TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Day 17?

Today, we decided to change it up a bit. Instead of venturing over to Orient, we decided to spend the day at Mullett. A few quick (less than two minutes) light showers surely didn't deter the great time at Mullett Beach today. There was some pretty good size rogue waves, but for the most part it was a small swell, all day long, Mwith a nice breeze blowing again. Just bobbed up and down in the super clear, NO SEAWEED at all, waters all afternoon. For lunch, had the BEST ribs at the best beach shack on the island, Rosie's. It was nice to see she expanded her restaurant a bit, added more seating, built a cover overr some picnic tables, added a few more tables on the sand, and still the fantastic food at the best prices.

Headed back around 4:30, just vegged out at our suite, and decided on IZI for tonight's meal. Probably been two or three years, snice we last ate there. Had a wonderful veal parm, my wife had a smoked salmon pasta dish. Food was prepared perfectly, service top notch, and was good to see Davide as always. He does have thear restaurant, both inside and out spread out for Covid...and it was surprisingly quiet there tonight. Everyone seems pretty hopeful, that things will get better soon with tourism.As i have said before, these local workers, the restaurant and shop owners, everyone everywhere is still just barely holding on. Come on folks, make your reservations, and come enjoy what you have been missing for the last year.

My wife and i did have the pleasure of meeting TTOL's own ''BigDaddy" and Mrs. BigDaddy at Izi tonight. It was a pleasure meeting them both. I did recieve a few comment to me this week, that I have been recognized both from here, and from facebook. I'll take that as a compliment

Tonight after dinner, was another trip into the casino, and they got me in my pocket a couple of times, but still three more nights to get it back with interest.

Tomorrow, the plan is to head to Orient, with a stop at the RedCross on the way, get our mandatory covid test, and at least put that behind us. Saturday sure seems to be coming quickly. Hope it slows down just a bit...I am not ready to leave yet.

More to follow......

Sounds like a nice day. Let us know how it goes with red cross.

Enjoy reading your daily reports, you make me wish we were there, thank you

Thanks for the report. Carry on!!

update of Red Cross"

Went this morning, very short wait to get to talk to someone. Since our flight is for Saturday aftrnoon, she suggested we come back tomorrow, since the 3 days out vs 72 hour route may apply. The turnaround time is usually less than two hours, so we opted to wait till tomorrow, so there will NOT be any question returning home that we may be outside the window which no one seams to be clear with.

Hi Ed- Our flight was more than 72 hours, but within 3 calendar days. We had no issues. However, I understand you want to be certain you have no issues.

From the CDC website:
Why does the Order specify 3 days rather than 72 hours? What is considered 3 days?

The 3-day period is the 3 days before the flight’s departure. The Order uses a 3-day timeframe instead of 72 hours to provide more flexibility to the traveler. By using a 3-day window, test validity does not depend on the time of the flight or the time of day that the test was administered.

For example, if a passenger’s flight is at 1pm on a Friday, the passenger could board with a negative test that was taken any time on the prior Tuesday or after.

I kind of figured that...but don't want to get into a ''argument'' just in case....so since we were planning to be back in the area tomorrow, just as easy to stop in then, and complete with no hassles.

Just out of curiosity who is the TTOL Big Daddy and Mrs. Big Daddy ? Possibly the island celebrity of Everything SXM ? We love this info source for the island and value all their input into planning our vacationing plans.

Big Daddy is a registered member of traveltalk.

Thank you for the TTOL code language. A simple question would of appreciated a simple answer !

laughingirish==Not sure what simple answer you are looking for??

Ed, we had the same discussion with the nice folks at the Red Cross, but went ahead and got our tests anyway, and it worked out fine. I think the confusion is that the Red Cross thinks that the test must be within 3 days of the flight, but the order actually says no more than 3 days before - and the order actually gives the example if you flight is on Friday, then the test can be no earlier than Tuesday. Anyway, it seems each time we go to Mullet, there are showers for a few minutes, and then they blow over. Agree with you about the food pricing at Rosie's and I think the beach is one on the nicer ones on the island.

I think it was a good simple answer. I pretty much knew what Ed was referring to and didn't need an explanation.