Divabella
SBH Insider
Thank you to everyone on this forum for answering my tons of questions. Our trip was absolutely perfect and we will definitely be returning, hopefully next February. We were there for 8 glorious nights, sorry if the report is long!
We stayed our Colony Club in Gustavia and it was perfect for us. We would stay there again (we like to be able to walk to dinner at night. 4 of the restaurants we dined at were either on the hill or at the bottom of it, exactly what we like). We had a huge balcony with a retractable roof. Fantastic view of the harbor and great view for sunsets. Yes the hill was huge but I think that helped me work off all the calories. I had been dieting hardcore for this trip and somehow only managed to gain 1.5 lbs. I think it’s because of that hill!! My husband did discover a way out by the pool via steps through a series of locked gates (we had the key) and then cut through the back of church grounds. It bought us to street level, 2 short blocks from Orega. We used that route when I had heels on for dinner. I want to thank Kevin S again for his perfect directions to 2 bakeries in Gustavia that were in walking distance for me to get AM croissants. Both bakeries were an easy short walk and both were delicious.
The arrival into SXM was fine but we were glad we had only carry-ons. It a appeared that a flight arrived shortly before ours that were waiting to still retrieve their luggage. There seemed to be a lot of chaos with the folks with checked bags. I was overly proactive and fearful of weather related flight delays flying out of JFK in the winter. I booked us on the last Winair flight but that was totally unnecessary. All of the Winair flights prior to ours were booked so we had to wait a few hours. We had some rum punches and made several friends waiting.
When we finally arrived at SBH our realtor was waiting for us at our car rental counter (we rented through Budget, they were great). We had a reserved a Fiat convertible but they upgraded us to a Mini Cooper convertible. It was a very long day and we just wanted a quick dinner. We showed up at La Repaire at around 6:30 pm but they weren’t serving diner until 7 pm. We killed some time at 25 Quarter with a few delicious cocktails. Dinner at La Repaire was good, nothing great but it served it’s purpose.
Day 2
The plan was to rent loungers from Tom Beach / La Plage on St Jean but when we arrived there was a lot of hammering noise. Luckily the beach chairs were in the car so we retrieved instead and planted ourselves towards the Eden Rock end. There appeared to be some work going on there but nothing loud. The beach was great. When we got hungry we walked over to Kiki E Mo for a delicious lunch. Dinner that evening was at Orega, it was absolutely fantastic. Without a doubt the best meal of the trip. The owner Greg and the entire staff were extremely personable. We loved it so much that on our next trip, we will go there twice! I had the Chilean Sea Bass and my husband had the veal chop. Dessert was the Chocolate Bomb, to die for!
Day 3
Shell Beach – The beach was cuter than I expected. We drove there but it was literally just down the hill from us. We could have easily walked but were unaware of that at the time. There was lots of really pretty sea glass and the shells made for some really cool close up pics. We bought our own chairs but had luch at Shellona. It was great for people watching. They even had a fashion show. Lunch was very good and not as expensive as we thought it might be. We did not have dinner reservations for this night. We planned on just catching the Superbowl at a bar and have some snacks. By the time we got out, every bar that was airing the game was jam packed. We decided we just wanted pizza . We went to Isoletta but they only had a table available inside by the counter. We took it but they were kind enough to come and get us when a table outside became available. We both really enjoyed how nice and thin the pizza was. We made a few stops there later in the week after the beach for a quick slice.
Day 4
Flamands Beach – This was the one beach we visited last year during our day trip (spent the day at Cheval Blanc). I was nervous to see what condition it would be in but we were both pleasantly surprised. The beach was just as beautiful as we remembered. Yes there is a lot of destruction behind the beach that was really sad to see. Did not appear to be any work going on at CB. I do not see how they can possibly be open until perhaps late 2019. It was awful to see the destruction. For lunch we had lobsters at La Langouste. It was fantastic! What a beautiful setting too. Shout out to Reed on this forum for recognizing me! We had a nice chat. I was shocked that someone recognized me by my pic. I heard “DivaBella, DivaBella” ( just to clarify, DivaBella are the names of my Maltese and Yorkie, there is also Napoleon our Maltipoo but adding his name to my screen name just didn’t flow).
