Trip Report: November 15-22, 2003
by John Cuttino
Just back from our 8th trip to SBH. What can you say but another week in Paradise.
We flew with USAir from Boston, connecting in CLT going and coming back. USAir gets high marks. With the code sharing with WinAir you check your bags all the way to SBH. No going into the terminal at SXM, use Transit Gate. We were on time, made the 4pm flight over and met by Eric to take us to Hotel Le Toiny.
The Hotel: Le Toiny is wonderful. Very expensive and out of our range in season. Beautiful private personal villas with your own plunge pool. We bring a 2 person float from home (www.overtons.com) to lounge around in the pool. Breakfast is brought each morning and set up poolside.
The Weather had been deplorable. Anyone who had been down there for the
2 weeks before can attest to that. There was this weather system that
dumped tremendous amount of rain in the Caribbean. (THe BVIs and USVIs
got slammed worse). St Martin and ST BArts got plenty of rain. We arrived
Sat to clouds and Sun had one deluge midday that caused flash flooding
in St Jean and Lorient (if we hadn't had a jeep could not have gotten
through.) It cleared Sun pm and was ideal the rest of the week.
The island is the greenest we have ever seen. Mtns that "normally"
are brown are now green. Very lush tropical. The price you pay is mosquitos
which were bad, if there was no wind. We were even bitten in restaurants
on a few occasions. The "salt flats" at Saline are now lakes.
Beach Erosion: There is a little more erosion on the West End of Gouverneur and water laps up to the foundation of the decking around Fileo Beach Hotel. Otherwise no "new" erosion since our last visit. Don't worry, there is still enough beach at Saline, Gouverneur, St Jean, etc.
Shopping: We did our usual shopping at Laurent Effel (shoes, handbags), Ligne St Barth (got Christmas gifts and stocked up), MBolo (for Vanny Rhum and other flavors--agree with other posts about Vanny Rhum less featured.)-Mbolo now has a web site so can order on line. Also bought jewelry. The "new hot" item is a pendant in gold of the island cut out in the center. Both my wife and I got one for our wrists.
Beware to all, there is a competitor cookbook to Kara and Bobs Cookbook coming out soon. There was a group of about 150 people on the island celebrating its publication.
Infrstructure improvements: The public works people were hard at work
making improvements for the upcoming season. The road up from the airport
is almost finished. There will be a small rotary at the top of the hill
and the road is moved over to not be so much in the airport glidepath.
There has been (not quite completed yet) improvements to the quay in Gustavia
on both sides. Nice park in front of the Hotel de Ville and new docking
area for the ferries.
Restaurants: I will post more detailed reviews on the restaurant section
but briefly: We ate twice at Le Gaiac (first and last nights), its the
best and we stay there so love it. Other exceptional meals were at Esprit
de Saline, Wall House and Gloriette. Mayas is beginning to bore us.
Great lunches at Saladerie, Boucaniers, Cats Miaow (Tamarin), and La Plage.
We missed Andys, the beach bar/restaurant at Gloriette, Nikki Beach Club,
Ti St Barth.
So many good places, so little time.
Our days merged into morning beach (Gouverneur our favorite), lunch and shopping, pm nap and lounging in/by our pool, out to dinner.
Return trip with USAir. The great news is you check bags in SBH to final
destination (you do have to claim at customs (for us Charlotte). The "advertised"
being able to get boarding passes on the USAir flights so you could avoid
checking in in StMartin but they "couldn't" so we did. No big
deal because getting in and out of SXM mid day is easy. Immigration was
easy, went to USAir counter and got boarding passes (without having to
schlepp bags, easy). Then went upstairs and had lunch in the St Martin
airport Restaurant (one last Carib).
The departure area of SXM can only be described as a ZOO late in the pm.
Awful. PLane left 15 min late.
CLT customs and connections: Lots of people had "tight connections",
especially since plane was 20 min late, but USAir did a great job of moving
people thru. We were in the back of the plane and it took us only 20-25
min from deplaning to getting thru customs and recheck bags. I think USAir
held a few flights to wait for our passengers (BWI for one). We had decided
not to be frantic and deliberately waited til the last Boston flight so
had time to eat liesurely in the airport. I find Charlotte Douglas airport
very nice for making connections.
Arrived home around midnight exhausted.
Already planning next trip in May.
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