TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Simpson Bay Resort Enlarges Beach

In a letter to timeshare owners, Simpson Bay Resort has confirmed that it is, as previously rumored, going to create a beach in front of the Villas building.

We had a wonderful week at Simpson Bay Resort. Once I explained to Diego, our"concierge" to stop bugging us. The resort is very clean, C building was completely renovated. Many restaurant choices, fresh pastries at Bon Appetite in the morning, and an excellent Italian restaurant L'Isola.

when are they going to start the project?

It appears to be starting this year.

Here's the owners information from Simpson Bay;

"We are just as excited about upcoming changes to the public areas of the resort. We will be renovating the marina waterfront to make it an enticing destination for members and guests. Extensive renovations will include the removal of the model villa that currently sits in the middle of the waterfront area, and will add landscaped seating areas with charming amenities. We also plan to improve accessibility, improving the stairways and clearing out older decorative structures to improve sightlines. The marina waterfront will be more beautiful, more accessible, and will provide more food and entertainment choices for our members and guests. We will transform the marina waterfront into “the place to be” in St. Maarten. It is important to note that the members will not receive renovation assessments for these improvements – the developers are assuming 100% of the cost for the marina waterfront renovation.

We have also planned a number of beach improvements. The most dramatic change will be the creation of a new beach in front of the Villas building. We will also build a boardwalk to connect the beaches and provide easy access to a new beach bar. Again, the developers will bear all of the costs for these improvements.

Finally, we have been making many improvements you won’t necessarily see, but that will greatly improve your vacation experience. All telephone lines are being replaced around the resort, individual Wi-Fi receivers have been placed in each villa, and we are upgrading our telecommunications infrastructure to improve performance and usability. We have also upgraded the water delivery system with added redundancy to prevent outages, and have automated the water and fuel systems. We are currently improving the air conditioning system that services the Villas building."

It will be interesting to see the results since the water at the rocks in front of the villas is pretty deep....

That was kind of what I thought--I was wondering how they were going to engineer it.

More than deep, the water in front of the Villas is .....stinky. Way too many boats moored there for a beach that far into the bay. They have a very small dock and ladder to the water with a sandy bottom, but my suits always smelled of diesel fuel. Never a problem at the beach by the Flamboyant units. The resort is paying for it, but, IMHO, a waste of money!

I'm pretty sure that if they'd polled the owners at the Villas the majority would not want a beach in front of those buildings. I'm sure they believe it will be an asset to their sales efforts, but most owners would rather walk the 2 or 3 minutes to the existing beach,

I don't question your statement, but why would the owners not want a beach there? Are they concerned about non-guests using the area?

I'm not Bluegreenwater, but I personally would be worried about other guests at Simpson Bay Resort using the pool and beach there and crowding the area, as well as walk through traffic, going to and from Buccaneer on one side and Flamingo on the other.

I can understand that, but aren't all the pools at SBR available for all guests now? I know that's the way it is at La Vista.

I guess if it does happen, I'll be one of those walking in front of them, as it will be very nice to be able to walk that far on the beach. Considering how far away the Villas are from the water now, I doubt that will be much of a problem.

My understanding is that is true, however, this would give an incentive for people from other areas of the resort to use that pool who don't use it now, to be closer to the ocean.

You have a point.

I went to Google earth to confirm but the pic is just one big cloud <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />

If I remember correctly there is no walkable beach connection from Kim Sha/ BBB to the end of Simpson Bay property (along the water) so it might not be possible to walk uninterrupted even after the new beach is made

The reason most owners don't want a beach in front of the villas is because of potential noise. No one cares if owners from other parts of the resort use the villas pool--the reason why not too many do is because it is pretty cold as it is in shade for a large part of the day. I certainly can't speak for all owners, but we own 8 weeks there and most of our neighbors also own multiple weeks (as you originally had to buy at least 4 weeks there). The beach expansion was rumored when we were there in February and March and none of the villa owners we talked to were in favor of it. I don't know if the new beach will extend to KimSha beach, but that appears highly unlikely.

Okay, that makes sense.

We were sitting on Kim Sha Beach one day last year and I watched 2 ladies try to traverse the rocks to get to the water's edge. I wasn't quite sure what they were trying to do, or go - but it was scary to watch them.

Will the goverment allow the beach to be built?

Does anyone know if this project has been started yet?

It seems impossible, but a ramp would work to the edge of BBB!!!