TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Christmas 2022

We enjoyed an awesome Christmas on the island.

We stayed a Coconut Villa in Orient Bay and hosted by ZouZou who is wonderful. I’ve attached a couple of photos of our view. Speaking of photos, we didn't take many because we tend to leave the phone at the villa. Anyway I've attached some of them.

We ate Christmas dinner at Rancho del Sol. The view was terrific. The next night we ate at la Favela. These two experiences were disappointing because the food just wasn’t good.

Thankfully, le Telegraphe is amazing. We enjoyed dinner there three nights in a row. Great food and a bottle of champagne every night. Dinners included lamb shank, veal stuffed with lobster, red snapper. I included some photos. There is also a photo of Simba the cat who begs at the restaurant. Simba stole my heart and I shared all my meals with him.

We had breakfast at the Good Morning café and popped into the Italian delicatessen a few doors down. This was a great treat as we found some very good pastries and other interesting foods-i.e salted cured meats.

This vacation was typical for us, some might say boring, we love to basically do nothing. Spent the days at Club O beach and enjoyed the afternoons poolside at the villa.

We never really ventured out of the Orient Bay area except for a trip to Nature Animal across from the airport on the French side. We found some neat toys for our Labrador including a starfish that he enjoyed. I’ve included a photo of him with it.

There is a nice interior décor store next to Nature Animal called Bleu. We found a book of vintage st. martin photos. It’s a new publication of a very nice collection of photos that date back to the very early twentieth century. Cost around $50.00. I highly recommend it.

We left DTW in the middle of the bomb cyclone. I didn't think we would get out. We spent nearly 5 hours on the plane at the gate. The captain told us that the delay was attributable to the extreme cold that affected baggage handlers' ability to properly load. We had a long layover in ATL so the delay didn't really bother us and we were able to get a couple hours sleep at the Renaissance Concourse hotel.

And a good time was had by all…….
Ty for sharing your experiences, the good and even the not so good. And photos are always a bonus. Yours were no exception.
The photo book you described sounds like a rare find and will attempt to locate it on our next trip.

Thanks for the report and the pictures. I have seen pictures of that villa before, and it looks lovely. I know some will make fun of this question, but did the villa have US TV?

thanks for including the picture of the pooch and his new toy! So nice of you to get him a souvenir of your trip!

Carol,

The villa is wonderful. I neglected to mention one of the best aspects of it is its privacy. The gov(?) erected a tall fence >8ft that stretches over the entire street and walkway. It is located a couple of properties down towards the beach, so there was very little traffic--vehicle or pedestrian.
Unfortunately no US TV, but we were able to use both Netflix and Prime and even got to follow our tradition of a Christmas Eve viewing of It's a Wonderful Life, which is available on Prime. So that was very fun for us.

Pat,
I noticed the book was for sale at the store at the place du village. It's a new publication, so likely available at several places.

OK, thanks bluejacket.

Thanks for sharing. Except for the travel issue, sounds perfect and not unlike the places we love.

BEACH BEACH and more BEACH! A little diners French bites in the morning! Boring!??? Who cares! Sounds lovely to me!! Love orient and Orient village!! Did you get to catch any good bands in the square???