Travel Dates: February 2023
Hotel:
Sonesta Maho Beach Resort – We chose this resort because of its close proximity to the airport and ferry, reasonable pricing, and it’s an all-inclusive. Champaign and bottled water were offered at check in, along with refreshment towels and a digital wristband that doubles as a key to your room and for verifying your stay at Sonesta when eating at restaurants on premise.
The hotel is a 4 minute drive from the airport ($10 taxi ride) and to get to the ferry from the hotel is an $8 taxi ride. If you have a car, self-parking is available via a garage behind the hotel for $10/day. The parking ticket from the garage needs to be exchanged for a key card from the hotel front desk for in and out privileges during your stay. Upon check out, you will need to provide the receipt from the hotel so parking attendants can let you out of the garage.
The benefit of being at Sonesta is the accessibility to Maho Beach, where you can see all the airplanes land. But at the same time, it means you can hear all the airplanes take-off, which can be very loud. And on similar note, there’s music playing outside until 3am on Saturday evenings.
Overall, we recommend Sonesta Maho Beach if you’re looking for a reasonably priced all-inclusive. We were glad to pay a little more to get upgraded to a 1 bedroom suite with a balcony, on the top floor. There were only 3 rooms on the top floor with a panoramic view of the airport, Maho beach, and the ocean, so we were very lucky with our room.
Food:
Since we were at an all-inclusive during our entire stay at St. Maarten, we only ate on the property. None of the restaurants needed reservations in advance, and if we had to wait, it was only for 5-10 minutes.
La Fontana – Italian restaurant and only restaurant that requires “resort elegant” dress code (women: dress, skirt, or long pants and men: collared shirt, non-athletic shorts, or long pants). We ordered the mahi-mahi and seafood pasta, which were both delicious.
Ocean Terrace Buffet – Buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Food was overall fine, but special shout out to the smoothie station that offered custom made fruit and veggie smoothies every morning.
Palm Grill – For lunch, the options were limited but their fried chicken wings were a staple. For dinner, they had personal, heated lava stones for diners to cook their own selection of meat/vegetable; it’s definitely an experience worth giving a try.
Jing’s – Asian restaurant that is open every other day. I’d skip this unless you’re craving Asian cuisine.
Village Tavern – Bar food style restaurant that alternates opening days with Jing’s. But on the days where Jing’s is open, Village Tavern will open starting at 10pm to midnight for drinks and late night snacks (the fried chicken tenders were good). They also have a table shuffleboard there.
Activites:
Maho Beach is the famous beach in St. Maarten where you can see airplanes land and take-off up close. We used a flight status tracker for arrival and departure times; schedules for larger, commercial airlines were usually more accurate compared to small commuter planes/private jets schedules.
If you’re up for an “adventure,” large commercial planes usually result in huge crowds on Maho Beach to watch the plane take off. Be warned, the jet blast is very strong and will blow debris/sand all over you so don’t stand directly behind it.
Fort Louis is a nice stop on the French side for beautiful panoramic views of Marigot Bay. You can park on the hill and take the stairs to the top of the hill/remains of the fort.
Pic Paradis is the highest point on the island with panoramic views, but in my opinion it can be skipped unless you have a car and want to explore the island. You can drive up the mountain to where you see a sign post telling you to stop and park (it’s not recommended to drive further up to the summit because the road is steep, narrow and very rocky–unless you have a 4×4). After you park on the side of the road, it’s a 10 minute hike up and hiking shoes are recommended.
At one point on the trail, there’s a fork in the road with a tree that has a sign on the left side saying “View”–follow the sign and go towards the left. You’ll then arrive at a three-way crossroad: make a left and very shortly after you’ll see a small house/generator (it’s loud so you won’t miss it), and Pic Paradise will be a few more steps forward. If you make a right at the three-way crossroad, you’ll walk up to a phone tower. Walk towards the left and you’ll see a view of Marigot Bay in the distance.
Miscellaneous:
The island is split in the north as Saint Martin (the French side) and in the south as Sint Maarten (the Dutch side). Majority of the things to do will be on the Dutch side, but if you have a car and want to drive around, it will be nice to take a look at some of the scenic points on the French side. Although our car rental did mention that the French side is not as safe and can be shady in some areas, so they recommended that we use the steering wheel lock they provided if we went to the French side.
US currency is accepted on the Dutch side while the euro is the main currency on the French side (some places still take USD, otherwise you can use your card). On the Dutch side, you don’t need an adapter if you’re from America but you will need a Type C or Type E adapter on the French side.
Globe Trotter 