St. Maarten for a week - Page 2

the restaurant under a tree is called Johnny B's under the Tree.. it's famous, you can't miss it when you're driving around the island.. lobster is expensive, the chicken and ribs there are great and reasonable..

Ile Pinel is a good day trip - short ride on a boat to a smallish island with 2 restaurants where you can hang out..

Beaches on the French side, especially at Orient Bay, are generally much nicer than on the Dutch side.. Food is generally better on the French side as well, but it is more expensive. Handing out near the Marina on the Dutch side can be fun.

You need a car to get around. It's cheap to rent one, don't make a reservation, just rent one when you get there from one of the small independent chains. Get insurance on the car and don't keep anything of value in it when you park at the beach, or anywhere really. I've been a few times, we've always rented a car, there's never been a problem.

The butterfly museum/hatchery is a good thing to do when you're bored of the beach. So are the movies. Otherwise, there's a lot of beach, some mediocre casinos, and not much else. Haven't been to the new casino on the Dutch side, believe it's called the Atlantis.

Basically, it's fine to relax, hang at the beach, and eat well. The night life is decent, there's a big party at Orient Beach on Sunday night that's a lot of fun. Otherwise you have to make your own fun.

yea the casinos are very weird/creepy there. dead during the day and you feel like your in a deserted town or something.

Strip clubs there are even weirder.

Mullet bay is pretty much the only thing I like on the Dutch side. Phillipsburg is terrible. French side with Orient beach and Pinel island is a must.

Have dinner at La Samanna one night. Show up a bit early and have a drink on the terrace and enjoy the view of the bay. Very nice.

If you are going to day trip over to another island, there's more to do/see on St. Bart's than Anguilla - but if you want to just chill on spectacular beaches, go to Anguilla.

Rent a sailboat and get the hell out of there. Go south young man.

Pretty much any "tourist trap" shop in Phillipsburg. There are a lot of them there... Oh.. and on the major items, negotiate, negotiate. They will drop the price.

Gonna hit up St Maarten for three days in the following week. Going with GF and only have a ticket...where do you guys recommend we stay? Thread has great info...anything else anyone wants to add i.e. must eat restaurants, etc. etc.

Bumping this thread because I'm planning on spending a week in st. Maarten next month. I'm 25 and still like to party, but I'll be going down with my family and won't really have anyone to go out with. This won't be the first time I've travelled without anyone to go out with, but it's obviously easier to have a good time alone in a major international city than a small caribbean island.

Am I going to be bored out of my mind there?

Anyone?