TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin trip report

Hi everyone just returned from our latest trip to St Martin. Our first trip to the island was in 2000 and we have returned just about every year since. We found the new Covid rules for entering were a little stressful because everything had to be timed and approved in a short space. We did the PCR test at a local urgent care that specialized in testing for travel. We tested Saturday for a Tuesday departure. Got our test results Sunday night, sent in our forms and received approval to travel 4:00 am on Monday. Although we live ½ hour closer to PHL we learned we had much better results if we leave from EWR so we don’t have to deal with AA’ s last minute changes from a direct to a stop in CLT. You must check in the counter now to get your boarding pass because they need your paperwork for clearance to enter St Martin. Newark was not busy, and we went through regular security even faster than precheck. Plane left early because everyone was boarded quickly. Plane only had about 30 passengers. Arrived early to St Martin and was through immigration quickly, out to see Leslie and off to Orient Bay in record time.
As any other year we stay in Orient Bay in the village we love it that we can walk to everything you really don’t need a car. Met our host unpacked and headed over to Yellow Sub for a quick dinner. Although it is not near the experience of the other restaurants on a good day it was below par and disappointing. After 2 meals that were not particularly good last year, we have taken it off our list. If you are looking for a livelier bar crowed this would be your place to go for liquid refreshment. Every night it was the busiest bar in the village. Mostly a younger crowd & there was not a lot of social distancing taking place. Took a walk on the beach and turned in early because it was a long day.
Our average day was started with either breakfast at Good Morning, Cozy Corner, or eggs and pastries at home. Most days were spent on Orient Beach. The beach bars were not busy with the exception of Club O. Some were only serving food Thursday thru Sunday. Less than ¼ of the chairs were occupied except for Saturday and Sunday. We have never seen the seaweed as bad as it was our first week it covered the beach from Mt Vernon to Papagayo with no or extremely limited effort to remove it from the beach. Orient is always windy, but a couple of day were over the top and our first Sunday was not a beach day at all. Early one morning Cedric had a big, wheeled loader clear the Club O section and I thought it was going to be a big waist of time. The same day the wind shifted just a bit and the beach started to clear up and the section that was cleaned with the loader by the next day was almost completely clear.
We dined out more than usual this trip. We enjoyed LePimet twice, LePetit Bistro twice (both were excellent) First time at Telegraph, which was good… We had an excellent dinner at Astrolabe on Friday night (Lobster Party) We had a great time, there was also music & lots of dancing. We stopped in Grand Case one night and the LoLos were not busy. We ate at Skies the Limit, which was very good., took some Johnny Cakes home to have for breakfast the next morning. We took a ride to Marigot, Maho & Phillipsburg one day, they were all very quiet. We went to SunSet Beach Bar which again had very little people, but we had a good lunch.
We mostly took lots of walks around the village, on the beach, & just relaxed. All the extra work to get to St Martin was well worth it. We have already booked our trip next year & extended our time to a month.

Thanks for the report John. Guess you were sorry to miss Regatta.

Glad you enjoyed, John. Lots of us missed Regatta. Surprised how much traffic there was though, thought with no regatta it would have been less.