This was our 23rd trip to St. Martin, not including a day spent there last year on a cruise, and our 6th stay at Maho.

Friday July 15: We flew Canjet, arriving 30 minutes early. Nevertheless, Lesley (from Kenny’s Car Rental) was waiting for us. Five minutes of paperwork, then we dropped Lesley off at his home and headed for the Sonesta Maho. There was a line up of people checking in, who were served some kind of pink, bubbly, quite potent, drink while they waited. After two of these, I did not mind the wait so much.

We paid $718.00 CAD each plus taxes for airfare and one week, all-inclusive. For this we got a nice room, one of the renovated ones, on the 9th floor with a view of the pool and the sea. Looking to the left, we could see the beach at the end of the runway. Not bad. We unpacked, made a quick trip across to the Maho Market for water and other stuff for the room fridge. Had dinner at the Palms Grill – they had a buffet that night with a lot of bar-b-que’d items. We are not big foodies, so we were happy with a buffet.

Saturday, July 16: Breakfast at Maho at the Ocean Terrace. It was a buffet – quite satisfactory with the usual breakfast fare. Quite honestly, any meal, especially breakfast, that has been prepared for me by someone else is absolutely fine with me. While we ate, it rained, as in the skies opened and torrents of water came down. Happily, it did not last long. Later, we went into P’burg, as we were looking to get our cell phone set up. The city was quiet, with only one cruise ship in port. We browsed the stores, bought some gifts to take back to family and the folks who look after our house. We were approached by a lady offering scratch tickets to win prizes if we went to view a time share at Divi Little Bay. What a surprise! My husband scratched the big prize! After some conversation with the lady, who wanted us to go and see Divi right away, we agreed to go on Sunday morning but only because my husband wanted her to get her commission. Then we went back to Maho, had lunch at the hotel and spent the afternoon relaxing and reading.

In the evening we went across for ice cream at the Haagen Dazs store and had a drink in the lobby bar at Maho. Now, I am sure that I have read this in another posting, but I will repeat it anyway: They have completely ruined that bar with those @#$% gaming machines. It used to be a nice, quiet spot to have a drink, some conversation, people-watch, etc. No more. There is barely room on the bar for your drinks, the lighting is way too bright and the big screen TV, playing Spanish games shows and guys playing poker, is just too in-your-face for me. Bad move.

Sunday, July 17: Woke to gray skies, had breakfast and headed out to Divi. It poured rain as we drove there and must have been raining in the night quite heavily as there was flooding on the roads in some areas. At Divi, we were greeted with what I can only call distain as we showed our “winning” ticket. Our ticket indicated that the presentation would be approximately an hour. After giving all our information, showing appropriate credit cards, etc., we were told that the presentation would be a minimum of 90 minutes. O.K., we’ll still go along with this and were then introduced to a lady who took us for a walk around what I would have to say is not the most attractive part of the property, including a rocky beach littered with garbage. All the while, it is drizzling. She chatted with us about where we were from, how many times to SXM, etc. while we wondered just what was the purpose of the walk. When we were far enough away from the sales office that they could not hear us scream, she told us the presentation would be at least two hours. I guess this is how they weed out the folks like us who are not really going to consider buying. At any rate when we questioned the 2 hours+, she blew us off and left us standing in the parking lot. I swore I would never go to another time share set-up the last time we got caught with the “winning ticket”. I guess this serves me right. Leaving Divi, we drove through P’burg, which was pretty much deserted. We drove around the island, stopped at Orient to see folks at Le String. The day was pretty gray, still, with almost no one on the beach and only a couple of places open. We drove back through Marigot and found the ice cream lady near the cemetery. I’m not sure she is the original lady but the coconut ice cream was very good.

Later, the sun came out but it was too late for the beach. In the evening, we had drinks at Cheri’s and watched the show. Now, I know a number of people on this board think the show is cheesy but this night I found it really amusing. They had 8 guys from the audience on stage, dressed up as beautiful super models, with flouncy skirts, wigs and huge fake bosoms. They had to walk the catwalk and then dance. One guy did an impromptu pole dance on one of the uprights that holds up the roof. Yeah, I know it’s corny but I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.

Monday, July 18: We headed for the beach, got set up in the front row of beds at Le String and watched people in the water pulling great strands of seaweed off themselves. There was quite a strong wind blowing, with lots of seaweed churned up in the water and on the sand. The sun came and went for a while. Then, the rain came down in buckets. Everyone abandoned the beach and, happily for the guys at the restaurant, sat inside to have lunch. We shared some calamari and I had the Salad Nicoise. It was O.K; again I’m not a fussy eater. After lunch and some complimentary liqueurs, we headed back to Maho, as the sun looked like it had gone for the day.

Back at Maho, there was an odour outside like the septic tank had exploded. We shut the balcony door and stayed inside.

Later that evening, we went back to the ice cream shop. Sadly for my husband there was not enough Rum and Raisin in the tub to fill a cone. Not to worry – he found a 500ml tub in the freezer and ate that – problem solved, Haagen Dazs “fix” fixed.

Tuesday, July19: Drove into P’burg again. Once again, we were lucky enough to get parking in the small lot in town. I bought a new watch, a “Skagen”, made some other purchases. Then we drove through the centre of the island to check out Marigot. We figured it was O.K. to go there in the daytime but had been warned by Lesley about parking at the marina at night. We checked the ferry schedule to Anguilla and decided to go there for the day on Wednesday. By the time we got back to Maho, it was raining again. We had a late lunch, found a sheltered spot and read and watched the planes land.