We actually had dinner reservation at Isoletta for this night but we were so full from lunch. We walked over to cancel them but they were closed (we later found out from this forum that one of the workers had been killed on a scooter accident – how sad, we probably saw him the night before).
Day 5
My 50[SUP]th[/SUP] bday. I wanted some pampering for this day so we did go to the Eden Rock pop up beach. We had a great time (bill was a whopping $314 but that did include the really comfy loungers, lunch and some cocktails) . The setup was really nice, the food was very good and they did pamper us. We are almost certain we were having lunch next to Calvin Klein. As everyone stated, this section of Lorient wasn’t the greatest but the beach was very nice to walk on (which I love doing). Saw 6 barracuda’s right at shoreline at the other end of the beach. Dinner was at Tamarin. What a gorgeous setting (Kevin S, thanks for your cab driver recommendation of Jean Claude – we used him and he was great). The food, service and ambiance were perfection. The greatest bday ever! I wish we had arrived a little earlier to enjoy the grounds a bit more. I think I could have spent hours there sipping cocktails.
Day 6
Sandwiches form the bakery. We packed the cooler and went to Saline. OMG what a gorgeous beach! Pure perfection. The waves were incredible. We are huge fans of St John, USVI. We go every year and the beaches IMO are the best we have been to in the Caribbean. Saline was just as good as any St John beach. It was just a heavenly day. We had a short downpour of rain but after that the turtles were out! We saw 4 of them on our walk back to the car. I had spent a good portion of the day in search of them. I was so happy to see them up close. Dinner was at Black Ginger, we really enjoyed it.
Day 7
Sandwiches from the Super U (this was one of the best tips on this forum. I would never buy premade sandwiches at a grocery store at home. These were delicious. Next trip, most of our lunches will be purchased this way, OMG, the $$$ we could have saved) Governour beach. Another beauty until some obnoxious folks with a speaker arrived later in the day cranking Jimmy Buffet & Kenney Chesney Dinner was just halfway down our big hill at Ociela. The setting was really pretty. I had the pasta with lobster and my husband had the lamb and beef kabobs. Again, service was impeccable and food was very good.
Day 8
Jicky Marine on the half day sail to Colombier. This was the cleanest catamaran we had ever been on. There was just us and another lovely couple from Germany. We had a great time with them and drank way too much. Before I knew it, we were heading back. By this point we were all pretty intoxicated I didn’t realize it until we actually docked that we never actually went to Colombier! We could see it in the distance but I thought were would spend some time on the beach. I am still a little bummed about not seeing it but we did have a great time.
Dinner was at Eddy’s, what a charming restaurant. My husband had the tuna special and is still raving about it.
Day 9
Departure – we had an early flight on Winair with a long layover at SXM. We opted to leave the airport and have lunch at Karakters on the beach. St Martin is in bad shape. It was really sad to see the little bit we saw. What a difference between St Barth’s and St Martin. With the exception of the closed beachfront hotels and the cars with the windows wrapped in plastic wrap and duct tape, we never would have known there was a hurricane on St Barth’s.
I am still riding high from this trip. St Barth’s by far is the most charming and cleanest island we have ever been to. My husband is a St John loyalist (I am too, we go every May). Everyplace we go, he compares to St John. The first few days, he liked St Barth’s but I could tell he wasn’t in love. (I was immediately hooked) but once he went to Saline, that hooked him! He said he thinks he wants to come back next February (wants me to tally up the credit card charges before he makes a final decision, lol) as far as I am concerned we will be going! I would be perfectly happy with St Barth’s in February and St John in May. I don’t think there is anything better out there (though I am scared to see St John in May. I don’t think they fared as well as St Barth’s). Thank you again to everyone for answering all of my questions. I truly felt pretty acclimated to the island upon arrival due to this forum and everyone’s great advice.
