TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report 2020

We just wrapped another fabulous girls trip, our 5th to SXM, 10th overall. You might want to skip this report if you don't like tartare, french fries, or white wines.

Day 0: Overnight in TWA Hotel at JFK. A very neat experience, both retro and modern at the same time. Highly recommend.

Day 1: Uneventful flight JFK to SXM. Found Lesley of Kenny's, and our rental car was at the curb ready to go. Open parking spot at Driftwood made our choice of snack stop easy. Great atmosphere and service, good wings & rum punch, OK fries. Orient Bay villa as excellent as it was last year. The new Super U at Hope Estate is very clean and very convenient, and having the Pharmacy next door is nice as well. No more schleps to Marigot, although we missed the good pastry shop Howell Center.
Dinner at Yellow Sub--excellent burrata salad, second best Accras of the trip, and fries on par with what I love about St. Martin.

Day 2: Wai Plage: Great food and service, up with LaPlaya. The goat cheese salad with Marlin was excellent. Best accras we had this trip. Fries still hitting my high bar. I saw Chrystal (sp?), formerly of Le Piment, working hard, and it was a busy day.
One comment (I do not blame Wai Plage for this): Definitely a weirder crowd concentrated all in one place. One couple apparently loved the return of DreadEye (I hadn't seen him roaming the beach in a few years), and encouraged everyone around to listen to his stuff even though we (and others) declined his offer to listen to his music. Many times. Another man (who definitely knew better) was doing a breast exam of sorts while his younger, topless, girlfriend was arching her back. And a group of partying Americans, who arrived next to us fifteen minutes after we chose our spot, decided to play their mostly mediocre music via bluetooth tote speaker. I would have much preferred the waves and the chill music the restaurant was playing. I probably should have asked them to turn it down or complained to the staff but it just made for an amusing story to laugh about later. They also gave the beach braiders and massagers a lot of business, too, so it kept them away from us. We've observed all of the above before, but not all in one place on each side of us. I hope this was a fluke, it was the kind of overall crowd we'd purposely try to avoid when we choose a vacation spot.
Le Telgraphe for dinner with a creole mahi mahi tartare--and yes, good fries--ranked among my favorite meals.

Day 3: AM: Pastries from Good Morning poolside, my favorite pastry place in the village. Lunch at Le Taitu. It's good but I don't think the menu has ever changed beyond a slight price increase, I really wish there was a white wine offering beyond chardonnay (which was perfectly fine, but not my favorite). PM: We finally made it to Loterie Farm and had a nice afternoon hike. We didn't make it to the cell phone towers for the amazing views, but going up to the ruins was still a nice (and sweaty) hike and we managed to take in a nice view of Anguilla and Friar's Bay in the process.

Cote Plage for dinner: Still has the best fries, offered a great Sancerre by the glass, the best one I had La Place du Village. And our favorite desserts. However we were sad the pasta made tableside with the cheese wheel wasn't available that night, it was a surprising favorite meal from our 2019 trip. And the Italian tartare wasn't as good as what I recall having in 2019. But still my favorite restaurant.

Day 4: Fat Tuesday=Marigot. Shopping (at least a few stores were open in the morning), lunch at Be Kool, I don't know what sauvignon blanc the server picked out but it was excellent, my second favorite wine of the trip. Fries tied for 2nd favorite with Le Telegraphe. Mahi and Salmon tartare with green olives was not my favorite tartare but I respect the ambition: it was still tasty and I had no regrets trying it.
Parade was much shorter than usual, but still fun. And loud. Clearly no safe sound level guidelines being followed, but fortunately we had earplugs.

Grand Case in the evening was more crowded than I ever remember, even pre-Irma. We typically eat at Sky's the Limit, but this year we tried Talk of the Town. It's become my favorite Lolo, just because of the choice of sides, but I'd still gladly recommend both. We arrived early and parked along the airport road by Spiga, never felt unsafe.There was definitely more of a gendarmerie presence than in the past.

Day 5: The morning rainstorm helped us decide to postpone our LaPlaya plans to Thursday. Good Morning pastries, pool, laundry, hanging around. Unfortunately Ash Wednesday meant lots of shops were closed on the French side, as was Yvette's.
L'Atellier for dinner. We awarded this place the best new restaurant in the village. Beef Tartare made table side was a nice break from the seafood. I'm hopeful that this place will break the curse of all the restaurants that failed before in this corner location.

