I truly enjoy reading the reports from others, so I feel I must share a few words about my wife and I's short trip. It was our sixth stay on the island since 2013.
3/15: Departed MSP on Sun Country Airlines around 9:50am with a direct flight. Arrived the SXM area about an hour earlier than scheduled - our pilot told us there were no gates for us so we circled. And circled. And circled... until we ran out of fuel. Diverted to San Juan for gas. While on the ground in San Juan, the plane's air conditioning failed. Maintenance wasn't able to immediately make repairs, so they thought if they shut the entire system off they could better troubleshoot the problem, which meant deplaning. AC repairs were finally made, and we all got back on for the 36 minute flight to SXM. Instead of an hour early, we arrived 5 hours late. Leslie and his wonderful wife waited for us and quickly sent us on our way in a newly new Grand i10.
With that evening's Jump Up scheduled to take over the causeway, Leslie directed us to take the back way through Sandy Ground to our villa in the Orient Bay area. We raced through there, heads on a swivel, ducking and expecting to be shot at or hijacked... we had no problems at all! There was little traffic, until I got turned around in Marigot (again! happens at least once every trip). Finally arrived to the villa at about 9:45pm. We couldn't get the connection with Jeannie made that night, so she scheduled our provisions to be delivered at 8:00am Sunday 3/16. Thank you Jeannie! Villa link:
https://gobeach.com/tpi/marina.htmNow for the crappy part: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were chalked up to norovirus. Enough said.
3/19: Feeling much better, we drove to Phillipsburg to visit Victor, Rick and the rest of the crew at Shopper's Haven. Went over budget there. Again. Stopped by Juggies for a supply of Magic Spice to fulfill orders from back home. Light lunch in Phillipsburg was a wonderful chicken sandwich and a fantastic grilled tuna salad at French Touch. Dinner close to home at Rancho Del Sol.
3/20: Visited Grand Case. Grabbed croissants from the bakery, walked the beach, took photos under the pier. Moved on to Anse Marsel for a short visit - the first time since 2013. Found an open spot on the beach in the "middle" and threw down our beach blanket for a while. Went to Orient and caught the end of happy hour at the Perch and split their grilled mahi sandwich.
3/21: Grabbed sandwiches from the Grand Case bakery then back to Cul-De-Sac where we rented a kayak and paddled over to Pinel. Hiked the island, stacked some rocks on the east beach, and landed at the breezy northside beach for a lunch of our fresh sandwiches. Hiked back over to the overflowing Yellow Beach. It was HOT. NO breeze on that side of the island.... Had a couple frozen drinks and quickly jumped back on our kayak to get some air. Missed happy hour at the Perch but still hung around there at Club Orient beach for a while then walked the beach as all the vendors and chair guys were packing up for the day. Dinner at Mama's Pizza in Oyster Pond, a "must go" spot for us as we've stayed in that area several times.
3/22: Croissants from Good Morning and one last beach-walk along Orient. Out of the villa at 11:00am... traffic through Marigot was at a near standstill. Arrived at Fat Tony's at 12:00pm for lunch. With our bags in the trunk, it was easy to keep an eye on the car there. Stopped quickly at Maho Beach where I reenacted my marriage proposal to my wife that I originally did there in 2013... she said "yes" back then, and said "yes" again in 2025! Dropped the car at the airport lot, and quickly got through check in and security for the 5:25pm scheduled flight back to MSP. Long delays departing the island blamed on air-traffic control overload in the entire Caribbean.... finally departed SXM at 6:50pm and arrived MSP at 11:50pm (original arrival scheduled for 10:40pm).
Loved our getaway to one of our favorite places. We didn't do as much as we had planned - that just means we get to plan to come back... hopefully in 2027!
A & T
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