TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Anse Marcel

Never been and I hear this beach is just lovely. Is there an area on the beach that we can enjoy and bring our own chairs/cooler without getting hassled? Can you order munchies/drinks from the restaurant and take them to your chairs or is it strictly "fancy dining" in the restaurant? TY

There is a public beach access area for your own chairs and coolers. Not sure of food and beverage to go. Great parking area for the resort patrons only.

I was there yesterday for the day. Sign by the restaurant says "no coolers" so as Scuba says, go further down the beach. And I would not park by the restaurant since you aren't patronizing it. I would say no on the food to go as they had two "seatings" yesterday for restaurant and cabana patrons. Think you should bring your own food and beverage.

Thank you all. Not sure what we might decide to do, would just like to consider the options. I hear it is just beautiful there.

On another site people mentioned how much smoking there is there....and that they went into the water just to get away from it. Is that more of a weekend thing when the French are all there?

We didn't notice any smoking both the times we were there. Wasn't crowded but during the week.

Hmmmm, I would suggest the smoking thing is dependent on the day and the crowd. We were there one weekday with our daughters and spent almost the entire day on the beach smoke free until shortly after lunch - perhaps 2:00 or there about - when a small group of lovely looking young French women arrived.

Turns out They were loud and smoking up a storm and the three of them consumed more wine in a couple of hours than our group did the entire day. They clearly wanted their presence felt and believe me, it was. We decided enough and chuckled a bit when we noticed the couple on the other side of them called their day to a close as well.

And yet, we’ve been there many times when , if anyone was smoking, we were totally unaware of it.

I was not at all bothered by smoking when I was on the beach, nor when we were in the cabana. Late afternoon when we were having a "nightcap" prior to paying our bill, there were some folks smoking in the restaurant. Even then, it wasn't enough for me to be bothered by it. And this was a weekend.