TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Just got back

Agreed, very much apples and oranges..

Even when i add all the drink, grand case food, and all the watersports to my Club O orange, it still cost less than the all inclusive apple.

At equal prices, id pick the Club O for Orange everytime.

I think my point was it is easier to fill a less costly vacuum in rebuilding Club O (factoring some price increases), than would it be for them to rebuild a completely large standing hotel structure resort that had suffered the same storm surge. They can also do so in pieces.


It will be back. Some folks may choose to get out of their “investment”. They tell potential owners it needs to be throw away money. So all of thm had their eyes wide open.

Very few will want to turn their back on their “investment in nudism in paradise”. Those than can afford will keep making that”investment” which is good for all the other visitors.

Hey, I think I just made Scubaman’s “timeshare enabling other visitors’” argument.

Just keep making my point if it makes you happy. I really don't care. I enjoy my time share and in 2 years will use it again over and over.

Just curious but Club O is the only place on Island that CO is allowed. Is this by agreement with the Government and, if not, what allows nude bathing on that section of the beach?.

If another company, like Westin or whomever, bought the property and built a new resort would they necessarily also have the same unique exemption that allows CO on the beach?

The answer to that question is "No", if some other hotel bought it, I would doubt very much if clothing optional would still be allowed.

The local law of the collectivitie that generally bans nudity on Saint Martin beaches expressly recognizes that nudity is officially tolerated on the "Club Orient Beach" and exempts from the general ban the beach south of the road next to Pedro's (or where Pedro's was) which runs alongside the wall that borders Club O. So, the exemption in the local law appears based very specifically on the history of Club O. The only place that has had official recognition from the Prefet of the right to have some nudity on a small part of Orient Beach was Coco's - which has had the small "nude beach" by the rocks. There is an agreement of sorts involving nudity on Tintamarre. There are other beaches where nudity has been at least informally tolerated despite the local law, but is no real certainty regarding those.

That's what I thought (assumed)....

And to add to what Snorkeller has told us, don’t forget the operative word - “tolerated” which does not make it a given.

We have a fairly long association with the Island and in thinking back to when we first started coming, we always knew there was a “nude” beach and a nudist club on that beach but back then it was in a remote and generally unfrequented part of the Island and therefore not a problem for the rest of SXM since you really had to look for it. We looked for it our first trip but the roads were terrible back then and the signage was pretty much nonexistent so we never did find it that time, and since it wasn’t the highlight of our trip to SXM we weren’t bothered in missing it.

A few years later we did manage to stumble across what we thought was the most spectacular beach on the entire island. There was nothing and no one there, unless you were counting the occasion cow or goat or the random sea grape edging the sand. It was truly drop dead gorgeous. And as I recall, if you didn’t know Club O was there you could very easily have missed it.

But then the French decided to capitalize on the area to the point it developed into what most visitors of the past few years knew it to be. I feel bad for those who lost their businesses and their livelihoods in subsequent storms but in all honesty, it wouldn’t bother me at all if it remained in its current state.

My only hope is when they start redeveloping OB, and they will for sure, they will force all the framed structures off the sand and move them back from the beach itself, and endorse a type of break-down construction that owners could remove in the light of a major impending storm. Not a popular opinion and just my personal thoughts but this would certainly bring back more of the Caribbean feel that many of us miss to this day and the absence of which is why so many gave up on one of the most beautiful pieces of real estate on St. Martin.

Glad to see that your wonderful home is accepting renters again!