Day 6: La Playa. Perfect Beach Day. Excellent Mahi Mahi tartare and fries with Aperol Spritzes added to the atmosphere. It was a nice touch that our beach drinks were in real glassware. Although we miss Aloha, La Playa's return helped us feel that Orient is truly back and better, even if it isn't exactly the same.
For dinner, La Voile Blanche was good for the classic French plates (yes, including french fries), but the other offerings were disappointing, also no rum this year (last year was Ma DouDou). Even so, I don't understand how it's empty compared to Little Italy, which we still rate as our worst meal ever in the village a few years ago. Also we noticed that there were lots of gendermares around that evening.

Day 7: What's better than a perfect beach day at La Playa? A second perfect beach day at La Playa. We chose it over a 2nd visit to Wai Plage simply because La Playa is closest to our villa. Tuna tartare and fries made for a satisfying beachside meal. For dinner, Le Telegraphe's pork tenderloin with gratin was a delight.
Unfortunately the water outage made our last day a bit more complicated. Fortunately our villa had a huge stash of water to help us get adequately clean for dinner and the return home.

Day 8: Bottled water shower and lunch at Sunset Grill (because one friend had yet to experience either of the Maho beach bars). OK burger, worst fries of the trip (but still OK), service much better than I remember in the past. Dropped off the car, and uneventful flight back. The airport was more crowded than I remember from last year. During the layover, Shake Shack crinkle fries --among my favorite fries in the USA--were tasty, but also a sad reminder me how much I'll miss the frites from the French Side.

Places we missed: Le Piment--we love it, but there are so many good alternatives in the village now, so not worth the wait when it's crowded. Sao--we miss Antoine's, but feel that Sao's offerings are overpriced and not as good as what we can get back home. Yvette's--definitely a priority for next time. And still so many things we thought about trying but didn't get around to.

It's funny, we never set out to be that group that goes to the same place every year, and we do try to mix it up every few years. Before Irma, we didn't find anything that compared to what we all loved about Baie Orientale (private villa with a pool, walkable to the beach, grocery and village). After IRMA, we've realized that what we love could be washed away, and there's still so many things we haven't yet done on the island, so we chose to come back next year. And we can't wait to return!

Nice report, and yes Orient Village really is better than ever. BTW, it is Christelle (Barthelemy), formerly of Le Piment. We also loved Le Telegraphe. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks for the clarification that it's Christelle! I wish her the best success, Wai Plage is a nice addition to the beach bars (in spite of our weird crowd experience), and we'll definitely be back!

Thanks so much for the report, definitely heavy on french fries!!!! I love me some St. Martin french fries!! Orient Village is really is really the highlight of the French side to me now..

Really enjoyed your report, sounds like you had a great time. You can bet that the disruptive crowd at Wai Plage were cruisers. Where ever they plop for the day they annoy everyone .(only a few are okay).They are disruptive and disrespectful to their surroundings (and most are Americans).

Thanks for the report.

Nice report, sounds like you had a great time. Thanks for the heads up. I'll check out them fries, and keep an eye out for those weird crowds at Wai Plage next month! LOL

You're probably right, it did seem like everyone filled in around us at Wai Plage at once, as if a bus had dropped them off (except for the DreadEye fan club). Even though the cruise ship schedule was light, it only takes one, I suppose! Whereas at La Playa (where we made reservations) it seemed as if we were amongst more hotel guests.

totally ignorant here but what is this "DreadEye fan club?"

Thanks for the report. As an FYI for future visits, Yvette's is always closed on Wednesday. Ash Wednesday or not.

Thanks for posting this lovely report! We are so happy that so many business have come back and new ones to try! I'm with you, the best music is the ocean!!

Thanks for letting us enjoyed your trip and "fry ratings".

The Dread Eye fan club (my term) was one of the couples sitting around us at Wai Plage that kept encouraging people to listen to Dread Eye, who was wondering the beach selling his reggae CDs. Whenever someone declined and he was about to leave them alone, one of them would yell, "Oh come on! His music is great!" which would encourage him to keep pestering everyone. I remember him from my first time at Orient several years ago.

I think it's Dread'i.

Dread'i website

Love his music! Have several cds. One of them is one of my favorite all time albums.

very nice report !! short but sweet and interesting