St. Maarten Trip Report (Kind of Long w/ Pics)

[XXXNoahXXX]

<u>St. Maarten Trip 12/31-1/07</u>





Background

It was 3am, June 10th. My girlfriend and I had just gotten in from the bar having celebrated moving in together. We were lamenting that this was our last summer of minimal responsibilities before I started law school and she started graduate school. We knew the semester would be hard and we would need a break, so the logical thing was to hop on Expedia and book a trip.....nearly 7 months in advance.

St. Maarten/St. Martin

St. Martin is a tropical island in the northeast Caribbean, approximately 150 miles east of Puerto Rico. The 38 square-mile island is divided roughly in half between France and the Netherlands; it is one of the smallest inhabited landmasses in the world that is divided between two nations.

Weather

The entire week we were there it was sunny or mostly sunny. Like a lot of Caribbean islands, there were occasional AM showers, but they immediately cleared up. The humidity was better than expected, but still pushed the "RealFeel" temperature up to 90 degrees.

Average Temp. Chart




Transportation

We rented a little rental car called a Hyundai Getz. We didn't spend much time in the car and driving from the SE tip to the NW tip only takes 45 minutes at most. There are tons of small rental places as well as bigger chains, we just went with the cheapest Expedia one. Renting a car is pretty mandatory unless you're on a resort. You will want to check out the entire island, and the public transportation system is pretty much nonexistent. The only public transportation are basically a series of minivans/conversion vans that drive all around the island, marked only by little signs on the dashboard. There are no designated stops or prices and you just kinda hop in and hope it works out. There are no roads bigger than 2 lanes, most of them are not exactly "paved" but the fact that there is really only a few roads means you never need a map. Driving from one town/city to another is basically only one or two turns on the road marked by signs. If you didn't know any better you'd think you were lost in some poor neighborhood, but you're really on the road between the capitals.

Our car and one of the roads:






The Dutch/French Split

As you can see below, the border is not exactly well defined, but there are some differences between the sides. The Dutch side (where we stayed) is cheaper to stay and is home to the casinos. The French side has the best beaches, including nude beaches, and home to the real cuisine. It doesn't really matter which side you stay on, because you can get anywhere in under an hour. I really liked staying on the Dutch side, because there were some fun bars and the casinos like 5 minutes from the hotel so you didn't really need to worry about drinking and then driving around a lot.





Beaches

On the Dutch side, the best beach we went to was Mullet Bay. Beautiful big beach that was 5 minutes from out hotel. There was a little hut/restaurant that served alcohol and some great barbecue. On the French side, Orient Beach, the most famous (and thus the most crowded) beach on the island. It really is beautiful, but not the place for solitude. There are a dozen bars and restaraunts that line the edge of the beach, each renting out chairs and umbrellas. There's also parasailing, jetskis, etc. Also on the French side is Pinel Island, which is a 5 minute small boat ride and is really beautiful. There was some fun snorkeling there, and you could walk out real far from the beach and still only be up to you knees. If you walk to the other side of Pinel, the water is a little choppier, but we were able to have some nice alone time.

Mullet Beach:


Orient Beach:



Accomodations

We stayed at a place called the Summit Resort. It was on the Southeast part of the island, and we were really happy with it. It was one of the cheapest places on Expedia, but fine for the week. The rooms are split top/bottom in little villa-style buildings, we had the top floor which gave us a great view from our balcony. Came with air conditioning, cable, they changed towels and sheets daily, never once saw a bug, and was quiet. There's also a little restaraunt/bar on the grounds that served some really good omelettes in the morning and good drinks at happy hour. Always felt safe and clean there, perfect accomodations for people on a budget.






Casino

I was with my girlfriend so I spent limited amount of time at the casino. The best and biggest was Casino Royale on the Dutch side, although itd be worth it take advantage of the free bet offers from the other casinos. The only type of poker they had was 2/5NL with most people buying in for $100. It was probably as you would imagine, people not knowing the rules, when to act, or that they shouldn't call and all-in on the river when they have a draw. I lost a $600 pot to a bad beat and still managed to be up a few hundred bucks after playing for only two hours. Probably my best casino experience there was popping into one real quick to use the bathroom and putting $1 in a slot machine while my gf used the bathroom and winning a hundred bucks. If you vacationed here for a week and partied all day and just played poker at night you'd pay for your trip, no questions asked. They only offer poker from 9pm-3am, and only 1-2 tables.



Currency

Use American Dollars. All prices are in american dollars. All change was given in american dollars. I don't care if you're European, exchange it for American dollars. On Orient Beach and all over the French side, you will notice that they accept euros and dollars, but ONE DOLLAR EQUALS ONE EURO. makes no sense, and witnessing people paying in euros made me want to open an exchange booth right on the beach.

