We really enjoyed St. Barts and will definitely be going back. We rented a villa in Pt. Milou with great sunset views and a pool. It was an open villa with a small infinity pool and a great stereo system (with an iPod hook-up).

Mornings: Our mornings consisted of having an espresso in front of the pool while taking in the views (and listening to our music). We could have sat there for hours ... it was so beautiful.

Beaches: Our favorite beach was Gouverner. For those who are not familiar with St. Barts ... most of the beaches there do not have any amenities and they are much smaller than Orient. This can be very relaxing, however, we began to get restless after a couple hours. Hitting the beaches both in SBH and SXM was a great combination.

Beach "Clubs": We went to Nikki Beach a couple of times. They do have chairs to lay out in, but they are so close to the water (waves were actually encroaching the chairs) and seated immediately adjacent to the dining tables and chairs. We really didn't feel like laying out two feet from a party of eight who were there to have lunch and drinks. Nikki Beach was okay and this was the only place we encountered someone who was rude. Interestingly enough, we had the same waitress both times and she was rude both times. It's a good place to have drinks/lunch, listen to music, people watch, etc. But the rude waitress really turned us off so we never went back. The other "beach club" we frequented was at Tom Beach Hotel. This was on the same beach as Nikki Beach, but we found it to be much more fun. The staff was very friendly, too. We spent several days at this place for afternoon drinks/food ... after the beach.

Early evenings: We would go back to the villa to sit in the pool to watch the sunsets. They were amazing. You can never go wrong with having a bottle of wine, swimming in the pool, listening to good music and catching an unbelievable sunset.

Restaurants: We only had one bad meal in St. Barts. We ate at a restaurant for dinner at a place called Le Strand, which is located in Gustavia. We both ordered fish (sole and something else... I forget)and it was really bad. In fact, it was so bad that I wouldn't even go back there if they gave me the meal for free. I even ordered a martini and they came back with the glass half full. The waiter did not know anything about their food there either. All the other restaurants we ate at there were either really good or great.

Nightlife: There is not much of it in St. Barts. We did go to the Yacht Club and had a good time there. Le Ti is another place where we had fun. It's a restaurant which turns into more of a social scene late at night.

Shopping: This is not really my thing. I just basically follow my wife around waiting until she tires (unfortunately for me, she has good stamina).

SBH is a very expensive island, but you can minimize the costs (similar to what one does in SXM), but it is definitely more expensive (no comparison). As I mentioned in a previous post, both islands compliment each other well (for our preferences) and we will definitely make the trip again and visit both islands.

I put our pics together up on YouTube. There are only a few pics from SXM towards the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnE8SFFP7PY