Traveling to Sint Maarteen

Hey Y’all Hey! Kijan ou Ye! How are you doing?

This past month, 11 of us decided to travel to the beautiful Island of Sint Maarteen to celebrate my cousin’s 30^th birthday! Her theme was “Talk Thirty To Me”. She was looking for a place that we could relax when we wanted to and party. So, she ended up choosing Sint Maarteen and it was such a great decision.

Travel requirements

In order to board the flight to Sint Maarteen, you must be pre-approved by the Sint Maarteen government. The pre-approval process takes up to 12 hrs. You have to take the COVID test (even if you are vaccinated), upload your results and pay $30 for the required health insurance. If this process is not completed then you will not be allowed to board the flight. Now traveling with a group of 11 can be stressful and to put on top of that making sure that everyone is pre-approved was a headache. Literally, our flight was at 9am and people didn’t get their pre-approval until 5am.

The Property

We decided to rent an Airbnb since it was a group of 11. We stayed at the beautiful Villa Sunshine This beautiful house had 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and a beautiful pool to lay out by. The pool area did have a private entrance to enter the beach which unfortunately had too many rocks and made it uncomfortable to walk on, so we didn’t use that entrance at all. Although many of the neighbors were out early morning fishing daily. The only con I have about this house is that there were no full length mirror and we all complained about it even the men.

The Island

We did a 5-day/4-night stay. The house coordinator provided us with a taxi driver and Phillip was so nice and showed us practically the entire Island. He also saved us money when we had to take the COVID test to return home. Our house coordinator had set us up with a nurse to visit the Airbnb for $75 but after speaking with him on our many car trips, he told us he would set us up with a clinic that will only charge us $40. So shout out to Phillip, our amazing driver.

FACT: Sint Maarteen have 36 beaches

During our stay to Sint Maarteen, we visited serval beaches, visited the French side, jet-skied, went on a boat ride, and enjoyed the night life of Sint Maarteen. A major plus was that our Airbnb was located about 5 minutes away from the night life area driving and about a 10–15-minute walk. The first night we took a car to the club but that was the only night. Being from NYC, we are use to walking, so we took to walking to the club to save on $.

FACT: The nightlife starts at 10pm and ends 2am except for Sunday’s it ends at 1:30am

Sint Maarten is such a beautiful island with the exception of the mosquitoes. By our last day I had over 20 bites on me. And let me tell you bug spray did nothing to protect me.

One thing I loved about Sint Maarten is being able to watch the sunset from the pool area when we were at the house as well as the beaches. The sun usually sets around 6pm ish. I love watching the sunrise and sunset wherever I am.

Food

Our first night there we decided to cook. The grocery store was literally down the road and around the corner from the Airbnb. The restaurants that we visited I would have to sadly say that the food was subpar. It was nothing to write home about. However, there were two restaurants that we ordered take out from and the food was exceptional.

FACT: Everyone speaks both French and English

We did bump into a decent amount of people that spoke Haitian Creole

Overall, I had a wonderful vacation. So, thank you to Sint Maarten for a great time. If I visit again, I would do a family trip and stay at a resort for a different experience. If you visit Sint Maarteen, be sure to do a boat ride to visit the several beaches on the Island as well as travel to St. Barth’s.