Part Two

By Carol Hill

After our latest trip to Marigot, we headed to Orient
for the day, and met up with our friends from the previous
day's cruise and enjoyed wonderful weather for the day.
If I were a petty person, I would feel constrained to
point out that the sign said that the nude cruise was
supposed to be Wednesday and Friday and that if they had
kept it on Wednesday this week, we would not have gotten
wet. But then, I'm not a petty person. As an aside,
Guillome knows when he has a monopoly and doesn't
necessarily have to compete one on one. This is in regards
to the subject of beach chairs. In front of L'Hoste (for
which chairs one still has to pay, which I think is crime as
the hotel should provide them free for guests, even though
the beach there is not part of the hotel), the beach chairs
are white PVC with nice comfy pads and nice umbrellas that
say Bikini Beach on them. Total cost for the day--2 chairs
and 1 umbrella--$10. At Orient, cost for 2 plastic strap
chairs (no pads at all) and an umbrella is $15. Of course,
the guy at Bikini who brings out the pads and umbrellas
isn't naked and doesn't have a body like Guillome. Guess
Orient is not such a bad bargain after all!
We had lunch at Papagayo's--one of the less memorable
meals of the week. The restaurant is very much still under
construction and will be much larger than the prior
restaurant, and nicer. In the meantime, there is a concrete
patio with several tables with umbrellas, and they are
serving an abbreviated menu. It appears that their only
cooking tool was a grill for frying. I had a very
indifferent ham and cheese sandwich and Eric had a hamburger
(not bad), both with soggy potato chips. With drinks,
around $25.00. The bar is also a somewhat temporary
fix--outside, on a couple of tables. Pedro's was not open,
although it looked like it seemed finished from the outside.
Speaking of Orient in general, there were almost no
gawkers at all, on the days that we were there. We were not
at Orient on Friday, when the Monarch of the Seas was in,
and I think that Tuesday is the day that the Norway is in,
and it rained that day, so that could account for some of
it. Friday might well be a good day to check out a
relatively deserted beach, as even Bikini Beach was mobbed
on Friday.
After a nice day on the beach, we took a drive up
through Oyster Pond road, just looking around, then headed
over to see if we could meet up with Chris and Christine
Doney, from here on $P$, prior to our anticipated Friday
night $P$ party. They had left the U.S. before the plans
for the $P$ party had been firmed up and we had left a
message for them at their hotel to tell them when the party
was, but weren't too confident about their receiving the
message. After an abortive stop at the Royal Palm, when it
was supposed to be the Royal Islander, and figuring out that
we were not going to find Room 4003 in a range of rooms from
400 to 428, we brazenly knocked on the door and Chris and
Chris happened to be home!! We chatted briefly and made
sure they had the message about Friday night and headed to
Sambucca for pizza. Good pizza and a pitcher of Coke for
$17. I can see why this restaurant is so popular.
We headed out for our nightly trip to the casino to
the Pelican and had our best 30 minutes by far of the trip,
playing craps. There was only one other fellow at the craps
table, but we walked up to play. The other fellow threw,
and did OK, then Eric threw and could do no wrong. He made
his point 5 or 6 times before finally crapping out. Both we
and the other fellow at the table walked away several
hundred dollars richer. Gambling is fun when YOU win, not
the house.
Speaking of gambling in general, unless one went to a
timeshare talk, which we refuse to do, we didn't really see
any match coupons available. We saw only a very few people
playing them, and we didn't see any at all in any of the
magazines, except the Atlantis did have some coupons for $10
in one entertainment guide.
However, the one night that we went to Atlantis, I
tried to play one at one of the blackjack tables, and they
told me that I had to take it to one certain blackjack table
(which was--coincidentally---always full) and we got ticked
off and left and never returned. Atlantis is so far out
from everything else, plus you have to go over all those
da__ed speed bumps, so it just wasn't worth it to go back,
especially since they don't have $.25 roulette..
