Tag Archives: St. Maarten

Arriving in Sint Maarten!

Airport viewWe arrived in Sint Maarten late Saturday afternoon. Pam and I were separated on the plane by about 15 rows. But we both claimed to have the worst screaming kid right beside each other! haha

Anyway, we got here safe and sound. They have some weird rule where you can’t get your rental car at the airport! You have to line up outside and wait for an over crowded shuttle bus to take you to a little station so you can wait in line to be assigned a car, so you can then go wait in line to get the car!

The roads are something right out of a horror movie! WoW – they could use a BIT of paving! Dodging potholes seems to the national sport. Although we’re quite a ways from the airport, we managed to get to the resort without major incident, although Pam claims her kidneys will never be the same.

Driving to Oyster Bay    We got here as it was getting dark, so had no time for the ocean, although we have a swell view out of our room over the ocean. The rooms are nice, with some nice artwork on the walls. The beds are comfortable, and the smallish kitchen is well-equipped, and enough for our needs.

We had dinner at Beau Beau’s, which is a short 90 second walk from our suite. Pam and Maggie and Tim had the ribs and pronounced them good. They have the annoying habit of adding a 15% gratuity to the bill, which is pretty standard in most restaurants we’ve been to in the Caribbean. The waiters then tell you that they don’t really get any of that, and want an even bigger tip. sigh What can you do?

Tomorrow we’re gonna hit the ocean out front here and see what we can see.

Internet is very expensive here, so my updates might be not as regular as usual. We’ll do our best!

MORE free wifi

At JFKNice to see New York’s JFK airport has free wifi too. It’s not sponsored by Google either. It seems to be from Jetblue.

The Jetblue flight was nice. The seats were roomy, with enough leg room. Could have been more, but really, it was sufficient. Much better than the last Delta flight we took.

JFK is a nice terminal. Lots of shops with reasonable prices. And just TONS of people. The complete opposite of SeaTac airport. We messed up on our reservations, and only booked seats for the Seattle-New York leg, so Pam and I are sitting rows apart, in the middle. sigh.

We had a neat “breakfast stromboli” which comes in about eight styles with eggs and veggies and assorted meats baked in a pizza dough. Hearty and delicious.

We’re patiently waiting for our 10:30 flight into St. Maarten. It’s booked solid.

Free wifi at SeaTac

Pam and Maurice  Yep, Google is good for something. They are sponsoring free wifi in the SeaTac airport!

So we made it – we’re waiting for our flight in the Africa Lounge… we’re having a smallish beer – Tim is having the Pale Ale and I’m having the Amber Ale. Both very good.

Maggie and Tim Nice drive down from Vancouver, but the traffic was bad going through Seattle – no surprise there – Friday night rush hour. But wow – this airport is EMPTY. There is no one traveling. Wow. Never seen anything like it at all. This airport was more crowded after 9/11!

Hopefully that means we’ll get great deals everywhere!

We’re flying Jetblue – first time we’ve flown with them, so we’ll see how it goes. Was not too impressed with the check-in staff. She seemed a little confused. And we are not seated together on the flight into St. Martin (we’re flying into New York first…) which is most annoying since we booked the flight AND our seats over a year ago!

They are calling the flight for first boarding – it’s 9:30 PM – right on time. we’ll talk to you from New York.