TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report Saturday the 18th--Princess Juliana day

Let me start off by saying if you don't like airplane pics, SKIP THIS THREAD.

Breakfast was fried eggs and ham and toast



After, we went to Carrefour and picked up ribs and wine, got some gas. We had snack of cheese and crackers and fruit for lunch and then embarked on our mission for the day, watching planes!!

We started off watching at the observation deck at Beachside Villas. You can get some awfully nice shots there.



but it does get pretty warm there, so bring a hat and a drink!

True SXM aficionados know that Saturday is the BUSIEST day of the week at Juliana. You'll have to just take my word for it, but all these pictures were taken on Saturday the 18th. Saturdays are the busiest because of timeshare turnover, of course, as well as many others prefer to come in on those days. Saturdays feature your regulars, like


American

and Air France



and Jet Blue



and Delta


plus some routes that they only fly on Saturdays, like United from Dulles



and Frontier from both Orlando and Ft Lauderdale



I don't care what you say about Frontier as an airline, but their planes are DARN pretty to me!


After a while, we got baked enough in the heat and headed for the pool to cool off and to watch the rest of the parade.







Things often got quite crowded.



And that doesn't count all the small guys, like this helicopter that buzzed the runway.



And the various Winair planes. I never realized they have two different liveries.




Plus this guy


and this really old guy, which looked really interesting



And we got to see American take off the 'wrong way', which it seemed that usually they were the only ones who did that.





Afterwards we enjoyed a lovely happy hour wine and snacks courtesy of BeachCouple, and shared many stories and laughs. After. Eric didn't feel like going out, so we had some boring leftovers and another early evening.

Very nice pictures Carol. I've never spent the day by the airport but looks like something I'll have to add to the list. I did see some really cool military planes @ orient beach (think it was last Thursday AM, perhaps Friday), but 2 V-22 Osprey's that came out of Grand Case. I'll have to see if I can upload pics.

Thanks Kelly. It's really easy to just upload pictures to a thread, by using the attachment manager. Hopefully you can upload some.

Having stayed at BSV and being a bit of an airplane aficionado, I enjoy Saturdays as well because of the activity. The observation bench/platform is great and you got some really nice shots!

Air France typically takes off the wrong way. It's pretty neat sitting at the La Terrasse pool around 4:00 p.m. and watching it rise over the wall and seem to be within a stone's throw away. It's loud but a cool sight.

Dutchman--thanks. The only thing I would like at the observation bench is some shade, but that is probably a pipe dream.

CaribLee--I haven't seen Air France take off, I guess..

Here you go.

A closer look.

Cool! Thanks for the pic!