We stayed our Colony Club in Gustavia and it was perfect for us. We would stay there again (we like to be able to walk to dinner at night. 4 of the restaurants we dined at were either on the hill or at the bottom of it, exactly what we like). We had a huge balcony with a retractable roof. Fantastic view of the harbor and great view for sunsets. Yes the hill was huge but I think that helped me work off all the calories. I had been dieting hardcore for this trip and somehow only managed to gain 1.5 lbs. I think it’s because of that hill!! My husband did discover a way out by the pool via steps through a series of locked gates (we had the key) and then cut through the back of church grounds. It bought us to street level, 2 short blocks from Orega. We used that route when I had heels on for dinner. I want to thank Kevin S again for his perfect directions to 2 bakeries in Gustavia that were in walking distance for me to get AM croissants. Both bakeries were an easy short walk and both were delicious.
The arrival into SXM was fine but we were glad we had only carry-ons. It a appeared that a flight arrived shortly before ours that were waiting to still retrieve their luggage. There seemed to be a lot of chaos with the folks with checked bags. I was overly proactive and fearful of weather related flight delays flying out of JFK in the winter. I booked us on the last Winair flight but that was totally unnecessary. All of the Winair flights prior to ours were booked so we had to wait a few hours. We had some rum punches and made several friends waiting.
When we finally arrived at SBH our realtor was waiting for us at our car rental counter (we rented through Budget, they were great). We had a reserved a Fiat convertible but they upgraded us to a Mini Cooper convertible. It was a very long day and we just wanted a quick dinner. We showed up at La Repaire at around 6:30 pm but they weren’t serving diner until 7 pm. We killed some time at 25 Quarter with a few delicious cocktails. Dinner at La Repaire was good, nothing great but it served it’s purpose.
Day 2
The plan was to rent loungers from Tom Beach / La Plage on St Jean but when we arrived there was a lot of hammering noise. Luckily the beach chairs were in the car so we retrieved instead and planted ourselves towards the Eden Rock end. There appeared to be some work going on there but nothing loud. The beach was great. When we got hungry we walked over to Kiki E Mo for a delicious lunch. Dinner that evening was at Orega, it was absolutely fantastic. Without a doubt the best meal of the trip. The owner Greg and the entire staff were extremely personable. We loved it so much that on our next trip, we will go there twice! I had the Chilean Sea Bass and my husband had the veal chop. Dessert was the Chocolate Bomb, to die for!
Day 3
Shell Beach – The beach was cuter than I expected. We drove there but it was literally just down the hill from us. We could have easily walked but were unaware of that at the time. There was lots of really pretty sea glass and the shells made for some really cool close up pics. We bought our own chairs but had luch at Shellona. It was great for people watching. They even had a fashion show. Lunch was very good and not as expensive as we thought it might be. We did not have dinner reservations for this night. We planned on just catching the Superbowl at a bar and have some snacks. By the time we got out, every bar that was airing the game was jam packed. We decided we just wanted pizza . We went to Isoletta but they only had a table available inside by the counter. We took it but they were kind enough to come and get us when a table outside became available. We both really enjoyed how nice and thin the pizza was. We made a few stops there later in the week after the beach for a quick slice.
Day 4
Flamands Beach – This was the one beach we visited last year during our day trip (spent the day at Cheval Blanc). I was nervous to see what condition it would be in but we were both pleasantly surprised. The beach was just as beautiful as we remembered. Yes there is a lot of destruction behind the beach that was really sad to see. Did not appear to be any work going on at CB. I do not see how they can possibly be open until perhaps late 2019. It was awful to see the destruction. For lunch we had lobsters at La Langouste. It was fantastic! What a beautiful setting too. Shout out to Reed on this forum for recognizing me! We had a nice chat. I was shocked that someone recognized me by my pic. I heard “DivaBella, DivaBella” ( just to clarify, DivaBella are the names of my Maltese and Yorkie, there is also Napoleon our Maltipoo but adding his name to my screen name just didn’t flow).
