St. Maarten/st Martin

nlgutters

I generally go to barbados but found some nice places here. Just wondering if any have been and what they thought about the place?

rbsremodeling

Laid back paradise.
Very friendly people.
Dutch and french side. Lots of movie stars vacation there now too. Good restaurants. The shopping is ok compared to some of the other islands. Kinda pricey.

They have casino's if you gamble

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nlgutters

I really dont care about shopping or casinos but love golf. But heard the golf there was crappy. How expensive was the food and beer? Last year we went to eleuthera and a case of beer was $50 bucks for there local beer.

When you stayed was it in a resort or did you rent a house?

Mike Finley

I've been there 3 times. Love it, but love it more as a jumping off point or base to see the islands close by which are all wonderful for different reasons - St Barts, Anguilla, Antigua, Saba, Nevis, St Kitts are all close by. There are a ton of nice beaches and secluded places on St Marten, however you'll have to be resourceful to find them, if you're a resort rat you will have a different impression of the place.

Lots of topless beaches with women who you don't mind are topless.

One of the more famous things about St Marten - this isn't photoshopped.




Taken on Maho beach sitting on the wood deck of the Sunset bar, they have an arrival board listing when the big planes are coming in that day.

Cole

OffTopic!

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nlgutters

Mike

I saw that picture yesterday and thought it was photo shopped. I'm not a resort rat. We generaly rent a house out of the tourist areas. Do you rent a boat when you go or hop on a ferry?

Still can't decide if i just want to go back to barbados.

Also they are having sales $300 r/t is hard to beat

Mike Finley

$300 tickets are a steal, I doubt I have ever flown to St Maarten for there for less then $700.00. Inter islands travel is done by both boat or plane. Small planes hopping islands is like taking taxis here in the states.

For me it's an easy decision, cause I would always rather go to someplace new then back to someplace I have been. For me travel is the adventure and the discovery. When I am staying somewhere and I meet people who say this is their 20th time staying there, that's not me, there are too many places to see in this world for me. We enjoy our beach time and bar time, but we also temper that with as much other activities as we can fit in. We climb island mountains, hike the jungles and explore on our own as much as possible. Dive, snorkle and seek out secluded beaches and places to watch the sunset. Like I said, if I haven't been someplace and the opptunity is to go someplace new or back to someplace I've been the choice is easy for me. But that's me, that might not be you.


I've never had a bad time in St Maarten, but I would have a hard time having a bad time anywhere that has warm water, sun and palm covered beaches. Two people can have completely different experiences at the same place. I've told people who have been to the same places we have stories about things we've seen and done and had them scratching thier heads because they wonder if they were actually on the same island. I was talking to someone once about the green monkeys of Nevis and how cool they are and they were like "Nevis has monkeys? We didn't know they had monkeys there?"

It's impossible for me to tell you what to do, I'd recommend you do some research online, you'll get a feel for what St Maarten is all about and base that on your own personal criterias.

nlgutters

I think i will go. Last year we went to eleuthera. That was cool 110 miles long with like 15k people on it. We rented a little boat and would just stop and snorkel and fish. really cool place we would go to beautiful beaches with out one other person on it.

I looked around and all other airlines where $650 or $700 the found continential for $620 for 2 people.

Mellison

In my opinion, one of the nicest islands in the Caribbean. And I have been to quite a few.

mickeyco

Sweet.


Doubly sweet.


Don't care for the plane thing.





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platinumLLC

I was there in april and loved it. I have been all over and this by far was my favorite place. If you search st. maarten on youtube you will see all sorts of videos of planes landing/taking off at sxm airport. I was at the sunset beach bar and watched a 747 take off and it literally blew the people on the beach over and their floaty toys out into the ocean a couple hundred feet(theres a video of similar event on youtube! I bought a shirt that says "I got blown at sunset beach bar" The food is great and not to expensive, if you buy alcohol in the store it is dirt cheap(bottles of malibu were like 7 bucks) but the drinks are a little pricey at the bars. There are a ton of beaches that are amazing. If you like rum they have there own gauva berry rum that is really good. The roads are primative and i think i only saw 1 stop light on the whole island. The island is only 35 square miles and it only takes about 35 minutes to drive around it and that includes waiting forthe dog walking a goat to cross the street, true story! Lots of construction when i was down there, pretty interesting to see, obviously no osha regulations down there! You will definitaly enjoy it, no matter what you enjoy, the french side seemed a little more classy and the dutch side was more bars/night life. The bars are open till 3 am but there is another bar open from 1 am to 9 am and then the beach bars start opening up.

