TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Cruise Lines React to French Side Situation

DAILY HERALD LINK

The only positive is it might help the Dutch side but with the likely upcoming US travel b*ll$hit, none of this is good for the island overall.

I feel like the cruise lines are more concerned about people getting stuck and missing the boat at this point than true safety concerns. As far as I know, tourists haven't been harmed. I can deal with taking a different route from the airport to avoid a road closure, but if it continues to escalate where safety really is an issue, or if getting to the airport becomes impossible at times, we won't go.

Safety is an issue for the tourist. Last protest and blockage resulted in masked locals demanding money for safely crossing the blockage..

Whether people are ACTUALLY in physical danger is uncertain, but seeing burning cars and blockades, etc., would certainly make me FEEL unsafe. The French side needs to get this crap under control before their economy is totally destroyed.

Agreed, Carol. We'll see what I encounter when I get there tomorrow.

Angelface--would appreciate hearing your thoughts once you arrive.

I agree that burned cars and blocked roads would be unnerving. I guess my thought was we could take our time and avoid certain areas if needed and cruise passengers may not have that flexibility.

Im heading down Saturday - not to eager to head to the French side. Had big plans for meals in Nettle Bay, coming from Cupecoy its very easy. Let's see what happens in the next few days. Last I saw MezzaLuna was looted, no idea about LaCigale and Mi Ti Beach

Kim--would appreciate your thoughts when you arrive. MezzaLuna is in Nettle Bay?? I thought it was in Oyster Pond?

We were on the Island Nov 11-25 and caught the tail end of the last uprising. To tell you the truth, it stopped us from going to the French side this trip. First time in 22 years. When you're on vacation you just don't want any hassles. Even when the blockades came down during our trip we had no desire to drive and explore the French side. Carol is right...they have to get it under control. The people are angry and have a right to protest but when a country already recovering from the devastation of Irma gets slapped down again due to the pandemic, I worry for their future. They need tourist dollars but if we feel uncomfortable and in some cases unsafe (masked locals demanding money to pass) then we're going to take our travel dollars elsewhere.