TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin A Few Questions

Just booked a villa for our 19 trip to SXM, but 1st one post Irma.

We usually fly out of Tampa, but will be flying out of Miami this time. We have Global Entry & will be flying business class. How early should we plan to arrive at the airport?

Coco Beach was one of our favorite places to hang out. Is/has the bar/restaurant been rebuilt? Are there chairs/umbrellas for rent? Is there a nude section? Is it run by the same people, Sophia/Roman, etc.?

What about Paradise View Restaurant? Any plans to rebuild?

For our 18 previous trips, we have rented from Michael at Unity. I read that he split from his brother. Is he still providing excellent service?

How about Emma at Fabulous Feasts? Is she still in business?

How about Villa Pizza in Cul de Sac? Are they still in business?

Thanks for your help in advance!

Villa Pizza in Cul de Sac is gone, building was destroyed.

Two hour minimum. Global entry makes no difference leaving US. Only returning.

Michael @ Unity is still there providing excellent service always!

I'll try to answer a few of your questions as best as I can. I didn't know Tampa had direct flight in the past to St. Martin. Must have been a while ago. As long as you don't have a connecting flight then MIA should be fine. Global entry doesn't matter when departing Miami, so I would simply plan to arrive at the airport two hours ahead of time. Usual stuff like baggage check, security screening, etc.

Coco Beach is gone and KKO (Kakao) is relatively close to where Coco used to be. So, the light blue color of the umbrellas are now dark blue up that way. But, the good news is that there is a very good bar/restaurant up-and-running though a little pricey. $30 USD will rent two beach chairs and an umbrella. The old nude section up there was actually kind of out of place, IMO and KKO does't have a section like that.

The Paradise View restaurant is also long gone, but I have no idea about it's future plans. However, it's still a great view from up there and you can see St. Barths!

Villa Pizza is also history as another post above has indicated. That's too bad because it was a good place to catch a bite when up that way.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your help Scubaman. Would really like to hear from people from south Florida, who regularly fly out of MIA.
Global Entry gets us in the TSA PreCheck line. Flying Business Class gets us priority in ticketing and checking bags.
How about it south Florida? Is two hours appropriate?

FF. we are regular travelers from MIA to SXM. Global Entry goes fast with TSA pre-check but depends on the day...on both trips, one on Tuesday and one on Friday, both had no lines at all. I always use the Skycap when pulling up outside. tip them $10.00 and saves considerable amount of time. Make sure he puts the priority tag on your bags and gives you the luggage receipts. and with F/C head for the centurion lounge. I like to get there early as this lounge if not busy does some great breakfasts, free drinks, showers massage etc if needed. If lounge not needed 1 hour 20mins to 2 hours is fine. Depends what you want to do.

Returning, with GE, just follow the signs.......very straight forward and never had a problem. Caveat though, Does depend on the day you travel, but should be a breeze for you.

Instead of Miami look at the JetBlue flights from Fort Lauderdale

Thank you Bran! We are flying out of MIA on a 10:56 am flight on a Friday, spending 9 nights in SXM, returning on a Sunday afternoon.

Global Entry should include pre-check - just make sure you airline has the recognized traveler number and it will come up on your boarding pass.

Concerning Villa Pizza: the original building is gone. However, they have reopened with basically the same menu up the road. It is now called Villa Rouge. It is located on the opposite side of the street back towards the roundabout at top of a hill. We are on island now and have been there twice in the last three weeks.

mike12468@yahoo.com is Michael's email address at Unity.

We fly out of MIA regularly, both domestic and international. It honestly just depends on the day, the time of day, etc. I always give myself a 3-hour buffer, even for domestic flights. Sometimes (like when we flew to SXM last week), we were at the gate in less than 1.5 hours. Other times, it has taken almost every minute of the 3 hours to get to the gate (like when we flew to San Juan over Spring Break a few years ago). Two hours would make me nervous, personally. We don’t have TSA PreCheck, but to be honest, they didn’t move a whole lot faster than the regular line when we flew last week. It probably depends on how many other Pre-Check folks are in the security line the same time as you.

Keep in mind that for international travel your bags have to be checked in an hour before departure or bags won't make the flight. Also someone mentioned Priority on your bags. I have found baggage handlers in SXM pay no attention to them.

A quick, off-topic story, if you don't mind:

I was flying from my home airport (in USA) to London (UK) on Air Canada via Toronto. Because there is only one flight per day on AC from this airport, the check-in desk crew doubles as the gate crew. So... I arrived about 58 minutes prior to departure, and by then the desk crew had abandoned their post and headed to the gate. I was therefore unable to check my too-big-to-carry-on bag. Well... I headed to the men's room and dumped anything I could not carry on, and went to TSA. I squeezed the bag thru TSA. The flight to Toronto was on a Canadair (regional) jet, so I said nothing and gate-checked it.

At the gate in Toronto, as I was preparing to board the flight to London, the gate agent spied my oversize bag, and insisted that it needs to go under the plane and handled like a checked bag. OK.... so they tagged the bag and told me to drop it at the bottom of the jet bridge. However, I didn't want to be burdened by the wait at baggage claim in London, so I rolled that sucker right into the 787.... and it fit nicely in the overhead bin!!!

(I did check it on the way home...)

<end of post hijack>

You renegade. LOL

Thanks! I knew about that restaurant, but didn't know it was the same people. Will definitely check it out!

That is great news! Thank you!