Sint Maarten/St Martin |
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We stayed at our home resort, Ocean Club (OC) (website woefully out of date) in Cupecoy. Flights were fortunately non-eventful except that we again had to stay in Miami going and coming. AAdvantage points are nice, but restrictive. Hopefully, with SJU opening up now, AA can get us from Texas to SXM in one day next June. Went to Grande Marche in the Phillipsburg area for food and supplies. We bought quite a bit since we planned on cooking often in our room and saving some money. Sunday: On to Orient Beach (drive
through Marigot took 31 minutes) and relaxed on a beautiful,
well-sanded OB beach. Not too many folks there, but saw Raz and
met Judy/Jerry. The biggest change on the island is the road
to Orient Beach being repaved; concreted up to the bend to the
Butterfly farm! Wonderful, but took the "challenge" out of the trip!
Drive back through Marigot took only 28 minutes. Rained a little almost everyday and night, but the
island needs the water. Everything is green and pretty. Monday: Went below OC to
Cupecoy and stayed for a couple of hours. Beautiful day again.
The surf was kind. Rained some more, but the moon over the OC
pool at night was pure heaven. Came back up and told the security and Elvis at OC who got on it immediately. Elvis helped id the jerk and Emma called the cops... (yes, they really came and looked for the guy). They left knowing who to look for and we have not seen him since. It made us decide to stay up on the OC landing, wait for our friends next week, or go down to Danny's. We have been on this beach for years and have never witnessed such aggressiveness from pervs. Leaving them alone, challenging them, or ignoring them did not work this time. (in retrospect, this appears to be an isolated incident with this particular individual) The access to these small Cupecoy beaches between
OC and Shore Pointe is too easy for these guys and they know there
is no one there to answer to (except Danny). For the time
being, our advice is to go all the way to Danny's to use these
beaches unless there are more than two of you. Saturday: Stayed at OC, watched D-Day
ceremony, played dominos. Went to meet Bob&Jo's plane but did
not find them. They finally arrived about 5. We all went
to the Sugar Cane Cafe at Atlantis Casino for dinner. Great
place and patio atmosphere. Large servings of all kinds of
foods. A little gambling and then back to OC for some pool and
moon time. Home for pool and pizza from Pizza Galley at Lady
C. in Simpson Bay right across from the Royal Palm.
Really good veggie pizza! |
Observations and Hints |
Telephone Service | Sprint had no service on our phones. Used no phones. Relied on email |
Traffic | Not really too bad. The new airport road will help and will be much safer for the pedestrians going to the parking lot. |
Weather | Wind was variable. There were quick showers, several times per day/night , most days. |
Restaurants | Tropicana was excellent as always. Baywatch is a joy. The Sugar Cafe at Atlantis has a great selection of food at reasonable prices. The little Pizza cafe near the Summit and the Medical University has great, large pizzas for $12 each. |
$$$ | Took cash and only used MC at Marche and for car. Left with $1300 and came back with $300. That includes tips, gifts, and incidentals (and rum). In general, eating is still expensive in St Martin. Noticed that there were many restaurants closed on a busy day at the Market in Marigot. We cooked in our OC unit most meals. |
Flights and Luggage | Used AA mileage miles (35,000 each). Booked 330 days out. Looking forward to the SJU helping cut out the stay in MIA. |
Crime | Besides the one aggressive Cupecoy Cliff Jerk-off, we did not witness nor were affected by any crime. There is an effort taking place to fight the crime. There are many more Dutch police and the Gendarmes are very apparent. According to Elvis, there is an army post in the works for the French side. We were not stopped or checked by police but one of our friends witnessed the Dutch police checking seatbelts at Lee's. |
Shopping | Rima's in Phillipsburg is the best place to shop for island clothing
and souvenirs.
Grande Marche on the Cole Bay Road to Marigot is the nicest place to buy groceries. Local grocery market that we like is the Sapphire store. |
Mosquitos | They are everywhere, but generally come out at dusk. Linda always used deet when when she went running over the Cupe roads in the mornings and exercising in the shade. |