TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Extremely belated final trip report

We visited in April and I had promised to do a wrap-up review of our stay at Hotel L’Esplanade. We’ll, I’m finally getting around to it.
We loved pretty much everything about the hotel. We booked deluxe studio rooms, which are plenty spacious enough to “live in” for a week without feeling cramped. Every room in the hotel has a balcony and ours was quite spacious, with a large table and chairs. We had gorgeous beach, pool, and sunset views, as well as a view of the runway for the Grand Case airport which we enjoyed quite a bit.
The bed was king sized, and the pillows abundant. All furnishings and linens were high quality and comfortable. The kitchen was equipped with enough to make light meals, and had a full stove / oven / fridge.
There was a generous complimentary “continental” breakfast each morning. You could fill out a pastry order the night before and a basket with your fresh pastries would be waiting in the morning. Also available was fresh fruit, coffee, tea, French yogurt, jams, etc. They had these delightful little French fruit juices we stocked away to mix with rum for sunset happy hours.
We had Jeannie stock our room before arrival so we were able to make breakfast sandwiches with the complimentary croissants by adding eggs, prosciutto etc.
The hotel also greets you with a basket of French treats - baguette, snacks, etc as well as some soda and beer.
The staff were all very kind and helpful. They helped us arrange restaurant reservations on island as well as in Anguilla.
The pool is a little slice of Heaven. Most days, the pool would get a bit crowded late afternoon, as guests gathered after their beach days to have a drink before heading out to dinner. The pool bar staff is great and they’ll grill up a light lunch for you upon request - prices are reasonable. I had salad with freshly grilled shrimp one day.
Every Saturday night, the hotel hosts a complimentary social hour at the pool for all guests. It was REALLY thoughtful and nice. A huge spread of appetizers and an open bar. You could tell they had a lot of pride for the effort put in for the event.
Oh - the hotel also provides a free shuttle to and from restaurant row, as well as to and from Le Petit Hotel where guests can use beach chairs for free.
All in all we’d rebook here in a heartbeat. We’re planning a February trip and right now it’s a toss up between repeating Esplanade, or booking at GCBC just for comparison.
This is probably entirely too long. I’ll attach photos to make it worth it!

All those words and I still forgot a few things:
1) From the hotel pool, there's a well manicured path that leads straight down to town, letting you out right near Spiga. This path also takes you to the hotel spa - Ti spa. We did book services at the spa and were very pleased with the massages, atmosphere, and ease of booking. Although hesitant the first night to walk after dark, we did use the path to go to and from dinner a couple of times. I would note that it was always still "earlyish" - we never really stayed out late, and there were usually other guests walking the path as well. You could always choose to walk to dinner and request the complimentary shuttle to bring you home.
2) Complimentary yoga classes were held daily at a covered pavilion near the pool. I will try those next time.
3) We loved, loved the convenience of turning out of the hotel, away from town, to head to the Super U. That entire shopping center was just minutes away and we could get anything we needed or wanted, between Super U and the variety of little boutique shops within the center. Specialty cheese and chocolate, anything you can think of to drink. quick snacks at L'Express, etc.
4) The hotel had a sizeable lending library located below the lobby level. I appreciated this as I tend to bring books on vacation that I have no desire to read once I'm actually there.

I saw someone in the water at GCBC yesterday who reminded me of you (think it was the dark glasses) and recalled a promised trip report. Thanks for doing this. L'Esplanade looks like a lovely place. Very nice pictures.

Not too long at all, enjoyed every word and every picture! Well done!

It is indeed a lovely place - the photos just don't do justice to the beautiful landscaping and the tilework.

Very nice report and Ty for the photos. 😊😊

Lovely and detailed report.

Thanks for the report and photos. Looks like a beautiful place.

We toured the property a long time ago. It was lovely but we wanted direct beach access so was not an option for us. Thanks for the details on your stay.

Thanks for sharing the info and photos. I've often wondered about the hotel as we've driven by but can't recall reading a trip report about it before, so it was great to learn more.

Is that Room number 16? If so yes large and patio is great. We stayed 10 years ago the shuttle and ability to go to Petite are great additions

You must have taken really good notes to post your April trip in July!!! Great details, lovely photos!! Thanks for posting!!

What a wonderful trip report and such beautiful pictures. Hotel L’Esplanade looks so lovely.

We are counting down the days to our September visit in Grand Case. It’s very relaxing for us. No need to drive anywhere, although we do rent a car.
Shopping at Super U is a fun experience for me (Marc, not so much).

It's room 17! just down the steps to the left of the reception area.

Yes! the walkability really makes it easy to unwind. We also rent a car and spend many mornings at other beaches, but most afternoons in Grand Case. How exciting to have a trip so soon. I know you're looking forward to September!

Nice trip report. We are also fans of Le Petit but have stayed at GCBC the last couple of times. We were there last month and regarding the petit dejeuner in the mornings, GCBC is no longer providing the croissants, coffee and juice as they used to do. It was a little disappointing but didn't really impact our enjoyment of the trip. Just letting you know in case that is really important to you. We did miss it.

That's good to know. I don't think it would make or break our decision, but nice to know and we could just have our own provisions if we want.
Re: the rooms, particularly studio rooms at GCBC, I have read that the garden view rooms actual have more spacious outdoor areas. Do you find this to be true? There's a sizeable price difference between those and the ocean view; I think I could be fine with garden view if they're well-situated.

Thank you for sharing your trip and the photos! We leave next Saturday and your report is a great warm up for us! I really need to figure out how to post photos!

crsxm--it's very easy to post pictures here. Just make sure you are in FULL EDITOR mode. Then click on Attachment Manager and upload your photos. You could try it from home, to figure out how to do it.

Enjoy your trip!

You are a good coach. You walked me through it along with a few others on this forum. Now I need your help in putting captions on my future pictures.

Captions just must be done when you upload the pic. Use Full Editor. Click on Attachment Manager. The trick is that you have to put in the caption BEFORE you upload the pic.

"The trick is that you have to put in the caption BEFORE you upload the pic."
Thanks. Now I just have to remember that next May. 😉

We were in an ocean view studio so I'm sorry but I don't know the answer to your question. All I can say is that we had a really nice patio and then there were palapas on the grass in front of it where you could spend time if you wished. It was lovely. We did buy eggs, etc and made breakfast most mornings. We ate at the Sunset cafe twice and the prices were ok. Food really nice.