Thursday morning we decided to head over to Esmeralda
to see if we could meet up with $P$ buddies Donna and Bob
Shenesky. We decided to just drop in, but didn't have their
room number, so had to go to the front desk. I guess the
lady at the front desk thought we looked like terrorists, as
she wouldn't give us their room number, but rang their room
for us. Even though it was probably 9:30 by this time (!!)
apparently Donna and hubby were sleeping in this day. They
said they would meet us at the reception area in half an
hour. We took a walk around the grounds, and ended up at
the restaurant for some cokes, since we had had breakfast
MUCH earlier in the day on our balcony. (G!!) Pretty soon
Donna and Bob strolled in and they had some fruit and coffee
as we chatted and they showed us around the resort and their
room and we walked down to the beach. Donna promised to
meet us Friday night at Paradise Cafe at 6 P.M., as
arranged. I guess we will find out what her word is worth
later in this report!!
We then headed to Orient for the day and I worked on
reading my fourth book of the week. Well, I sort of
cheated, as I read the first book on the four hour flight
from BWI to SXM. After "basting" ourselves for a couple of
hours, I sent Eric off in search of what I thought turned
out to be one of the best meals of the week. There are a
couple of "chicken shacks" open up in the general area of
where Pedro's used to be. Eric walked down the beach (clad
appropriately for Orient, of course!) and got our lunch from
one of these and brought it back to me. What a guy!!
Anyway, lunch was grilled chicken breasts, with french fries
and a tossed salad, for $5.95 each. It was heaven! I
really missed Pedro's.
Thursday night we headed to Marigot for dinner and
ate at Le St. Germain. I think that we were early for them,
as the restaurant was virtually empty when we arrived but
fairly busy by the time we left. It started raining a
little as we were eating, but it did not interfere with what
ended up being a wonderful meal. Service was very
attentive. I was somewhat shocked though, when I asked for
a glass of burgundy wine and the waitress had no idea what I
wanted. I told her to just bring me a glass of red wine.
Burgundy is in France, no??? Anyway, we had a delightful
meal, freshly prepared, a steak in a kind of mustard sauce
for me and red snapper for Eric, with 2 glasses of wine and
coffee, for $50.00. Great meal.
Thanks to Le St. Germain, we have developed our own
means of rating restaurants--by the number of dogs strolling
by and stopping for a bite to eat! We are very much "dog
people" and enjoyed the passing array of stray dogs coming
by, looking for a hand-out. One of them was rewarded, as he
took one look at Eric and took one look at me, and figured
out without any trouble who the soft touch was. He sat
quietly by my chair throughout the whole meal and ended up
with the last of my steak, which was wonderful, but just too
much for me to eat. Le St. Germain was definitely a 5 dog
meal.
Pleasantly full, we headed to the Pelican, played
every game in the house--craps, roulette, Caribbean stud,
blackjack and slots--and came out almost exactly even from
when we came in. Three hours of free entertainment and free
drinks!! What more could one want?
Friday was a day that we had been looking forward to
for quite a while, as it was the day that we had arranged to
meet some friends off the Afloat BB in the morning and off
the Caribbean BB in the evening. This was to be a full day!

Since we had not been to Marigot or anywhere else to
get any croissant on Thursday, I sent Eric down to Bikini to
see if they had any croissants ala carte. No luck. So, I
headed down to Madras (the restaurant at L'Hoste) and got
two croissants and some pineapple, and we were in business
for breakfast on the balcony once again!
While at home, Eric had prepared a banner to greet
our Afloat friends. Even though we had exchanged posts with
them for a couple of years on the BB, we had never met, and
they would be arriving off the Monarch of the Seas, which is
one of the biggest cruise ships in the world. It was a
strange and wonderful experience to be standing on the dock,
seeing this whole MASS of humanity coming off the tender, as
normally, we are part of that mass!! Anyway, our friends
George and Linda Hall showed up right on time and we whisked
them off to our waiting limo (well, really, it was a
Hyundai, but the a/c worked great!!). Knowing that George
loves Corona beer and that Royal Caribbean does not see fit
to carry his favorite beer onboard, we had packed a cooler
of Coronas (with lime, of course!!), and miscellaneous
other assorted drinks, and headed out to give them a small
tour of St. Martin.
