Hello again,

We are now looking at a villa in the Nettle Bay Beach Resort area - what does anyone know about this as an option...the Villa is called Creole Cabana - does anyone roll their eyes at this name or sigh with fond memories?? Thanks for any help!

I role my eyes a bit but that is because unless I intended to go elsewhere on the island to swim etc I would not choose to stay at Nettle Bay - NOT a good beach for swimming etc.

I agree that the area is nice, but the beach isn't good for swimming. A lot of villas and resorts in the area have pools, though. You would also want to rent a car to get to other area of the island.

Thanks for your responses...I do have a 7 month old that I was hoping to dip toes of in the Caribbean ocean - what makes this beach / swim area not good - people in past reports were mentioning GLASS on the beach...

Are the accomodations ok? Thanks a LOT!

The last time I was there it was very rocky. Two wonderfully calm beaches for your little one are Grand Case and Le Gallion.

I stayed at the Nettle Bay Beach Resort 6 years ago. While the accommodation itself was great I too was disappointed in the beach. There was alot of sea weed washed up on the beach each morning with quite a bit still remaining in the water close to the beach. We really didn't appreciate having to work our way around the flotsam when wanting to go for a swim. However, each group of units (perhaps 6 to 8 units) are arrange in kind of a horse shoe around a small (infinity?) pool. This was nice to have and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Overall I was not impressed with St. Martin beaches in comparison to other islands we have been to. Yes you can go to Orient Beach but we found it way way too crowded.