We actually had dinner reservation at Isoletta for this night but we were so full from lunch. We walked over to cancel them but they were closed (we later found out from this forum that one of the workers had been killed on a scooter accident – how sad, we probably saw him the night before).
Day 5
My 50[SUP]th[/SUP] bday. I wanted some pampering for this day so we did go to the Eden Rock pop up beach. We had a great time (bill was a whopping $314 but that did include the really comfy loungers, lunch and some cocktails) . The setup was really nice, the food was very good and they did pamper us. We are almost certain we were having lunch next to Calvin Klein. As everyone stated, this section of Lorient wasn’t the greatest but the beach was very nice to walk on (which I love doing). Saw 6 barracuda’s right at shoreline at the other end of the beach. Dinner was at Tamarin. What a gorgeous setting (Kevin S, thanks for your cab driver recommendation of Jean Claude – we used him and he was great). The food, service and ambiance were perfection. The greatest bday ever! I wish we had arrived a little earlier to enjoy the grounds a bit more. I think I could have spent hours there sipping cocktails.
Day 6
Sandwiches form the bakery. We packed the cooler and went to Saline. OMG what a gorgeous beach! Pure perfection. The waves were incredible. We are huge fans of St John, USVI. We go every year and the beaches IMO are the best we have been to in the Caribbean. Saline was just as good as any St John beach. It was just a heavenly day. We had a short downpour of rain but after that the turtles were out! We saw 4 of them on our walk back to the car. I had spent a good portion of the day in search of them. I was so happy to see them up close. Dinner was at Black Ginger, we really enjoyed it.
Day 7
Sandwiches from the Super U (this was one of the best tips on this forum. I would never buy premade sandwiches at a grocery store at home. These were delicious. Next trip, most of our lunches will be purchased this way, OMG, the $$$ we could have saved) Governour beach. Another beauty until some obnoxious folks with a speaker arrived later in the day cranking Jimmy Buffet & Kenney Chesney Dinner was just halfway down our big hill at Ociela. The setting was really pretty. I had the pasta with lobster and my husband had the lamb and beef kabobs. Again, service was impeccable and food was very good.
Day 8
Jicky Marine on the half day sail to Colombier. This was the cleanest catamaran we had ever been on. There was just us and another lovely couple from Germany. We had a great time with them and drank way too much. Before I knew it, we were heading back. By this point we were all pretty intoxicated I didn’t realize it until we actually docked that we never actually went to Colombier! We could see it in the distance but I thought were would spend some time on the beach. I am still a little bummed about not seeing it but we did have a great time.
Dinner was at Eddy’s, what a charming restaurant. My husband had the tuna special and is still raving about it.
Day 9
Departure – we had an early flight on Winair with a long layover at SXM. We opted to leave the airport and have lunch at Karakters on the beach. St Martin is in bad shape. It was really sad to see the little bit we saw. What a difference between St Barth’s and St Martin. With the exception of the closed beachfront hotels and the cars with the windows wrapped in plastic wrap and duct tape, we never would have known there was a hurricane on St Barth’s.
I am still riding high from this trip. St Barth’s by far is the most charming and cleanest island we have ever been to. My husband is a St John loyalist (I am too, we go every May). Everyplace we go, he compares to St John. The first few days, he liked St Barth’s but I could tell he wasn’t in love. (I was immediately hooked) but once he went to Saline, that hooked him! He said he thinks he wants to come back next February (wants me to tally up the credit card charges before he makes a final decision, lol) as far as I am concerned we will be going! I would be perfectly happy with St Barth’s in February and St John in May. I don’t think there is anything better out there (though I am scared to see St John in May. I don’t think they fared as well as St Barth’s). Thank you again to everyone for answering all of my questions. I truly felt pretty acclimated to the island upon arrival due to this forum and everyone’s great advice.