After a driving tour of the highlights of St. Martin,
we headed to L'Hoste for a pit stop and to show them where
we were staying. They were probably only being polite, as
they are normally ship people, but they took a brochure from
L'Hoste and we told them to check with Jim Ruos here for
dates and prices!! Anyway, we decided to go down to Bikini
for lunch and were shocked at the change in "our" beach.
The beach was mobbed with people off the Monarch of the
Seas. We had a wonderful lunch and Eric and George partook
of a few "Bikini Beers". Linda wanted to do some shopping
in downtown P'burg, so we took them back downtown. We
double-parked in front of a jewelry store--sorry, didn't pay
attention as to whether it was A Touch of Gold or not--and
let them out. The proprietor came out of the store,
thinking that we planned to actually park there, I suppose.
We hugged George and Linda and sent them back onboard with
the remainder of the Coronas. Two for the road, you know!
Friday evening we were supposed to meet the $P$
Caribbean BB people at Paradise Cafe at 6 P.M. Of course,
since the only times all week we had to be anywhere at a
certain time was this dinner and for our flight back home,
on both occasions traffic conspired to make us late. There
was an accident on the road to Marigot, then of course we
got to the bridge right at 6 P.M., as it went up. In any
event, we were about 15 minutes late, and arrived to see
Chris and Christine Doney and Steven and Miriam Mayer were
there before us. Donna and Bob Shenesky never did show up.
Donna sent me a note afterwards that Bob had met up with
someone on the beach on Thursday and gotten rooked into
dinner and the casino Friday night. OK, now who believes
THAT story, that he has business acquaintances that he meets
on Orient Beach?? Probably took the nude cruise on Friday,
got liquored up and slept through dinner Friday night!!
(GBG!!) Anyway, we had a wonderful meal and good company
for dinner. We had the early bird specials, enchiladas for
me and chicken & ribs for Eric, plus a couple of drinks for
$40, including tip. Even though neither one of us really
felt like it, we headed to the Pelican for a little bit,
since it was our last night, but headed back to L'Hoste
early. We wanted to get up early to get some sun in the
morning before heading home. We basically packed everything
on Thursday and Friday, so that we would have as much time
as possible on the beach on Saturday.
Saturday morning we awoke early, knowing that we had
to get to the beach and soak up what sun we could for as
long as possible. We ate our last breakfast on our balcony,
complete with our last mimosas of the week, and finished up
the remainder of some cheese and fruit to clean out our
refrigerator. We then headed downstairs to the room of some
friends we had met at Orient, to give them the remains of
our liquor stock for the week. No reason to let it go to
waste! They were properly appreciative, especially since
one of them was going to be at L'Hoste for another 3 weeks.
Bum.
There was no one coming into our room after us, so
the hotel had told us that we could stay as long as we
wanted on Saturday, for which we had been very grateful, as
it gave us the morning on the beach. We headed out to
Orient and were in our chairs on the beach by 8:30. Not too
many people on the beach at 8:30, by the way. It was
probably an hour before the fellow came by to collect our
money. We had a last few drinks on the beach and had them
fire up the grill at Papagayo's for lunch before we headed
out.
Our flight was scheduled for 2:30 and we could not
conceive getting to the airport 2 hours prior to the flight,
but determined we would try to get there by 1. We left the
beach around 12:30 and headed to L'Hoste for a quick shower
and to throw the bags in the car. We were on the road by
12:45, which was when the trouble started. There was a
rather serious accident at one of the street corners which
was maybe 3 miles from the airport and it ended up taking an
hour to get from L'Hoste to the airport. I was getting a
little antsy by this time, as it was technically only 45
minutes till the flight left. Eric dropped me off with the
bags to check in and took the car to turn it back in. By
the time I made it through the short US Air check-in line
and the much longer line to pay the departure tax (which
incidentally is now $12, up from $10), Eric was back and
they were boarding our plane already. An uneventful flight
and back home to reality. Although we are far from the SXM
experts that many on this BB are, we would be happy to try
to answer any questions.