TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Great News Club O

On their Face Book page it is stated: Heavy Equipment working 6 days per week to clean up. This should take 4-6 weeks. Their goal is to have some rental units by year’s end.
WAHOO!
carib cheers,
doctorj
Way to go Club O!

That really Is great news.
On a somewhat related note - we leave for Curacao in the morning, and 6 - 12" of snow is forecasted for later in the day. More great news.

Enjoy Curacao! We had a good time there.

Hopefully the snow will hold off long enough to not interfere with your departure.

Hope you have a great time, still snowing in the frozen tundra. 16 inches plus in Southern Maine.
carib cheers,
doctorj

Had lunch at Chez Leandra yesterday and driving in we were amazed at the lack of debris. They have been working hard!

So Chez Leandra is still serving? What's happening with the Collectivite'? Are any of the other restaurants in that area working to open up?

Didn't go down the beach at all and have no idea what's going on, as usual. There is a container further down, but didn't see any activity. I would guess near Le String. There are a few chairs/umbrellas scattered around, some red like Kon Tiki and in that area. But they have been there for awhile. Some ugly Americans off a cruise ship were giving the taxi driver a hard time because there were not enough umbrellas and chairs for them and wanted to go back to the ship. He pointed them to the others on the beach and also Club O.

Had a lovely whole snapper at Chez Leandra! Full menu not available, but they had chicken, ribs, shrimp and conch. Fries, rice and peas, salad. And a bar!

OK, thanks for the info.

I know it has been said here that they had started the clean up at Club O, but was wondering if anyone had any new photos of the progress of the clean up?

Didn't have camera yesterday. May go back this weekend if the seas don't go crazy again.

Is there parking in the Club O parking lot or is that not open?

Not in the old parking lot. But they have parking by the perch lite bldg now. They have a heavy chain they put across at night then remove the chain agian in the morning.

We'll be there in September and I was hoping that the Perch will be open and parking be available.

Do you have to pay for the parking?

Here's a 3/12 video showing Orient beach and the cleanup at Club O. Update
Progress!

Parking is still free.

After seeing that video I have no desire to go to Orient this May. In the past it was always one of my go to places but it's going to take quite a while to get back to that level again especially at the rate the French side hinders recovery with the slow pace to set regulations. I'll stick to the Dutch side beaches for now.

Orient Beach itself is stunningly beautiful to me, much more beautiful than it has been for YEARS. I hope that maybe one of the big restaurants will be open before our trip in June, but even if not, I think we will go, with a cooler..

Agree, we love the beach in it's current state. Did not like how busy it got and seldom went there pre Irma.

I'm a people watcher and always liked the hassle and bustle on Orient in the past.

Couldn't agree more. Look forward to being there end of this year.
Kind of a return to primitive.

Agree. We will go there in June. It's a beautiful beach, with or without all the beach bars. We will certainly miss the fun we always had at Aloha, however....and Nathalie.

I see lots of blue umbrellas and chairs. Is that Chez Leandra's, or is someone else renting?

Unless things have changed, and they may well have, it is either Club Orient or Chez Leandra renting chairs. I guess there could be an enterprising "gypsy" person renting chairs/umbrellas also.

C;ub O has some blue umbrellas

I think Club O collected a lot of umbrellas after Irma, I saw Yellow, Orange Green and Blue :-)

Did the video link from 3/12 go away?

NO, scroll back a few posts and ChuckG has a link in his post. There is also another link in a locked (duplicate) thread for the video.

You can also find it HERE VIDEO LINK

Thank You! Not great, but a little better.

Update from Club O on Facebook.

Link to FB got a blank page...maybe this will work

Club Orient

"Collectivite and Club Orient negotiated to secure property adjacent to the current property to help insure that even with another storm they will be in a more secure environment?"

I am confused...

I wonder if that is part of the deal about requiring some kind of a disaster shelter? There was some talk about building a several story building, back from the beach toward the salt pond.