TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Interesting couple of days in paradise

I had wanted to follow Scubaman's example and post some pictures of my room at Horny Toad, but most of them are too large. Maybe later when I do a full report.

Night before last, I was awakened at 1:15 a.m. by a very loud pop/bang, followed by the sound of gushing water. At first I thought, thunder and heavy rain. Then I realized that the rain was . . . in my room. I got up and saw heavy gushing from the ceiling in my clothes closet. I reached in for some shoes (getting rained on in the process) and headed to the owners' building. Fortunately, Debbie was awake and up, as she was trying to figure out why the dogs were barking. I told her about the gushing water and that my room was flooding. She came back with me and said it was the pipe to the hot water heater that broke. She went to the pump room to turn off the hot water. She returned with an armful of towels. I had already grabbed a broom and was sweeping the water out onto the balcony, where I could hear it "raining" on the cement below, as the balcony is slanted. For about the next hour, Debbie sopped up water with towels, squeezing them in the shower. I continued sweeping; there was about 1/4" of standing water. Eventually we had gotten rid of enough that I could go back to sleep.

The next morning, I went to breakfast. When I returned, the pipe had been fixed and the maids were cleaning the very dirty floors. I headed out to a pool day with friends staying at La Terasse. Upon returning to the Toad to shower before dinner, I was informed that there was more water in my room, and they didn't know where it was coming from. The repairman was working in my room, cutting out drywall in the closet to see if there was water behind the walls. There was, and it seemed to be coming UP from down below. They all left to let me shower and leave and returned to see what could be done.

When I returned from dinner, Debbie said they still didn't know where it was coming from. There was a large wastebasket in the closet to catch water from a pipe in the walls. It was about a third filled when I got up this morning. So I'm packing up much of my stuff and will be moving to another room soon. There's lots more detail I'm leaving out, but I'm exhausted and can't wait to get settled and back to some semblance of normalcy. Reporting here has taken a back seat.

Wow, hope you get it resolved soon!

Sorry to hear this, Linda. Not a great way to start your vacation!

Linda,
From the wife of a retired plumber I can only say that detecting the source of
leaks can be a horrendous task. I’m glad to read you’re taking it all in stride and happier yet the Horny Toad owners are being so proactive in attending to the problem. Says a lot about both you and them.
Keep the faith - it can only get better, right?! 🙂🙂

Thanks, Pat. Doug, Debbie's hubby, is off island, and I know she's been on the phone with him a lot. She and the maids have really gone above and beyond.

I am now settled in my new room at the other end of the balcony. Although exhausted, I am going to head out to "jazz" at Rendezvous for a little R&R. Plumber is back. At least he now has free rein in my old room without having to work around my schedule. Sigh.

Linda--glad to see you there at Rendezvous! I figured you would show up! Nice visiting with you.

You have an admirable attitude!

Sorry about the moist start but heck when you're in paradise it's easy to take it all in stride. Glad the go you moved and all is well. Enjoy.

I don't know about "easy," Scubaman. By this morning, I was really ready to be DONE with all of it.

Carol - nice seeing you and Eric today. Hope you have a great rest of your vacation! Looking forward to your periodic reports.

Linda--Ditto! Good to see you and looking forward to seeing your great reports!

Linda,

Since covid just happy to be happy and always think of the worse.
Atleast or hopefully there was no damage to any of your belongings.
Freaking out would not have made anything better and you handled the situation as it should

Really looking forward to your restaurant reports as we usually agree on restaurants.
Maybe we get our new restaurants from the same source as Jeff (DK) is always sending my wife his epicurean journeys and is usually spot on

Les Galets in Orient (opposite side of street) is recommended especially if you enjoy cheese trolley with over 20 selections

Oh wow! Not the best beginning to your vacation, but hopefully they will get it all worked out. After the exhausting trip from the west coast, I know all you want to do is to settle in and relax.

Not damaged, but everything was soaked and had to be hung out to dry. A couple of my shoes may not recover.

Linda

Sorry to hear about the water escapades. Hopefully that doesn’t put a damper on things. I’ll be curious to see your review on the meal at La Roma.

.Cheers
Dr. Phil SXM

Oh my - not a great start to your vacation, Linda. At least you're not sick, like you were last time, was it? It sounds like they've done everything possible to put things right. Hope you're back in "your" room soon!

Oh my, Linda. A bunch of platitudes come to mind, but in reality you are one, strong woman. Hopefully, your vacation will "settle down" and you will be able to rest, enjoy the rest.

Last TWO times! June was Covid and November was bronchitis. Healthy so far this time.

Management and staff have gone above and beyond to try to minimize my inconvenience. This is no one's fault. We're being told GEBE has "water surges" in addition to power surges. Apparently other rooms are now having some problems although not to the extent mine had. Hot water is turned off for the property, but it's okay; the cold water isn't really cold anyway.

