St Maarten hotel help
 

My boyfriend and I just booked a flight to St Maarten for Nov 24-28. Now I have to find a place to stay. Not sure where to start. Ideas? We love to get up early, workout then head to the beach, then enjoy a night out to dinner. I was thinking maybe a rental instead of a hotel???? HELP

try this: http://www.divilittlebay.com/DiviLittleBay/
nice resort just far enough from downtown, but not too far away. we looked at this place hard before deciding on Tortola instead. great reviews on trip advisor.

First, decide if you want to stay in St Maarten (Dutch side) or St. Martin (French side). The two are very different. A little bit of research helps...

Plan on renting a car.

I can't help you with the Dutch side - I'm usually there only long enough to get to the French side. You don't mention a budget, so I'm going to direct you to Hotel L'Esplanade in Grand Case. It's a beautiful hotel, not on the beach but on a hill with a great view of Grand Case bay and Anguilla in the distance. The rooms are very nicely decorated and the staff is great. It's within walking distance of a great 'downtown' area full of very good restaurants in Grand Case. You are also within a 15 minute drive to Orient Beach, which is one of my favorite places to be. However, the hotel is not cheap, but did I mention beautiful?

If you can reply back with an idea of either 1) whether you prefer Dutch or French and / or 2) budget, you will probably get better-tuned responses.

I definately like the French side. I looked at L'Esplanade, but it seemed way too modern...is that a fair response? I am looking for a place on the beach(or very short walk) with a nice room and a gym (we like to work out first in the am) Would like to day under $300 a night but might splurge over that it I find the perfect location....ideas?

Radisson St. Martin

The Radisson is a beautiful new hotel, but it's very isolated and not within walking distance of anything. It is relatively close to Grand Case, though, and you could easily drive over. But you definitely have to rent a car on this island.

I don't know if Grand Case Beach Club has a gym, but it might be a good alternative. Not sure it's under $300 though.

Le Petit Hotel is right on the beach in Grand Case, and an easy walk to the the restaurants. However, I don't believe it has a gym (it's a very small hotel -- maybe 9 rooms). It is owned by the same people who own L'Esplanade, so you have access to the facilities of both properties.

We stayed at the Radisson in July for one night. It has a great pool. There are a few small shops just outside the hotel that sell souvenirs plus a very small grocery store and a couple of restaurants.

We ate at La Locanda which was good and we met some people that had eaten there every night of their stay as they didn't want to take taxis or eat at the hotel.
The hotel is isolated so bear that in mind if you don't want to hire a car as taxi rides can mount up.

Thanks for everyone's help, but now I'm debating between the following, here are my pros and cons
1. The Westin-Looks beautiful, but not sure about location and beach?
2. La Sammanna-SO BEAUTIFUL, but seems far from everything and very pricy? How about its beach?
3. Raddison-it is really that far and remote? How far from Grand Case and Orient Beach?
4. Or should I look for a villa/rental by orient beach?
HELP!!!!!!!!!!

and....we probably will get a car. Should we stay on Orient Beach or is it better to have a nice place to stay and drive to the beach?????
Thanks

La Sammanna is the most expensive hotel in St. Martin. If you can't afford L'Esplanade, I just can't see how this would be in your price range as it's usually at least twice the price and includes NOTHING in the rates except the room and facilities use. Plus it is isolated ... though there is a beautiful beach on site. Many people say the resort is not worth the price, but my writer in St. Martin loves it and recommends it without hesitation.

The Westin is also rather new but again rather isolated. Not within walking distance of anything, and the beach is reportedly just so so.

The Radisson is up and over a very large hill. So it's literally cut off from everything if you are traveling by foot. It's a few miles to Grand Case and a few miles further along to Orient Beach. It's going to be 10 or 15 minutes drive to anything else, and there are few on-site dining options and nothing close by outside of the resort.

The Orient Beach area has a lot of lodging options, almost all of them not directly on the beach. But you can walk down (not even drive in some cases) and use the chairs at any of the restaurants if you pay or buy food, and several of the small hotels there have rooms with kitchens; many are in your price range. And some of the hotels have their own beachside restaurants where hotel guests can use the chairs for free. In addition to the nudie resort (Club Orient), I think there are one or two hotels right on the beach.

The one thing I tell people who are going to St. Maarten is that it's not an absolute necessity to stay on the beach unless you want that. The best beaches don't have hotels (or at least not many hotels), and cars are cheap and used by everyone.

I would suggest doing some research on your options rather than relying solely on a forum like this. We publish a guide to St. Maarten, Anguilla & St. Barths, as do others. And not all our St. Maarten hotel reviews are on our web site yet, but many are. The St. Maarten forums on TravelTalkonline are also very robust and filled with Americans who go there regularly, though a lot of St. Maarten travelers will be found here as well. So there are plenty of venues from which to glean information.

I rather doubt that you will get a room at the Radisson for under $300 per night !

They also just 'formally' opened their Spa/Fitness facility last week end. It is very expensive in my view, and the staff - though very charming - did not seem at all knowledgable when I took a first look at it yesterday.

