April 13, 2011

First night in St. Maarten

I arrived in St. Maarten to cloudy skies, and by the time I got through customs and out of the airport, it was raining! What a bummer. It stopped by the time I got to my resort (St. Maarten traffic jams are tough!), but the skies remained cloudy for the rest of the day. I explored the resort though, and am totally psyched to hang out by the gorgeous infinity pool all day tomorrow… let’s hope the weather clears up by then.


For dinner, I headed to a nearby restaurant that came highly recommended: Captain Oliver’s. It’s on a marina with a glass-bottomed floor, so you can look down and see fish and sea turtles under you as you eat, and has some beautiful views of the boats and cliffs of Oyster Bay as well.


However, when it came to the food, I was a bit disappointed. I had heard that this was one of the top places to go, but to watch out for the prices. I looked online beforehand, and entrees were in the $18-25 range, which I’d consider to be not cheap, but not too pricey (maybe that’s my NYC bias talking). But when I got to the restaurant, everything was $25-35! I checked again when I got home – their online menu definitely has different prices than the menu you get when you go there. So shady! Nonetheless, I really enjoyed my shrimp and scallops with saffron sauce, and I was pleased with the beautiful presentation and variety of veggies on the plate.


After dinner, I stuck around the mostly empty restaurant to read and relax by the water. However, in staying, I had to contend with the totally smitten waiter, who loved that I was there alone and wanted to talk to me about what he was looking for in a woman. Despite me insisting that all I wanted was water, he kept trying to encourage me to have a few drinks at the bar (yeah, I know what he was thinking!), and at the end of my meal, brought me some local rum to try. The roads in St. Maarten are extremely narrow and hilly, so there was no way I wanted to have even one full drink, but I tried a sip of the rum and it was delicious – flavors of banana and vanilla combined to create a sweet blend that was actually very drinkable on its own. I definitely want to pick up a bottle to take home! Now if only I could have indulged tonight… but such is the price I pay for traveling alone.

The bonus of traveling alone? Going to bed whenever I want. Like 9pm. Because the “running concierge” is taking me out for a 5 mile loop around the coast! FABULOUS. Now, let’s just hope the sun comes out and I will be one happy camper.

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3 thoughts on “First night in St. Maarten”

  1. Looks beautiful! Have fun with the running concierge! My hotel in Chicago listed one on the website, though they chuckled when I called and asked for who that was (I don’t think that person really exists). They DID however have running maps and email/fax me one in advance.

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