TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Cab Strategy (Cul De Sac, Grand Case, Orient)

Hey folks. We are looking forward to what has become our annual end of February vacation coming up. The last two years we stayed at Love in Grand Case. We are changing things up a little this time. We rented a cool one bedroom Creole style bungalow in Cul De Sac near the Pinel ferry. The place is really cute you can see it on Airbnb the name of the bungalow is "Petite maison créole avec due mer".

Anyway, we are excited about being between Grand Case and Orient and will likely spend several evenings in each location. Most of our daytime travel will be via our rental car but in the evenings would like to take a cab to and from GC or Orient. The only time we've taken a cab there was about 5 years ago from La Planation to Dutch side. So I'm wondering if anyone has informed recommendations about the following...
- Given that the ride is less than 5 minutes to either Grand Case or Orient will the rates be reasonably commensurate with the distance? ($15 or less each way)
- What is the best way to order a cab for service? We won't have local phone, I'm sure that the restauranteurs will call us a cab for return trip but wondering about getting there?

Any other experiences that anyone wants to share about staying in Cul De Sac in general or thoughts about how cabs work between Grand Case-Cul De Sac-Orient is much appreciated! Thanks in advance, we like our wine and want to be safe and legal.

Troy and Olive (Ocean City, Md)

To ME, I think it's going to be a PITA to have to call a cab any time you want to go out, but regardless, you will HAVE to rent a phone if you want to be able to call a cab to go out. Sharon has phones for around $20 a week, plus time. You might contact TTOL sponsor taxi driver Wilfred Brooks and arrange a standing arrangement for him to pick you up and take you places. Otherwise, you will be waiting a LONG time for taxis, your entire trip.

I tend to agree thus we want to have some sort of strategy going in. I'm thinking the standard arrangement would be good, economically speaking it would seem to make most sense if it was someone based on French side. If I rent the phone I'm thinking the whole issue goes away. Just haven't done that before. I usually call VzW and get some other international service added to my plan temporarily that doesn't work anyway.

Hi, same sort of issue for us - we are 1st half of Feb, staying in Orient. We too will have a car, but for evening dinners outside of Orient we will use a cab -if you have wifi that helps
Wilfred Brooks -a TTOL sponsor - cab service lives in the Orient area. When needed I email him a day or so in advance to arrange a cab
Rate schedule link
http://taxistmaarten.com/zones-rates/

Note - cab rates increase at night

If no wifi or phone, might be a problem
J&B