TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Coolers and Bringing Your Own Beer

This is aimed at no one in particular and is just a general comment. Having said that, I think we need to be careful about too quickly judging other's situation and/or behavior. Yes there are rude people and most of the time they are easy to spot. But unless we know a persons circumstances, it's hard to sometimes judge why people do what they do. For example, I have been to St. Maarten three times since Irma and am returning again the end of June. I have stayed anywhere from 12 days to a month. I return because I love the island but also because I want to help the locals--many of whom were devastated by Irma. I spend a lot of money when I am there (if you don't believe me, ask my accountant ). As I stated eailer in this thread, if chairs and umbrella are free, the cooler stays at home. However, if I'm paying $15 to $30 for chairs/umbrella and in the case of beach restaurants, also eating at the establishment (which includes buying and paying for a drink at lunch), I have no problem bringing my cooler with drinks since I'm there most of the day. With the number of trips we make and the number of establishments we frequent during extended stays, it is not monetarily feasible to purchase drinks all day at inflated prices. If that is not acceptable to the establishment, that's too bad because they are missing out on a lot of business they would otherwise receive. Point being--if we see someone with a cooler at one of those places, unless we know how much money they have spent supporting said establishment, we can't fairly judge their actions that we might otherwise assume is inappropriate. Just a thought.....

We would go daily to Orient, Grand Case, Mullet, Friars, etc...Different places and sometimes returned to Kakao at Orient multiple times. With $30 pricing that won't be happening. There will be more pool days methinks. As well as a place in GC that shall not be named because y'all bash it every time I say it...lol