The hotel itself is very pretty, and boasts the largest swimming pool in the Caribbean. There is also a nice private beach. Most of the boutiques and limited restaurants around the hotel area in Anse Marcel are closed - most with leases up for sale, so that part looks pretty awful right now.

You should be able to get a room at L'Esplanade for uner $250 next month, and the hotel (only 45 rooms) has an excellent reputation locally.

There is nothing of similar standard around Orient Bay, but The Almanda Resort is very well located right on the beach, which has a wide variety of beach bars, some serving passable food, and all serving excellent drinks ! The room rate there next month should be around $225 for double occupation.

La Samanna IS beautiful, and closer to the 'action' on the Dutch side of the island, but you would not get close on $300 per night !

Grand Case Beach Club is in a great location, and has it's own private beach. In November you should pay about $240 to $260 per night for a beach front - toes in the water - apartment. Frankly I think it is probably your best bet, but of the hotels for you to consider, only the Radisson has a gym - as far as I am aware.

Take a look at the websites, and also the guest reviews.

I hope this helps.

Have a nice stay.

The Radisson is running a fall special right now (I know because I just booked it last night for December) that works out to $188/night w/breakfast each morning. It looks to be half of its normal price. We plan on renting a car (only about $25/day) to explore the Grand Case restaurants, and the isolation of the hotel and scenery is a plus for us.

mah1980, that's a great rate for the Radisson! :)
We paid about the same in July but I would have expected the winter rates to be more expensive. I thought the breakfast was very good (good omlettes and plenty of fruit) but you might have to watch out for the birds; the restaurant is 'open' and although the staff is vigilant the tables were dive bombed by tiny birds as soon as the the diners left!

If you go to expedia and plug in your dates, you'll see that there are many hotels in your price range on both the French and Dutch sides of the island. I think you need to decide which area you want to stay. There are pluses and minuses to all of them. Would you rather drive during the day to your beach or drive at night to get to restaurants?

We prefer to stay on Orient beach so we can walk to the beach every day. Our favorite hotel was the Alamanda which is close to the beach and is pretty much in the middle of Orient so you can walk to all the beach restaurants/bars during the day. Esmeralda was nice also but it was farther down the beach and the beach service was iffy.

The smaller places in Grand Case - Le Petie Hotel, La Esplenade or even Grand Case Beach Club look very nice and would be closer to a greater variety of restaurants for dinner.

I second Doug Stallings' recommendation to check out www.traveltalkonline.com. They have an extensive section devoted just to St Martin. We found a lot of great info there.

Let us know where you decide to stay and then we can talk about our favorite restaurants. :)

I am amazed at the Radisson deal ! I know that they are hurting somewhat at the moment, but I would not have thought quite that badly.

Their room occupancy is very low - partly due to the fact that the hotel opened right as the 'recession' kicked in, and also, I think, because of the location - but all the same $188 is a very low rate.

The hotel and the little marina are very attractive, but right now there really isn't much else there.

The only way to access the hotel is via a road which can be 'interesting' to drive even when sober and would need a great deal of caution when returning from a night out elsewhere - which is almost essential as the eating possibilities in Anse Marcel are limited, to say the least !

Le Petit hotel has a good reputation locally. It is a 'boutique hotel' owned by the same company as L'Esplanade, and guests have access to the facilities of the larger hotel.

It will be interesting to hear how you all make out.

what about Maho Resort

Maho ?

OK if you want casinos, some pretty decent restaurants, and good night life, but it is TOTALLY different to the French side of the island.

You no doubt can find accomodation at the Sonesta, Maho, or in on one of the many time-share apartments for rental in the adjacent concrete jungle of Cupecoy, but remember you are considering a completely different 'animal' with a completely different atmosphere!

If the above are what you are looking for you would be fine there but, as I have indicated, the two sides of the island are 'chalk and cheese'.

You will not find KFC, Burger King, a high rise or a casino, and there is only one small time share on the French side.

Thank goodness I live THERE rather than on the Dutch side, but it is my personal preference to do so - for the above reasons. If anyone asked me to move to the other side of the island, for me it would be goodbye SXM tomorrow !

Maybe someone else less predjudiced than myself will also post.

Have fun anyway.

Totally agree with David SXM... Maho is not somewhere I'd want to stay. But if you're looking for nightlife, bars & partying then you may enjoy it.
For a more 'authentic' SXM experience definitely go for the french side.
Radisson deal is excellent at the moment and if having a gym is important to you, then this would work. Yes it's remote, but with a car it's fine (and anyway, i'd always recommend getting a car on SXM, wherever you stay).
L'Esplanade + Le Petit don't have gyms, but they are awesome.
La Samanna, beautiful but expensive.
Princess Heights has good offers at the moment, but I find that side of the island quite remote too...

Along with the amazing deal at the Radisson, which is really terrific, right next door, La Domaine, is now under the new ownership of the Super Chic restauranteur/hotelier Christophe LEROY of St. Tropez, and they are offering extremely low rates of $250/night except for Christmas week, when it will be the still terrific price of $450/night. I wouldn't hesitate to stay there. I think it will be the next terrific place to stay on the island.