Food

We came to St. Maarten for the sun, so we didn't get a chance to try out the cuisine too much. Grand Case on the french side is supposed to have amazing restaurants. If you stay on the Dutch side the omelets at the Kissing Fish were great, and the breakfast at Turtle Pier (pictured below) was good as well. There is a place called Bamboo Bernie's (cheesy name, great food) that served some pretty decent sushi and other assorted foods and we actually went back for a second night since we're addicted to coconut shrimp. There was also a place right next to Casino Royale called Cheri's that had a fun performance everynight by "Sweet Chocolate and the Chocolates" a crowd-interaction/island cover band/ funny guys. Basically it was a kid/family friendly show with some "you're husband might be good, but black island dick is better" jokes that was a good time to watch while drinking and eating dinner (decent food)

Turtle Pier:



Guy at Cheri's dressed as Tina Turner and flashing his junk:



Other places of interest

The French capitol of Marigot was awesome and probably the coolest non-beach place on the island. A big outdoor market and some cool places to walk around as well as an old fort. The best thing is that you can just buy a beer and walk around drinking it while taking in the sights. Philipsburg had a cool boardwalk as well as tons of jewelry stores. Apparently the prices there are really good if you know what you are doing since St. Maarten is duty free.

Marigot:



Other notes

There is a big stray problem on the island and although never a problem, my girlfriend decided she needed to buy food and feet the cats every night, so we had to go out for 30 minutes at the end of each night to feed the half dozen
or so strays that would come around.

The alcohol is ridiculously cheap. I bought a bottle of courvosier(sp?) for $11, huge bottle of grey goose for $10.


Some random photos

This is a plane landing at the airport. Yeah the runway really is that close to the water:



They make Guavaberry alcohol there, I suggest getting it as an element of all pina coladas:



Random shot on way to Orient Beach:





If you have any questions, feel free to post them and I'll respond as quickly and accurately as possible.

[Shadowrun]

did you visit AUC?

[XXXNoahXXX]

[ QUOTE ]
did you visit AUC?

[/ QUOTE ]

Our hotel was right next to AUC and there was actually an orientation/tour type get together that was going on at the bar at our hotel, but never actually went there. There were some people around that I heard talking about it a lot, seems like the week we were there was a big week for people to go visit.

If you are thinking of going there, I can definitely say I would love to live in St. Maarten for a few years (although, obviously a one week trip might not be the best indication) There are certainly poor people and a lot of the island looks impoverished, but locals always told me that there was no real poverty in the sense of homelessness, people starving, etc. People are definitely laid back, but as one the boat captain to Pinel Island told me "You people think of here and say I wish i could live there, but we live here so its all we know. For people such as [me] there are only three options: the beach, the casino, the whorehouse. (didn't get a chance to get to one of these on my visit). So I could imagine it could get claustrophobic, since its so small and there aren't many options.

The people that I either spoke with or overheard discussing AUC all seemed to be impressed, so it might be worth a visit.


EDIT: For those that don't know, AUC is the "American University of the Caribbean", a med school.

[Taciturn]

I moved to St. Martin a couple of months ago. I live in Marigot.

It's not bad - virtually everyone speaks English. A lot more restaurants/stores than one would expect for a small island. Duty free - cheap cigarettes, alcohol, etc. Food is substantially more expensive than the US though.

Did you take the picture of the 747?

[XXXNoahXXX]

[ QUOTE ]
I moved to St. Martin a couple of months ago. I live in Marigot.

It's not bad - virtually everyone speaks English. A lot more restaurants/stores than one would expect for a small island. Duty free - cheap cigarettes, alcohol, etc. Food is substantially more expensive than the US though.

Did you take the picture of the 747?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nah, I'll confess I got that somewhere online because mine didn't come out as good and I wanted to show it exactly as I saw it. Here's one I actually took, but the plane is further off.

[SackUp]

Great trip report. Sounds like an awesome place to visit - though any place with nice beaches usually is.

Nice use of pics!

Pics of nude beach?

[XXXNoahXXX]

[ QUOTE ]
Great trip report. Sounds like an awesome place to visit - though any place with nice beaches usually is.

Nice use of pics!

Pics of nude beach?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll say that the nudity on the beach was actually better than expected. In a shocking turn of events I actually saw more nice breasts than wrinkly penises.

There was one ridiculously hot girl sitting next to us nude at the beach just smoking and blowing smoke rings. I was mesmerized for about an hour. I managed to snap a pic, but she was small breasted and has her arms above her head and she's talking so she looks like an ugly 12 yr old boy instead of hot woman, so not worth posting.

[StevieG]

Thanks for the trip report, Noah, very cool.

On exit, was American customs and passport control at the airport in St. Martin, or did you go through passport control once you were back in the States?

[XXXNoahXXX]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the trip report, Noah, very cool.

On exit, was American customs and passport control at the airport in St. Martin, or did you go through passport control once you were back in the States?

[/ QUOTE ]

They checked it before we left and upon arrival. We both had passports, so the switch to needing one wasn't a concern for us (and we were before the deadline)

What was weird, was that every website I looked on said something about a departure tax that you pay in cash at the airport, but I never paid a dime. Also, I brought back plenty of booze, listed it on my customs sheet, and they didn't care even though officially you're limited to only a certain amount of alcohol duty free.

[absoludicrous]

Sweet TR. That plane pic is one of the fakest looking pics ever, and one of the coolest. Did you snap it?