TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin June 20-22 Last Report

Thursday June 20 9:11am
We started the day with our usual dine in breakfast of eggs and cheese tortillas and iced coffee. The stronger breezes have picked back up, which we love, and though the temperatures are the same it feels so much more pleasant on our balcony, walking through the village and of course on the beach. The skies are quite overcast so that brings a break for being in the direct sunlight.






Thursday June 20 1:00pm
We decided to drive down to Le String. We easily found a parking spot. It seemed odd walking into Le String from the back entrance. When he saw us, John the beach waiter greeted us and said he thought we had gone home and asked where we had been. We let him know we were trying other spots but had to come back before leaving on Saturday. He led us down to our perch on the beach and we told him we wanted to have lunch before coming back to order a drink.

Thursday June 20 1:20pm
Lunch at Le String was preceded by a frozen mojito each.






I had a cheese burger with fries and my wife had ribs with rice. Her dish was delicious. I felt my burger didn’t have much taste and the fries were very soggy. We went back to our beach chairs afterwards and had a Carib each and enjoyed the cooler breezes on the beach. We again took several dips in the warm ocean.












Thursday June 20 6:30pm
After showering we walked out to Bikini Beach Bar for another sundowner. It was still quite windy and enjoyably cooler than previous nights. She had a rose and I had another spritz, which I took back to the bar as it didn’t taste very good. I think the mint leaves were the culprit. The bartender gladly exchanged it for the rose I decided to order. This was the first and only drink or food item we encountered that we had a complaint about. As we sat there on the high top tables, the clouds were reflecting a golden/orange which contrasted beautifully with the muted blues of the sky and ocean. There was a couple below us on the beach having drinks and who then decided to play a game of cornhole. Our guess is that they were newly weds. They would take turns distracting each other’s tosses by lifting their shirts or sticking out their butts. Quite the entertainment.






Friday June 21 9:00am
Another breakfast in. This time I walked down and purchased a couple croissants at Good Morning to go along with our egg tortillas and iced coffee. The breeze was still blowing though not as strong as yesterday.




Friday June 21 11:00am
Back to the beach for our last day in St. Martin. Same…drinks, dips, smiles, appreciation for being able to enjoy each other here on our favorite island at this stage of life.


Friday June 21 5:00pm
We wanted to go to Rancho del Sol again as our previous experience was so enjoyable. There was hardly any cars in the parking lot when we arrived but as we dined the place filled up quickly. We shared a Caesar salad (very, very good) and escargot. I didn’t feel the escargot had much taste and were a bit tougher than I’ve had in the past. We both had a glass of red Rhône wine, which was good and shared a pepperoni pizza (thin, crispy and very tasty). This time around the wildlife wasn’t as prevalent in the restaurant other than a lone peacock. Off in the distance we saw another one on a property in the valley below. There was a beautiful sunset over the hills as we were leaving. Our experience at Rancho was very good this time but we enjoyed the earlier in the day dining experience we had a few days ago. I think the initial view of orient bay, the hills and the restaurant really was a high point of our vacation.

















Saturday June 22 9:30am
We said good by to our host Bruno and Patricia, stopped for gas a few miles up the road and met our car rental company, Discount Car Rentals, at the “arrivals” location at the airport. We have to say our experience with Discount was among the best we’ve ever had. The rate included all insurance, the car was new and the service we received on pick up and drop off was flawless. Our plane left around 1:20pm and customs at PHL, though busy, was easy to process. A lot more bearable than what we had experience in Miami last April.

We arrived home relaxed but then felt some exhaustion setting in from the flight and lack of sleep. I couldn’t get to sleep the night before our departure but did manage to get about 3 hours in. My wife couldn’t sleep our first night home so she took until today, Monday, to recover. All in all it was a wonderful vacation experience. We hope to get back next year as we love the island of St. Martin.

Thanks for all your responses and good feedback over the past couple weeks and I hope the pinpoint day/date/time references helped one of you :P LOL

Lancer

Not sure what is happening with the photos. I sent an SOS out to Carol

Have enjoyed all your reports and photos...Thx for sharing!😎👍

Hi Lancer--I saw one problem, that you did not use the IMAGE link. I fixed them. Let me know if something is still not right.

Thanks so much Carol! Very appreciated.

Thanks for your great reports and photos. I'm cracking up at the time stamps on each paragraph. Hopefully you satisfied the fellow who complained a few days ago.

Lancer--no problem.

Haha...I hope that brings a smile to his face. Couldn't resist.