I do not want to move again! Packing and unpacking takes up too much time. I am in my second-favorite room so all is well.

Linda--wow, hope things look up for you! Your last few trips have been not so great! At least there is no seaweed here, I assume none there.

Considering how much reconstruction they had to do after Irma it is a bit surprising even with surges that they already would have water issues. Hopefully that are able to solve it quickly with out having to tear apart too much of the place.

Enjoy your time on island, even with water issues I wish we were there!
Todd

Todd--we were thinking today the same thing, too early to be having problems with virtually brand new pipes.

It is unfortunate that happened especially in the middle of the night. But it can happen about anywhere even the nicer hotels. I feel sorry for the owner too having to deal with that as I’m sure she felt bad and doing the best she can with limited as those guesthouse properties have very limited staff. Good reason to realize having a Caribbean property is not always fun. Hopefully the clothes got dried out and ok. And water ain’t cheap on the island so I’m sure they want to fix it fast!!

That's if they were actually replaced with new pipes and not just fixing what they already had.

Horny Toad was completely rebuilt from the ground up after IRMA. However, there were several plumbing issues reported by others this last weekend so it seems to be pointing to a GEBE surge.

Linda--that's what I thought, but wasn't sure. I didn't know there even was such a thing as a water surge, but if anyone can screw something up, it's GEBE!!! Hope the rest of your trip is smooth sailing!

The water pressure spiking or surging is a problem on both sides of the island and mostly a problem at night when people are not using it as much. Obviously the pipes can only take so much pressure before they break which leads to water leaks and costs a lot of money because the leaks are sometime in the sandy ground and not noticed right away. I know of people that have had huge water bills because of these leaks. I think I read they had so many water leaks on the French side they had to turn off the water at times until they got the broken pipes under control. Like a Elec surge protector Some properties have water regulators to control the water pressure going through their pipes.

Thanks for that info. Owners are planning on installing a regulator here. As of this morning, source of leak still hasn't been found, but hot water for the property has been turned back on.

Glad to hear you've got hot water back. Regardless of the weather, a hot water shower is a good thing.

Carol....glad you guys finally made it to Rendezvous. I bet you had a wonderful experience? I know we can't wait to get back there next year.

Oh Linda! I feel so sorry for you. Fortunately they had another room available for you. How long are you staying this trip?

Ed--it was good, except for the pizza, which was totally missable.

Five weeks; here until July 14. I am now in the room you didn't particularly like.

I actually was in a discussion today with a friend that has had to regulate the pressure into his house because it was too high (Camas / Prune Hill area Linda). They had to dig up their front yard to replace pipes where water was entering the house and fix recent damage. They now think that this was the cause of their other water issues and they have had a bunch of them. Makes me wonder about the great water pressure we have at our house now !!!

From our last stay at Horny Toad I thought they did a fantastic job of rebuilding.
T

I had dinner last night with some residents (Becky was one, Todd) who say water surges are absolutely an issue here; the same thing has happened to her condo. They are talking about redoing the piping here; not sure what the outcome is going to be. I am just grateful they had another room available to move me in to.

Lucky you! Not a plumber, but a pressure regulator on the incoming water would seem to me to solve it. Need Pat's DH (John) or another plumber to chime in.

They are planning to install a regulator, but they still need to find the source of the leak.

To put a wrap on this saga . . . it took two weeks to replumb the room, retile shower, repair drywall holes and paint, etc. etc. I moved back to the original room on Saturday, only to discover that, while the two sinks had hot water, the shower did not. Plumbers were called back on Sunday and proclaimed it fixed (I was away). While the shower water might have been marginally warmer, it definitely wasn’t hot, and I no longer had hot water in the two sinks.

I let things ride on Monday as I was tired of complaining, but last night’s cold shower was too much. I emailed the owner, and plumbers were back today. They said they had found the problem and replaced a part. I wouldn’t let them leave until I tested the temperature in shower and sinks. Thankfully, I finally have hot water again.

What a pain! However, it was a windy but beautiful afternoon on the deck while plumbers were working.

Wow so sorry to hear about your stress.
Hope all goes well now for the rest of your vacation. Enjoy.

Being from the Northwest USA, you are at least familiar with water,........maybe not that kind of water,.....Hope your trip and stay gets back to uninterrupted paradise.

Wow, what a clusterf*ck. Glad it is finally fixed.

Glad to hear everything is fine now with your room. We’ve been staying at the Toad since 2004 and really love the new and improved one after Irma. It’s a shame about the leak and at 1:00am in the morning. Probably a good thing that you were there instead of being out for the day and that happened. Debbie is always right on stop of situations and luckily shut off the water quick before it really did damage. Enjoy the rest of your stay and say hello to Deb and Betsy for me.