TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Airbnb choices??

Most of you on here are SXM experts. I've been trying to find a place for this upcoming winter from around Jan. 25 to Mar. 1. On airbnb there are many choices for the Cole Bay area. What are your thoughts on this area? We have been to SXM many times, but we never stayed or even visited some of the areas. Opinions on this are appreciated.

I'll be researching other areas, but this is one of the choices that pops up a lot. I'll keep looking and asking.

To ME, Cole Bay is not really a touristy area. I would be careful booking in that area and get a very exact location. Some areas are what I would probably call Simpson Bay, not Cole Bay, even though the actual address for a local would be Cole Bay. Also, I would be very concerned about parking in that area, unless there is designated--and hopefully GATED--parking. Be aware that some car rental agencies may not rent to you in that area unless there is gated, secured parking.

ALSO, there is NO guarantee that GEBE's woes will be fixed by this winter. I would be extremely wary of booking a long term gig on the Dutch side anywhere, unless you have been assured there is a generator on the property.

Okay, thanks for the info on Cole Bay. I was pretty sure that is what you would say about Cole Bay. I just wanted some reassurance on that.
What the heck is GEBE woes? I am not aware of what that is. Thanks.

Scotty--You should do some homework before you book. Many of the larger resorts have generators, but not nearly all. I would suspect that very few of the Airbnb units do. You can start with reading this thread linked below here and do a search for other GEBE posts here. To make a long story short, currently the Dutch side has been enduring constant load shedding for the past couple of months, in which power is regularly off for 2 or 3 hours, sometimes 2 or 3 times PER DAY. And sometimes power has been off for 8 hours continuously, or even longer, as was just the case with parts of Simpson bay and Cupecoy within the past week. The situation is expected to get slightly better in a couple of months, but I have no idea when it will get better long term.

Link

Yeah, I've been doing homework. I've been reading and looking for weeks but have not seen anything about the GEBE. That would kind of suck to be without power. I may have to look into going somewhere else if this is going to be a problem.
I'll be looking into the GEBE situation right now. Thanks.
Did you go the SXM this winter?

Is the French side having the same issue?

Scotty--I'm not sure where you've been looking, if you haven't seen anything about GEBE recently. It has been all over this summer. We went to SXM in June this year and the electric was off at least once every day for a couple of hours, sometimes more than once. And not while we were there, but there have also been some water outages this summer.

French side does not have electricity issues nearly as bad as the Dutch side, although the French side does have some water issues.

Apparently I haven't been looking at the right things or the right places. Thanks so much for this info. I wish I had some insight on if this would be fixed by Jan or not. This was going to be a special trip planned for my wife as she just retired and it has been since 2017 since she and I have been able to vacation to SXM together. I don't want power outages and water outages to be part of our experience. I guess I will start looking elsewhere if that is the case.
Shoot, I was really looking forward to experiencing SXM again.

Scotty--I wish I could tell you the situation would be resolved by January. I believe it will be somewhat better than it is right now, but that isn't saying much. As far as electric, if you stay in one of the big resorts, like Royal Palm, Flamingo, Simpson Bay Resort, they have generators. They would cost more than a B & B place, but at least you wouldn't have to worry about electric there. Best wishes.

Well, shoot Carol. I was hoping you were a fortune teller and you could tell me if it would be better this winter. LOL. If so, I was also going to bring you along to the casinos too. HAHA. I may just look at going to another island this winter, as I don't want to mess with any of this crap unless some of the places I'm looking at can tell me if they have a generator or not. Thanks again for your great insight on all of this. You have been and always will be the best.

Ah, I don't think my fortune telling skills will help you in the casino, as they don't normally work that well for me either!!

Best wishes.

There are several larger buildings on the Dutch side in MAHO and Cupecoy which have AirBnb units. They have generators. I own one and it is on Airbnb and it has a generator so there is very little disruption. The problem will be finding something long-term. For example, a month or more is going to be hard to locate. You may have to book more than one place for the period of time you will be there.. I will be self occupying my place around that time so that will not help you. I am in La Terrasse so potentially other AirBnb units in this building may be available and they will have the benefit of a generator. You would just have to look on VRBO and AIRBNB.

Drphilsxm

Many rentals are available on Air B&B in Orient Village. You can walk from most of them to OB in less than 15 minutes. Also lots of decent restaurants in walking distance, as well as a small supermarket and some shops.

The French-side bought a very powerful generator in 2015. I lived on the French-side at the time. My neighbor was in charge of fixing the exhaust pipe.

One evening he showed me a nut that was used to fix parts together. I could hardly lift it up ...

I learnt that it was powerful enough to supply both sides, but the local Dutch-side government refused. Top management at the local power producer are pals of the local politicians.

On the French-Side EDF, the national French power supplier, runs the show from Paris and believe me, they have their act together.

The Dutch way of running this Island is showing its limits. After IRMA, due to the local government's incompetence, a new movement started up. They wanted to become part of the Netherlands and scrap the Netherlands-Antilles status..

The Dutch had to scrutinize the spending of the billions lent by the World Bank. In several meetings with the local government, the Dutch supervisor was surprised to see many empty seats. The politicians missing were in jail.

They even asked for an improvement of the prison conditions and the Dutch refused !

I have no idea whether any of that is true or not, so I assume it is. However, I do know that there have been quite a few issues on the French side with provision of water, so everything is not totally hunky dory on the French side.

I Iived there for several years, never had a blackout or no water.

Times have changed.

Times may have changed,but we have been staying somewhere in Orient Bay for 20 years and have never been without water. Maybe we are just lucky,but we will continue our love affair with Orient.

Is it possible that your lodging has a cistern? When we stayed at a French side villa recently, we never experienced any water outages, but the villa had a cistern that automatically kicked in if the water went out, so we would have been blissfully unaware of any water problems.

Your villa probably used the cistern as the primary source, with “city water” as a backup. Cistern water is free. City Water is expensive.

bob--as others have said, your place may well have had a cistern. I haven't heard many reports recently, but there have been numerous reports of water outages over the past couple of years. Sort of like the Dutch side, the demand has outgrown the supply at times.

We stayed on the French side at Mont Vernon for six weeks, never had any water issues

Scotty the following is our airbnb in Dawn Beach Estate. If you have interest.
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/813572451943809398?source_impression_id=p3_1677607532_Uzic7mFkcKP4VA2o

We have gone to many of the other Caribbean Islands and even with a few SXM issues it still has so many more good reasons and still prefer going to SXM . Yes the French side has its issues too. Water problems, political , occasional civil strikes and unrest. We have stayed at VRBO and Airbnb properties and most are find but we just prefer dealing with a legitimate known hotel etc as they are normally easier to deal with if you need to cancel , change , refund, etc. than an owner might be. Plus Hotels pay their fair share to the Gov in rooms taxes etc to help keep the island maintained that many of the private owners just don't pay into help with those things. With High season coming and how important that is to the island economy I have to believe with the arrival of the new generators the power issues will be fix our at least much better. But you just can't ever be for sure.

It doesn't have the dates I needed, but I did find something that will get me 39 days. Thanks though.