TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Anyone currently at BSV or recently?

Have a question or two if you are currently at Beachside Villas or there recently......

Can you give me an update on loadshedding for power and on the status of sargassum on the beach.
Thanks.

panman--hopefully someone will reply. Looking at the loadshedding "schedule" for the past week or so, it seems to be somewhat better. Unless of course they are just not posting all the loadshedding they are doing.

Hello ,
The power outages has improved vey much and keeps getting better .

Thanks Kenny. How about the daily sargassum at BSV?

Well panman that comes and goes . Right now its clear .
When are you Folks planning to come would matter in general with the potential sargassum situation .

BSV always cleans the beach if there is any sargassum.
Definitely not an issue.

...I understand BSV does not have a generator.....

leslie--that is correct

I spoke with Tracy from BSV yesterday and it’s true they do NOT have their own generator. They explored getting one but at the cost of $200000. it was too big a nut to crack and I get it. Ultimately if they did get one they’d have to pass the costs on to us in the unit rental prices and there’s only fourteen units to share it among.

Honestly, not saying it couldn’t happen but in all our stays we’ve NEVER lost power.
I would miss airco at night but the load shedding usually happens during the day so no generator wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me. But I also enjoy tent camping and have a sense of humor!

The OP also asked about sargassum on their beach and it’s true, the staff is out every morning before most guests have risen assuming there is any seafood in the first place.

BSV is my first choice place to stay and has been since we discovered it.😊😊

Pat-- I believe we have lost power there for a short period of time, once or twice, but the situation with GEBE now is a whole new ballgame. I understand a generator is a lot of money and it is their decision whether to get it or not. But they have to realize that they will lose some business.

BSV is definitely still my first choice to stay, but I would be worrying about it if I were going soon. We don't plan to be there again until next summer. Hopefully by then, GEBE will have their sh*t together.

With regards to sargassum, they always manage to do an almost herculean job of cleaning the beach. Most of the time, there is very little seaweed there in general.

Pat, we owned a villa at Villas on Great Bay (not timeshare) and there were twelve units also like BSV. We didn't have much money as an owner but decided to get a generator installed during some renovations. For BSV it works out to about $16, 000 per owner. It makes such a difference for the guests not having to worry about power outages especially now with the current situation. As an owner, you are making good money charging $300/night or more. Some of these owners probably have their unit paid off and make up to $10,000 a month during high season. I think if a lot of guests complain or don't re-book, they might decode to install one and bite the bullet..

To my knowledge, Beachside Villas is solely owned by the Mascarin Family and so they would have to foot the entire bill for the generator. That is the reason the rental units would have to increase to help pay for this and it could be a significant increase. I would love to have a generator there, but I do understand what that would entail.

I just couldn't resist putting my accountant's head to work on this. LOL!!! 😉😊

Assuming the $200,000 is accurate, and using a loan with interest amortized over 5 years, the additional cost per unit would seem to work out to around $10 per night to install the generators. Of course, there is also the cost of maintenance and fuel, plus allowing for vacancy nights, but the number isn't as overwhelming as it might seem. Of course, if GEBE gets their act together (???), it could end up being an unnecessary expense for what could be a rare occurence.

I think the vacancy nights would severly skew your figures.

Define "severely". There's no question it would increase the number, but by how much?

If the average vacancy rate was say 50% over the course of a year, it would double the number to about $18 per night per unit, or about $126 per week. At 75% it would be $27 per night or $189 per week, which is certainly more significant. From comments here on this forum I know that there seem to be many times when BSV is sold out. I haven't stayed at BSV, so I'm not fully familiar with their actual weekly or nightly rates. Obviously it will also depend upon the individual renter, as what is severe to some may not be to others.

I'm certainly open to a better estimate if anyone has more accurate numbers.

The point of the exercise was simply to point out that $200,000 sounds like a big number, and it's certainly a significant expenditure. But that is often the case in situations where aggregate numbers are quoted. But when they are broken down into individual numbers they are often not quite so scary.

Yes hopefully GEBE problems will get better soon but I would think $20,000.00 for a generator big enough for the entire BSV would be a good investment over time. As far as the sargassum it is a huge effort to clean it up , I have seen up and down Simpson Bay struggling to get the beach clean ...its normally wet a very heavy so picking it up after its dried is a bit easier.

"$20,000.00 for a generator"
20,000.00 or 200,000. Quite a range you're looking at.

For your info , we just our invoice quotation for a new 30 KW for 7 bedrooms for $ 23,000.00 , go figure .

$20,000.00 (20 thousand) would not get it done for a generator big enough to do all of BSV.

They would also need a spot to put the generator. Is there room on the property to even place one?

pburke--of course there's room for a generator, but apparently, they have decided not to do it. And Pat said $200,000.

Seems like a reasonable price. A 10kw ran us 10,000 3 years ago. 20kw was 15,000.

Cost per unit is not all that bad, if this was an issue that would continue into the future, but if GEBE does get their issues fixed then it is $200k that is just sitting there taking up space. Noting that it has been stated that power had not been an issue until the recent GEBE issues.

I have a dream that GEBE will get this solved by November.

Actually the yes for the actually price of the unit $ 13,000.00 but plus labour and materials is the nine . No rush will wait till the high demand goes back to normal lol or just do Solar Heart for our pool pump.

The number I was quoted was $200,000.00 - not 20,000.
I think they would be crazy to spend that kind of money today, given the GEBE problem is supposedly on its way to being resolved. But that’s merely my personal opinion and I know most will disagree.
We had a major power outage of about a week and a half a few years ago. The manual generator got very old very fast so after the situation from the storm outage was resolved we installed an automatic whole house generator. We’ve had it about five years now and used it once very briefly in all that time for less than an hour. We appreciated having it but the annual maintenance fees are hard to take.

Pat--as you have said, you can do without a/c for a while. I am very much on the opposite side of that equation. We were very uncomfortable in June this year with the outages.