TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin We Have Arrived!

Hello everyone! Here's a few notes from the days leading up to our trip to SXM to our arrival yesterday. I'm having phone issues, so no pictures today...

Friday October 28 – We applied separately to EHAS, using different email address, and we are fully vaccinated (five shots each). Both sub-approvals were received in less than five minutes! We started the Verifly application earlier in the week, and were able to complete it this morning, getting green check marks / “ACTIVE” notifications.

Sunday October 30 – Checked in with American Airlines and boarding passes were printed. Marc received an email from AA asking if our plans were flexible. Uh oh, I hope there will be no issues tomorrow. We booked a Pre-flight stay at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport. UBER driver picked us up at 1:00, and we arrived at the hotel at 2:00. Electronic check-in at the hotel is so convenient, and we were delighted to receive an upgraded room on the top floor (room 1004)! The room had beautiful views of the city and the airport. The Voyager of the Seas was in the harbor.

Monday October 31 – We woke up at 2:30 A.M. for the 5:45 flight to Miami, arriving at the airport at 3:45 With an easy trip through security, we were able to spend over an hour in The Admiral Club. The flight was full, we sat in row 8 and we landed in MIA early. The layover time wasn't very long and we soon boarded the flight to SXM. This flight was full. Immigration cards were passed out early in the flight. We landed a little early, ramps were used to get off the plane and the shuttle bus took us to the terminal, which was a bit busy. We stood in line for about 15 minutes to get to the immigration booth, where only our passports were looked at and stamped. She did not want to see our EHAS paperwork.

The car rental was booked through Empress Car Rental and the car, a VW Virtus is clean. We were on our way to our Grand Case AirBnB shortly after 2;00.

The drive to Grand Case, via Marigot, was great, with little traffic. We stopped at Super U in Hope Estate to pick up a few essentials. We arrived at our house rental, La Coconut Grove, shortly before 3:00. We were warmly greeted by the owner Chantal, and her two adorable and well behaved dogs, Arkas and Lili. What a cute little place this is!
We unpacked and soaked in the beautiful pool on the property.

We didn’t eat much during the day, so an early dinner was in order. Shortly after 5:00 we walked to restaurant row. Many restaurants open at 6:00, but La Villa opens at 5:00, so decision was made to dine there. We ordered a bottle of Rose, shared an appetizer of Frog Legs. With the assistance of the super friendly waiter, JC, Jo selected Triggerfish and Marc ordered Goat Cheese stuffed Chicken Breast. All the food was very good, and the service was fantastic. There were complimentary servings of cold Cauliflower Soup (delicious) and multiple shots of Rum! 1 to 1 exchange rate.

Our AirBnB hosts also own the restaurant named Le Bistronome. It was Chantal’s birthday and she invited us to drop by for a complimentary drink to celebrate. We sat on the patio, enjoying Prosecco and Raspberries drinks. It was a lovely way to end the day! Life is good.

That's good to know, that LaVilla opens early. That is a welcome addition.

Sounds like a lovely beginning. Would love to see some pictures, once you get that figured out.

Isn't La Villa wonderful? And JC is the best.

Thank you for sharing your report. We look forward to seeing pictures once your phone issues are resolved.

Glad you arrived safely and are settled in looking forward to your reports. So nice to have so many TTOL'ers on island now, the pics and reports are like a pre-game show for us.

Glad your off to a great start. It's always unsettling to have that call or email from an airline asking for flexibility. I've had them before and even though they say "OK your good to go" you never know till you actually board the plane.

Glad you made it! Look forward to meeting you at The Palms HH next week!

Sounds like a great start! Enjoy!

i hope you get to dine at Le Bistronomme. We are there several times last November and again in February/March and thoroughly enjoyed it. Fabulous food and service!

Thanks everyone for the wonderful comments. l had a fabulous birthday on island and will post details and pictures in the morning!

Did anyone look at your immigration cards, for a long while they weren't needed, our last flight they handed them out but no one looked at them

The immigration cards were taken at the desk. Not sure if they were looked at though

Wheels up Saturday 10am Logan Airport. Loving all the reports 👏👏

The folks who are at the desk there really have no need to look at those cards. They are supposed to be for marketing, etc.