This was our fourth trip to St Martin. Flight was an uneventful 4.5 hour flight direct from Toronto on Westjet.. It is interesting when we meet new people on the beach that they think that Toronto is so far away, compared to where they are coming from, such as Boston and Maryland and are even more surprised that it takes us less time to get to the island than it took them.

Car rental was through Unity. One of Michael’s met us at the airport , took us to the lot and we were off to our hotel in less than 10 minutes. Great service.

Hotel was the Esmeralda. We really like the location at the “end” of the beach (less busy especially on cruise ship days) and the semi private pools. We stayed in a villa with some very nice people, including Chris and Anne , who are TTOL members. One of the other units was occupied by a couple that we had met two years earlier. Other than some concern after hearing about break ins , the hotel was great.

This was to be a relaxing holiday and that is what it was. Other than part of a day in both Philipsburg and Marigot for shopping, the days were spent on Orient Beach. Our “routine” consisted of an early morning walk on the beach followed by a swim in our pool and breakfast on our balcony. The rest of the day was spent on the beach, with a walk down to Baywatch for lunch. Late afternoon it was back to the pool before it was time to get ready for dinner. I could probably get bored of this routine after about 2-3 years.
I will not list the restaurants that we did not enjoy, only the ones that we did:

Spiga- continues to be our favourite. It is the only restaurant that we have gone to all 4 years. Lara and Ciro are wonderful hosts and the food is always excellent. As I told Lara, the tiramisu is the best that I have ever had anywhere. Cherryl and I both had a pasta dish, made with Spiga’s homemade pasta.

Tropicana- Cherryl had fish and I had lamb. Excellent meal in a wonderful location overlooking the marina in Marigot.
Temptation- A suggestion of Deepti last year.We really enjoyed our meal at what is probably best described as a new wave asian type restaurant. Both of us had fish and we shared a chocolate cobbler dessert(sort of a half cooked cake) with peanut ice cream. Also had their award winning St Mar Tini, which was made with peach schnapps, vodka and passion fruit juice. We had seen Deepti earlier that day and again at the restaurant with her cousin that was visiting. If you are reading this Deepti, thank you again for your hospitality.

Rare- Owned by the same people who own Temptation. Very good high end and high quality steak house, but very expensive. We shared a 16 oz steak with 4 side dishes , all of which were very good and left us quite full.

Some Observations/Differences From Other Years

Finally got to go to a TTOL get together, on July 6 at BBB. Other years we missed TTOL gatherings by a few days, either too early or too late. It was nice to put faces to the names/nicknames of the people who post. With apologies to those whose names that I have forgotten , we met Bruce and Sheila(the parrot people) , Gary and Berne(thanks for your efforts in planning the get together) on the beach earlier in the week and it was nice to see them again. We also spoke briefly to Jon and Minda (I think) and their 2 kids as well as Bill and Laurie, Larry and Gretchen and Paul and Maryann.
The island must be getting a lot of rain , as it was very green. I think that it rained every day that we were there, for varying lengths of time.
Got bitten to death this year. I do not seem to recall getting so many little bites in previous years.
After reading such good things from so many people here about Tap Five pizza we decided to give it a try this year. We were not disappointed. It was a really good thin crust pizza. As good as other posters have said.
Interesting to see the local reaction to the world cup. In Marigot one afternoon one of the stores was closed with a sign on the door “ Closed 2-5pm for world cup” with the staff all watching the tv in the store, and France was not even playing. I understand that some of the restaurants in Grand Case did not open on one of the days that France was playing(they won) because of concern that they could not get staff.