TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report Jan /Feb

Greetings all, here is a little delayed trip report with the highlights from 24 Jan to 16 Feb 2023.

Travel:
We drove 3 hours from Annapolis to Newark (EWR) to get mid-week, non-stop flights on United for about $500 pp. We stayed the night before at the Kenilworth hotel and left the car there for 3 and a half weeks. Hotel & parking was fine and cost $370 total. Never was crazy about EWR airoport but it worked well. Our United Explorer CC gave us Club Passes, free bags and Global Entry. I think it's about $60 a year so it was worth it for just that. Return immigration was a breeze. We walked up to the Global Entry kiosk and before we touched anything, the immigration office called us over by name and sent us on our way. Facial recognition technology is a little creepy.
Corolla rental car from Hertz - very good - liability included

Accomodations:
In SXM we stayed a Paul & Carol's VRBO in St. Peters. They are great and the Villa is very nice. The salt water pool, spa and sun areas are all CO. We changed rooms during the stay since Paul had some other friends of our coming in. He moved us to a newly completed, even nicer room. There is a common kitchen area upstairs which has everything needed. I got hooked on the Europeon style Senseo coffee machine and bought one to use at home. Like many VRBO's If you want to get out, you have to get in the car and drive.

Dining:

We had some good dining experiences but we were disappointed with a number of the restaurants that we tried. We usually just get one appetizer and one entree to share so maybe we are not good food critics.

The best food experiences were:
Vesna Taverna - Lobster, Burrata, Lemon Meringue pie. We had dinner but have heard that breakfast is very good
Sint Maarten Yacht Club = Breakfast, Happy Hour, late night espresso martini's and creme brulee
Bamboo House - Beef Tenerloin
Lal's - Alwasy good Indian food
Isola - Chicken Parm and thin crust pizza
The Palms - late night espresso martini's and creme brulee
Tolula Mango - good jerk chicken for lunch
Sand Bar - good drinks and atmosphere
Reveil for breakfast - excellent
Le Sucrieri - great coffee, pastries and crossants.
Had good burger and drinks at Buchaneer Beach Bar
El Rancho was good for drinks and pizza. Fun having a peacock roaming between the tables.
We will stop reviewing here since we might have hit some places on a bad (or very bad) night.

Entertainment etc:
We went to the Bamboo House on a Thursday night for Jazz night with a group of about a dozen people. The experience was amazing with the views and ambiance. They do valet parking for about $15 or you can park at the bottom of the hill and take their shuttle up an down.
Tried to go to the Red Piano but was yelled at by the parking lot guy so we just skipped it.
Tango sunset cruise was packed and not fun.
Hole in the wall was fun, of course loud.
Stopped at Juggie's a few times, always a great time. His son opened a smash burger place aross the alley that is very good.
Aloha on Orient beach had really good live entertainment and the Sunday afternoon experience was fun. Nathalie has since sold the place, hopefully it will still be good.
Jeff at DK Gems on Front Street had an elegant happy hour one day in the store, Laraine got a nice pendant and ankle bracelet.

Beaches:
The skys were mostly clear but the Chrismas winds we still blowing and did not give up during our trip. Sitting by the water on Orient Beach was only really pleasant on about 2 days. We did realize that it worked to get chairs up near the Perch Lite since the three rows of chairs and umbrellas between us and the water provided some good wind protection. Sargassum was heavy about half the time with very few people swimming.
Food and drinks at the Perch were good with 2 for 1 happy hour every day for one hour.
Went to see Dany at Cupecoy for the Lemon Drop Sunset which is a fun experience.
Friars Bay beach was great and swimmable.

All in all, this was a really good trip, the islander were friendly as always. We met some new friends and it was great seeing our old friends who live in SXM. We also put our engraved lock on the Causeway bridge. We parked right near the lock racks and luckily the bridge went up while we were there so we got to chat with Mike the bridge tender while the boats passed through.

Best Regards,
Jim & Laraine

Nice report and pictures. Looks like you had a great time. As a side note the parking lot in front of Red Piano is Valet only.

Thanks, we finally figured that out, but the parking lot guys did not tell us. He just started ranting. Not a big deal just saying.

Thanks for such a nice report and pictures and thanks for the captions on the pictures!

Yes. Very rude individual. Must not be pleased with his job.

Thanks for the report. Do you have a link for the VRBO?

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2151025?fbclid=IwAR3h9HLfN7MfuUP8LuLR-Wkn3NofrKDHEPAkfXama5AcIrCOstfhdU00imY&source_impression_id=p3_1688674083_3%2B41O8KCb%2FyuOke%2B

There are three rooms on the pool level and one room on the lower floor (that has a kitchen). It's nice to be on the pool level but we did not see the lower floor room. The newly renovated room on the pool level that we moved into was very nice.

Thanks for a nice trip report and great pics. I’m saddened every time I see pictures of Papagayo.

They seem to be changing procedures all the time. I've been to Red Piano twice this trip. Both times I drove through the casino where you valet, told them I was going to Red Piano, and they "clicked" the gate up for me to enter. The valet guys were very nice. I didn't deal with anyone at the gate.

Nice report and pictures. Thanks for writing. I have to be curious about the not-so-good restaurant experiences.

Actually I just remembered a few more good dining experiences. We went to Chesterfields a number of times and it was always very good. Also, not sure of the name but the pizza restaurant on the left as you enter Porto Cupecoy had great pizza.

Mama's