TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin SXM Trip Report 1/11/25 - 1/25/25

This was our 18 or 19th trip since first coming in 2003. All in all a fantastic two weeks on our favorite island! This was our very first time staying on the French Side. It did not disappoint. Sorry if my reviews are a bit gruff but I have been in the food service industry my entire life so I tend to be critical and honest….

Kenny’s Car Rental – First time using them. Top notch, personal service. Lesley and his wife are such kind, warm people. I will never use anybody else. Great price for 2 weeks too!

Mount Vernon Residences – Yes. Somewhat abandoned in appearance. Our first thought pulling in was….what did we get ourselves into? However, we really enjoyed the newly renovated studio, balcony, pool and proximity to all the fun on Orient Beach. Definitely booking here again.

Belair Resort – My sister and Bro In Law and their 2 year old son were worried about the reports of no AC or hot H20. Their 1st visit on island and they are hooked! Belair did have both AC and warm water so it worked out fine for them. Yes a lot dated but they enjoyed the beach and location.

Parrotville – Us adults enjoyed it but the little nephew not so much. He was a bit scared of the birds LOL.

Beaches:

We are very much into beach hopping all day, every day. We stayed on Orient but we also visited Happy Bay ( our fave ), Baie Rouge ( rough and un-swim-able ) Belair Beach ( with the family ), Mullet ( Rosie’s and Da Water Hole ) Cupecoy ( no sand so we left ), La Galeon ( perfect for the 2 year old ), Pinel Island ( discovered the north side, perfect and quiet ). Anse Marcel ( very very windy that day )

Petite Cayes – After years of talking about finding, we finally did the trek. It was just amazing and most likely what SXM used to look like pre-tourism. Long hike but worth it. You park at the gate of the dump and hike about 1 mile. You need good sneakers as it can be steep. What a secluded beach paradise!

The Good:

Talk Of The Town Lolo - Great 1st night, cheap ribs and chicken. Consistently good.

SAO Orient Village – Great sushi and Pad Thai. Wonderful service and clean.

Sebastian Quillere Patisserie - Holy crap. This is a showroom of expertly crafted french pastry art! Amazing and you must try the Lemon, the Mango and the Strawberry! Heaven! Apparently, Sebastian was the pastry chef at Ocean 82.

Astrolabe – We did the 3 course dinner. Fabulous and nice setting around the pool. Rack of lamb and filet were cooked perfectly, Smoked Wahoo Carpaccio apt was soooo good as were the lime sorbet and berry Mille-Feuille.

Tropicana - We have been doing lunch here year after year. The owners are so good at running this place. Flawless lunch of Gazpacho, salad, seafood pasta and chicken cordon blue. Nice shot of banana rum at the end. We love it here!

Pineapple Pete’s - Always a solid choice for straightforward casual fare. Sushi, ribs, pasta were all quite good.

Orange Fever – 3 times this trip ( not enough ) Our fave on OB. JC is really the best of the best. He remembers us year after year. Their thin crust pizza is dreamy!

Ocean 82 – Since we are from Maine, we never order lobster on SXM. We this time we did and it was delicious! The setting and service were top notch! We had a nice table by the water that was lit up. Gorgeous night out. We will return.

Calmos Cafe – A hidden gem. First time and we were delighted to be seated right down at the waterline. Triggerfish and Fruits de Mer were both excellent. The service top notch and the prices were quite reasonable. Their play list was awesome! We are coming here more often.

Spiga – Another favorite. Amazing house-made pasta and seafood. The actually do a proper espresso which is bonus points in my book

Rainbow Beach Club – Pricey drinks but a great people watching spot for a pre-dinner drink. We come at least once each trip. I gotta say, the food looked quite good. Maybe next trip.

The Sh*T List:

Mopeds/Motorcyles/Scooters: No words. Beyond common sense. No idea why this is even permitted on island!

Peter McCool Irish Pub – Was excited to see the Guinness sign so we popped in. Filthy filthy filthy! 33 Euros for a Guinness and a draft beer? And it took 30 minutes to get. Staff was seen smoking butts while serving tables. The one bathroom had only a toilet and NO SINK to wash hand! Disgusting.

Avantika Thai - Oh Lawd where to begin? Severely understaffed. There were only two servers for inside and outside on a Friday night. It took over 1 hour to get our apts. Another 90 minutes to get a to go meal for a family member babysitting. All food was cold and mediocre! I asked where the restroom is. Both servers told me that nobody on site has “the code” for downstairs toilet. They will have to call the manager. No manager on a busy friday night? FIRED!