Wednesday, July 20: After breakfast, we headed for the ferry to Anguilla. FYI – cost is $40.00 per person for the return trip, including departure tax from both islands. Ferries start at 8:15 a.m. and run every 45 minutes, pretty much on time. In Anguilla we rented a car - $20.00 cash for a driver’s license and $35.00 for the car for the day. Off we went, finding ourselves almost at Shoal Bay when the “low fuel” light came on. Silly us, we should have checked or, maybe, the lady at the rental place could have told us that they rent cars without much gas in them. Back we went, hoping to find a gas station before we ran out altogether. Found one back in The Valley – gas costs $6.35 US per gallon. We pay $1.34 a litre here and we produce the stuff, so I guess that’s not too bad for a small Caribbean island.

At Shoal Bay, we had lunch at Uncle Ernie’s and, I’m sad to say, the place has gone down hill badly since Uncle Ernie passed on. I recall having some very nice fish there in the past but no more. The “local fresh fish” on the menu was snapper, listed at $12.00. I ordered this for both of us. The waitress took the order and then the guy I assume was in charge came back and said it would be $15.00 each. O.K. just so long as it’s fresh and not covered in batter, I said. He asked how I wanted it done and I asked for it to be grilled. He said they could not grill it as the grill was full of chicken and ribs and such like stuff. So they would have to fry it. It was passable but not really good. I had been tempted to eat next door at Madeariman and should have followed that instinct.

Later we drove around the island and back to The Valley where we visited with some folks that my husband knew back in the late 60’s, early 70’s when he worked in Anguilla. The fellow he knew owns half of Anguilla now but still works every day and has his family working for him. Nice people, very hard-working.

Back at the ferry, we returned the rental car. On the ferry, we decide to sit on the top deck. Great views until, you guessed it, the skies opened up and we were all drenched as we scurried below. Really, I’m surprised no one fell overboard in the mad rush to get below decks!

It rained again heavily that evening so we stayed in.

Thursday, July 21: The sun was shining so after breakfast we headed back to Orient Beach. We stopped for gas at the Cadisco station near Orient, where they take the US dollar on par with the Euro. Very accommodating.

At the beach, we got some sun at Le String. Yes! We left mid afternoon, planning on giving the lolos in Grand Case another chance. The last two times we ate there the food was not up to par. Also the Talk of the Town was very dirty and our lunch was accompanied by a fierce shouting match among the staff. Nevertheless, we figured it could only get better. We took the back road into Grand Case, past the airport, but were stopped by a police officer. He asked where we were going and we told him. He said we could not go into town, as there were some festivities on that day and there was no parking space. We turned around and drove on, deciding to have lunch at Lee’s.

Now, I know that Lee’s is another place that gets mixed reviews. However, I have never had a bad meal here and never had slow or unfriendly service. No exception this time. The wait staff was cheerful and quick, the food – mahi mahi with potato salad and coleslaw, along with some crabby cakes and fried plantain – was all good, as were the frozen Margaritas. The best meal we had for the entire trip.

Later we went to Cheri’s again for drinks. The place was packed, as it was every night we went past it, except for Tuesday, when it was closed.

Friday, July 22: Time to go home and I had a migraine headache. They let us stay in the room until 1:00 p.m. so I could get rid of it. We had lunch at Maho, picked up Lesley and headed to the airport. Canjet was on time but on the return trip we stopped in Punta Cana. Met with some serious turbulence just before Punta Cana, shook the plane so much even the cabin crew looked worried.

Arrived back in Toronto around midnight, got no hassles from Customs and Immigration although others were not so lucky.

A couple of other items:

I felt that some areas seem to have been cleaned up a lot, especially as you drive out of P’burg towards Orient and Oyster Pond.

Too much building around Cupecoy, really un-island- like. Can’t imagine what the traffic will be like if they sell all the condos, etc. and open the mall.

Maho bathrooms in the renovated rooms have rain showerheads. These are really nice but there is only a thin slat of wood to keep the water from running out onto the floor. I had to have what my father called a “prison camp” shower: get wet: turn off the water and soap yourself; turn the water on and rinse. This minimized the amount of water that could flow out onto the bathroom floor. When I washed my hair, it was: get wet, turn off the water, get soaped, turn on water and rinse, wet hair, turn off water and massage head with shampoo, turn on water and rinse, turn off water, apply conditioner, turn on water and rinse again. After this, because there is no vent in the bathroom, the entire room is steamed up and you can’t see into the mirror for an hour. But at least the floor is not completely flooded

The public areas, especially outside, are looking a bit run down. The wait staff are inconsistent, some days all over you, others days nowhere to be found.

The golf course at Mullet is the greenest I have ever seen it. I guess all the rain has some benefits.
There is demolition underway on all those battered buildings at Mullet, although some just look like they’ve fallen down. When we left, they were installing some kind of hoarding or barricades along the edge of the road, between the road and the places being worked on. There is also demolition on the point just beyond Maho.

There was an odd looking ship circling around in the water just beyond Maho. It was grey, with an extensive superstructure on the front (bow?) and a lower, flat section at the stern, with a helicopter pad. Couldn’t find anyone who knew what it was. My husband asked a young waiter at lunch one day. The conversation went something like this:

“What is that odd looking ship out there?”
“Ship?”
“Yes, the one with the helicopter on it.”
“Helicopter?”
“Yes, helicopter.”
“You arrive today?”
“No, Friday. I’m asking about the ship with the helicopter.”
“Oh, we’re not serving that today.”

Still don’t know what the ship was!