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Magnettica

I was about 12 years old when I my mother used to work for Eastern Airlines and this one of the places we went to on vacation as a family. It was the first time I saw a real live topless woman and I'll never forget it.

cleveman

Is that aeroplane landing or taking off? I see the flaps are down, but I don't remember if that will put the nose up or down.

Bodger

Uh... I'd say he's landing...otherwise, seeing as how the ocean is behind him, I doubt if he taxied out onto a saltwater runway, hit the throttles, got to V-1 and pulled up just before he reached the beach and dry land...

joasis

I have been to a lot of the islands...and didn't spend a lot of time in St.Martens...but I bought a lot of stuff there. My hands down choice is still St.Kitts. The scuba diving at Aruba was the best though.....it all depends on what you are looking for, as Mike pointed out.

Next vacation, if there will be one, will be the short line cruises out of New Orleans....4 day hops down to Cozumel and Cancun and back....

I have to add this: I told my wife (#2, not the one who went to the islands) that if she didn't like swimming in the ocean at South Beach when we were in Miami, she might not like Cancun....etc. She said she was afraid of the ocean....and I pointed out she has enough body mass to float...she won't sink. Man...it was a long plane ride back from Miami. Some things you just should not say.....

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Mike Finley

In regard to sunset beach bar, I've been there probably a half dozen times, I never saw a plane that big land there. The ones I saw were much smaller, but it's still freak'n unbelievably cool to watch, especially around sunset, you can see their lights first way off in the horizon and they get bigger and bigger and get lower and lower, the whole beach and most of the bar starts getting more and more excited, then the thing screams in and cameras are going off and people are jumping up and down, people on the beach right under it, their cooler lids are flying off and swirling around... and it's pretty cool. Certainly not your secluded tropical island beach right there, but a fun place to grab a drink and hang out for a few hours. As I recall they always have a really good happy hour, might have been 2 for 1 which is pretty hard to find in most caribbean locations. Definlty one of those things you have to do if you go there.

Here are a couple of pics we took

platinumLLC

That plane was landing. I personally liked watching the take offs of 747s cause all these people would stand right behind the plane and when it throttled up thier hats and things would fly off. And really funny when people did cartwheels from the plane. It's really funny after a few beers. The sunset beach bar has a great drink special all day long-girlfriend/wife drinks topless you both drink for free! Saved me alot of money!

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nlgutters

Its -12 with wind chill here today so i booked it. I'm staying here www.thevillasongreatbay.com check out the webcam. We are going for the ffirst 2 weeks of feburary and can't wait.

Magnettica

I'm jealous.

Mike Finley

Awesome!

Hey, 2009 is going to be known as being one of the best years in the last 20 for international travel for Americans.

Due to the world wide economic issues foreigners have been looking for a safe haven for their money and it's buying good ole American dollars, which has knocked the wind out of the 8 year slide of the value of the dollar. Our dollar has and should remain on the rise for 2009 which means Americans get a huge advantage when doing international travel. Essentially the American dollars you bring with you and trade in for local currency is going to magically multiply. Also using your credit card will do the same thing to some degree. You'll get an even bigger boost if the locals aren't as aware of the local exchange rate if you pay with local currency.

Since St Maarten is on the Gilster or the Euro and the dollar is trading at a 20% premium as of right now you have the potential of a 20% discount on every purchase you make or getting an extra $20 bill for every $100 you trade in.

I just got the fun of this in Mexico in December with the dollar giving me a 30% bonus over the Peso! Plus the locals businesses were all still doing conversions that were way out of wack with what was going on. In some places we were getting 50% more money!