JAO Orient Beach - Rude! We came at 2:30pm for a late lunch. It looked cool with a DJ spinning. Fun right? We asked the gent with the long grey hair for a table for 2. “I have nothing for you”! There were plenty of empty tables. He said not a good time. I asked what a good day and time can we come here. He threw up his hands and walked away. WTF?

Bistro Caraibes - I really do not get the glowing reviews of this place. We ate here last year and both agreed that it was mediocre at best. Weird service too. Well this year, it went from bad to worse….4 of use came in for our 6:00pm rezzie. As soon as we were seated, one of the gentlemen ( owner? ) came by as asked what we’d like to order. We didn’t even get drinks yet. We got drinks….both glasses of Rose were warm. Cocktails were fine. The young female server was quite weird and sarcastic with everything. Other than the delish Tuna Tetakki, all other apts were disappointing. The garlic shrimp and scallops were garnished with a mound of Iceberg lettuce in the middle ( Lame ). Entrees: Odd...all of the plates were super hot but all of the food was cold. The Filet wasn't even grilled or seared. It looked steamed and it was tough. The mashed potatoes were great though. The Lamb Chops were teeny tiny garnished with about 3 teaspoons of cold mashed potato. The Bouillabaisse was awful. 2 tiny one bite pieces of salmon ( in the Caribbean? ), 1 scallop and 2 shrimp in a lobster bisque like thick sauce. This was NOT Bouillabaisse! The cream brulee was broken with a consistency of eggnog. No crunchy sugar crust either. We brought it to the attention of the server. She said that is the way it comes. Liquid Creme Brulee? Two of us ordered Ti Punches for after dinner. They never came. I asked one of the servers to take off the bill. She was clearly bothered by this. Two times at this place and done!


Observations:

Yes. Traffic was bad certain days. A few days had 6 ships in so that doesn’t help matters. I gotta say that there was so much wind during the entire two weeks. Strong winds too. It also rained almost everyday, mostly in the mornings. We have never encountered this much rain in all of our winter trips.

All in all, another great SXM trip in the books. Thanks TTOL for the many good recommendations!

Thanks very much for very kind words and support 😊👍

Seems like you had some challenges with the weather, but glad you enjoyed yourselves. Funny, we've always had great food and service at Bistrot Cariabes. Hopefully just a bad night for them.

Sounds like it was a replay of the time before but worse.

Thanks for the report. Sounds like you had a great visit.

I don't think I ever wrote about it as most folks seem to enjoy it, but we had an almost identical experience at Bistro Cariabes last January. It was very uncomfortable and did not endear us to return despite the reviews. So many other places still on the "to do" list before that one becomes a repeat.

Eager to try Tropicana and Astrolabe next trip, for example.

Great report, we are arriving in a few weeks, so this is quite helpful. Your experiences are quite similar to our, Love Orange Fever, and Sebastian's lemon is beyond compare.

Thanks for your reports. Some interesting observations. Avantika seems to have fallen off as it was extremely popular at one time. That was a sad display from Bistro Caribes.

Thanks for the report. I just scratched Bistrot off our next visit list and might add back Ocean 82 but 2 years ago we were not impressed so not sure.

Only two points I would like to make. First, the moped/scooter/motorcycles. We learned from folks that have lived on the island for many years that anyone that is age 14 can ride one of these without any license or training. Many people have tried to get the SXM government to take reasonable actions to change existing rules and have all failed. Second, with regard to Belair, we experienced our 2 weeks in December with some hot water problems but since we've been going there for 40+ years, we also feel for the staff that does everything possible to accommodate guests. "Dated" is a term that most find applicable for Belair.

Our last dinner at Avantika this last May was less than stellar and made the decision not to return after our experience.

Great report, thank you for taking the time to do this.
Re Petit Cayes hike, of course one can start from Anse Marcel if you don't mind missing the landfill
Trailhead & parking:
Petite Cayes from Anse Marcel trailhead (Google maps link)
It is probably a little further and hotter so take water.
Dave.

Thanks for that map link CYO....I was surprised to see a few other ppl on this beach and since we were the only car parked at the trail head, I was wondering how they all trekked there. Stunning beach!

