired about its availability in Orient recently. Didn't see price listed.