St. Martin July 2008

This past July was our 11th visit to our favorite island and we left for our long haul flight with great anticipation of seeing all our old friends and new ones that we have met on Orientbeach.com or from our own website.

We do not use the term long haul loosely as the trip takes us via Dallas with an overnight stay in San Juan before catching an early American Eagle flight the next day to SXM.  We searched numerous schedules on American Airlines and United that would allow us to travel first class on miles without a layover, but to no avail, except a red eye via New York, UGH!  Despite booking a near perfect one, AA changed the schedule on us twice which gave us a shorter time to enjoy our stay at the new, contemporary La Concha Renaissance Hotel in San Juan.  Actually we nearly did not make this trip at all as our timeshare exchange for The Oyster Bay Beach Resort came through very late and we were very close to pushing the button on tickets and reservations for Playa del Carmen. We were wondering if this was a sign for next year to try something new, but more on that later.

We arrived fairly late in the evening during a heavy rain storm and with our carry on bags only, we are quickly in a cab, checked in to a wonderful ocean view suite (no real need this time though) and in the elevator (twice). LOL

Once again not enough time to visit the sites of San Juan so we decided just hang out in the very chic hotel bar, have an appetizer and a couple drinks and retire early.

Up early the next morning and in no time we were through passport control and at the gate.

Arriving early in St. Maarten is the way to go, no people in line at passport control or outside the airport waiting to be picked up and taken to their rental cars. Michael from Unity Car Rental was there of course, but our jeep was not ready so he gave us his own car and we were off to check in at the Oyster Bay Beach Resort and be back in time to have lunch at The Sunset Beach Bar and wait for our friends to arrive.

Cheri scans the skies for their plane and after a few minutes their Delta flight is over the beach and lands safely. The great thing is they could see Cheri waving

Reunited at our favorite bar, drinking for free and inexpensive Carib's, could we ever have believed this would be the last time we would enjoy such pleasures. Michael called and the jeep was ready so we were off to unpack in our usual great "villa" overlooking Dawn Beach and the new Westin Resort, where we will be staying for the last few days of our vacation.

This report we will try to do something different and not report on daily activities but just things that make our vacations different, exciting, fun, strange and sometimes relaxing.

The Jeep

It really is the talk of our vacation, Michael is great and he knows what we want.  We leave the windows with him and rarely put the top up, rain or shine. We clamber in and out, we never lock it because it's so open and nothing is left on the seats or floor, except maybe a little sand and a beer bottle or two.

Reading

Everybody does a lot of reading, even Tony read a book this week.  "Wet Feet" was the book of choice, only to realize it's not the best book ever written but it kept our interest because the story line is based on St. Martin.

The Sunset Beach Bar

Will the island ever be the same?? An institution for many years officially closed on Thursday, July 24th and just by chance we were there, Tony had the last Carib and Cheri had the last free drink before she helped the workers dismantle the bar..  We were given the famous "Topless Women Drink 4 Free" sign and a few other items that will bring back many memories.

 

And that was it ... it was gone!

The following Saturday we went by to take a final look and Cheri found an old photograph of her and Kris from 8 years and another left over sign.

This activity can be a lot of fun and expensive depending on where you shop, but this time we limited ourselves, meaning no more jewelry. We did stop by and see Mac at AMA and he was pleased to chat, clean past purchases and of course perfect his salesmanship, but we held firm once again.

Shopping

While drinks were still free at The Sunset Beach Bar there weren't any deals on T shirts.

Sexy Fruits is still Cheri's favorite place to shop and why not? It's on the beach, you can do it topless, they have some great sexy dresses and they give you a great exchange rate if you pay cash.

You should always go and see Luiz, you never can have too many thongs, especially when they are personally fitted and hand made.  Even Tony found one that "suited" him but he did not get the intimate service that Luiz gives the ladies.

Gambling

We never hit the casinos on the Dutch side but we did find some action at The Dinghy Bar.  A good little dice game for a dollar. Roll the dice and if you get five of a kind you win the pot. Cheri came very close when it was at $129 with four threes (she got a free drink without having to go topless).

Friends

One of the main reasons we keep going back to St. Martin is to meet old and new friends.

Karl was still at Kon Tiki, but not for long, his last day was the day we left and he has moved further down the beach.

We found Patrick at Bikini Beach

Roland, our great captain and Stephanie his assistant

Our friends who always seem to know when we are on St. Martin and their daughters who, one day, we are sure will take over OB from Cheri. LOL

Phillip, the manager at Kon Tiki and his crew.

Rasheed and his staff at Planet Orient who put up with us.

The Westin

We never thought we would stay at a big resort on St. Martin, we are more of the Le Petit type, but we have numerous Starwood Points, so three free nights looked a lot better than $200 a night elswehere. Not sure how we keep doing it, but even here we were upgraded to an ocean view room. Everybody was very friendly even to the degree of packing our SSBB signs for us to take home.  Cheri's outfits and her new tattoo were the talking points very quickly and she was soon "The Angel Lady" to the staff.

The Westin has a nice bar and a wonderful pool

It also has elevators, (our first on SXM), wide open spaces and corridors, great showers, semi private decks and we have to say very comfortable beds.

On to three kinds of dancing, drinking, mud slapping, boating, flashing and crazy stuff and more ...

Kon Tiki

What would we do without our Orient Beach "home base".  Karl and Phillip are great, they let us relax or party, our chairs are reserved and special drinks are made. The bar menu is still at 1 for 1 and their beer bucket special is still one of the best on the beach.  The music by Regis at the beach bar is nice and the Sunday night parties are crazy, which start as late as midnight and go on sometimes till just before the chairs are brought out for the day.

Day or night Kon Tiki can be lots of fun.  Plus it caters to many locals and very few cruise ship people decide to rent chairs here, which keeps this part of the beach less crowded.

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And you think gas is expensive in the US ?  Nothing to smile about in St. Martin but it's better at the Texaco stations on the Dutch side

Cheri always tries different ways of getting in to the jeep for our morning drive to Orient Beach.

Lunch at Bliss