And just to clarify folks, the reason we returned to Bistro Caraibes, despite last year's less than stellar experience, was that the reviews are consistently 5 star and my sister ( first time SXM ) was dying to try based on suggestions from coworkers. I realize that service and food, like many things, are in the eyes of the beholder. Maybe we just never hit it right but it's a no go in the future.

And to be clear, the rain wasn't a big damper on plans. It mostly happened during the mornings and by the afternoon....lots of sun!

It was a fabulous trip and now that I am done snowblowing from the 5 inches that fell last night, I am regretting not making it a 4 weeker! LOL. Perhaps next time!

Downeaster, nice report! On the Mont Vernon location you said you liked the proximity to Orient... were you able to walk to Orient (say to Orange Fever), or was it a bit too far for that? What about walking to any restaurants and things from the residence, or is there not too much close enough? I guess I'm wondering how reliant on driving were you there.

So JohnW, the walk to all of the beach side stuff on OB, including Orange Fever was about a 15 minute walk ( we walk fast ). We did walk to Orient Village for dinner but we dine very early so we never felt unsafe on the walk back and there were plenty of people walking the beach in the early evening.

We did use the car quite often as we like to explore the island. One could totally be car-less at Mount Vernon as there is plenty to walk to along the beach and in Hope Estate.

Thanks for the report. We love, love, love SAO. We stay in the village and it's our go to place for consistently great food, service and ambience. We need to get out more like you and visit other beaches. We are so drawn to Orient and usually park at Le String. Never been to Happy Bay but we did spend a day at Friar's and loved it.

Lancer are reservations needed for SAO?

Hi RonDon, We usually eat early, between 5-6. On some evenings in June we just walked in and there was seating right up front, which we prefer. When we were there in April I made reservations just to be sure we had a spot. We stay right across the street, so it's very easy to walk over and catch someone around 3pm and make a reservation. We've called a couple times also. (Sure sounds like we go there a lot. And we do! LOL)

I would highly recommend reservations there, when we went it was packed. One of our new favorites.

Thanks, Lancer.

Hubby doesn't like to drive at night from Dutch side to Orient or Grand Case so we're staying a few nights at GCBC and will book meals in GC but the Tuesday we arrive I'm trying to talk him into eating in Orient Village by saying it's a short easy ride from GCBC so we won't have to travel the road he calls "LeMans" to get from one side to the other.

We would eat early and thought to try SAO. Guess we'll chance it. Thanks again.

Rosemary, we stayed at La Playa for a couple of nights last November, and are doing the same this trip. It's a very easy and secure walk into the square from there. We tried to go to Sao while we were there, but they were closed the night we wanted to go. Will definitely get there this trip!

AHHH that really hurt to read about Bistrot caraibes!!! I'm quite friends with Thibault!!! I'll let him know about your unfortunate experience. I read that you are in the food industry, we all know, everyone has a bad night. But this sounds deeper. We love the brothers, they would not want this to happen to anyone or any night!!

We also love Bistrot Caraibes and have been going multiple time each trip. We've gotten to know Thibault & Amaury as well, and this seems so out of the ordinary for them. Would be interested in their reply...

I think the boys are off the island. I have messages in to Thibault!! Keep you posted!! Something about that service didn't sound like them!!!

Just a quick question, how is Caribbean lobster compare? I recently was having a conversation about lobster in SXM. My friend won't eat lobster from there "b/c it all comes from Maine." But the carribean lobster is different. Does it taste different? Can you tell the difference besides the claws?

I find Caribbean lobster sweeter than Maine but it all depends how it's prepared.

I'll be honest. I like Caribbean lobster but I like Maine lobster better. Part of that could be the myriad preparations (I lost count of the ways Mainers could incorporate lobster into dishes) and having spent some time in Maine. There is nothing better than a fresh toasted bun real butter drown pure lobster roll where the butter just oozes down your chin and the lobster is big ole chucks of sublime goodness. But I'll take lobster regardless of global origin tbh.

Fatcat04. Now you have me salivating! Nothing better than a Maine lobster roll---nothing but lobster on that buttered roll! Do they prepare Caribbean lobster like that?

We call that a Connecticut lobster roll. Most places in New England will make a lobster roll cold with mayo. Still yummy, but I prefer hot with butter.

Yes, there is definitely a difference. Caribbean lobster has a firmer texture and is slightly less sweet (to me). I find there is also more "meat" in the Caribbean lobster- it goes right up into the head. I am from New England but love them both!