Guidance needed for St. Maarten w/possible Saba Stay

[tajkd]

One last note. I flew for a one day trip to saba while staying in St Maarten. The diving in saba is much better than st. maarten and you can do one great long day of diving and fly back since the plane stays low. Check with a lds on st. maarten to help you arrange it. I dove with aquamania on st maarten and they helped arrange the trip with sea saba and the flight. You can also take a boat ride but you miss out on one dive. I did three in that day before flying back. If you go for a day, you'll also need to hire a driver for the day. There are very charming restaurants on saba ( i don't have names) and st. maarten is famous for the french section and the restaurants and shops there. We couldn't find a bad meal there. Don't do any touristy things on st. maarten, they are a waste of time - just enjoy the beaches and shops. The butterfly farm is OK - don't bother with the horseback riding by the shore - it's very hot. Go to the airport beach and sit to watch the low flights (world famous). Do not under any circumstances take the drive up to the top of the mountain. It is very dangerous. Some tourists were assaulted while we were there. Hope this helps. Enjoy!

 

[DennisW]

If you get to Saba, you will enjoy it very much. I can recommend Sea Saba. E-mail Lynn, there is an e-mail address earlier in this thread. She is wonderful and will keep everything set for your dive and trip. Sea Saba and I think all of the operations on Saba are required to have a guide in the water with the divers on every dive. The guides at Sea Saba are also instructors.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I'm going to second the recommendation for Saba Deep with Big Mike as your DM. We absolutely LOVED him! If anyone can make your wife feel comfortable with a dive operation he can.

Make sure to stop at Jobean's Glass Shop while you're there.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[ChristineH]

Hi everyone,
We are going to Saba at the end of Dec and booked flights on WinAIr, I have confirmation but then I received an email asking for credit card information (again) as I had made reservations on their web site, I have left messages but haven't heard back, can anyone tell me how they went about making the flight reservations? I am probably just making too much of this but don't want to get to St Maarten and not have a way to get to Saba....any advice? THANKS!

 

[k8brandt]

We do St. Maarten quite a bit and decided to see what the hype was about Saba. We took the fast ferry over for two dives and want to go back for a week. Unbelievable diving. I can highly recommend Sea Saba and Aquamania on St. Maarten. Vinnie took good care of us and our arrangements to Saba. Like takjd said, St. Maarten diving is okay, Saba is great!

As for food on St. Maarten, try The Jerk near the round about just before Phillipsburg, cheap and good chicken, it's where the locals eat. Also Halsey's in Simpson Bay was a little expensive, but one of the best meals we had. For ribs, try Lee's in Simpson Bay just over the drawbridge. The restaurant at Friar's Beach was also very good, get a couple of chairs on the beach and have lunch or dinner. It's also an excellent beach. Then again, we haven't found a bad beach in St. Maarten. If you eat at Friar's, they don't charge you for the beach umbrella & chairs.

There were two restaurants, we would not recommend, one is Mexican in Simpson Bay. It's on the way up the road to Aquamania, and an oriental restaurant in Phillipsburg.

 

[DiverDonn]

Christine:
I have set up a multi island trip with a few friends for the end of January. The trip will include Saba/Statia and SXM.
I found a Canadian company which works closely with Winair and they have been great in helping us get several odd ball flights between islands.
Check them out at New Concepts Travel Marketing - Travel Publications, Software, Winairand you can email them inquiries at winair@newconcepts.ca Lolita has been very helpful there.
I do know that several people trying to deal directly with Winair- including a travel agent trying to book a large group-, have turned old and gray while waiting for responses.
As to Restaurants in St. Martin: just walk down the main drag in Grand Cas, looking at the menus in front of each restaurant. Bet you won't make it past the third place you look at.
Good luck

 

[ChristineH]

Thanks for the information on WinAir, I did check out things more closely and did find out that they are emailing credit card verification forms after the intial reservation on their web site due to some credit card abuse they have been having. So I think everything is all set, but as you well know, when traveling to the islands you have to go with the flow! Can't wait to go diving in Saba though!

 

[Manuel Sam]

ChristineH,

I am going in early December and had a similar experience booking my WINAIR flights online. The credit card authorization form is nothing unusual - for example, if you were to book a trip on any of the Aggressor liveaboards, they would have you do the same thing.

It may be of comfort to you that I recently received a notification of a flight time change from WINAIR, so that kinda gives me a somewhat warm feeling that I am "on", and that their online system apparently does work. I am staying in St. Maarten and flying over mid-week - for extra peace of mind, I'll probably stop by the airport a day or two before just to confirm that I am still "on".

 

[moeronn]

Well, we just got back from SXM, but unfortunately didn't make it over to Saba. We were going to book last minute but all the flights and ferries were booked (some large group had taken all the seats for several days). Still, the diving in SXM was nice - especially Charlie Shoals. Nice warm water, okay vis with quite a bit of varried sea life. I went with Aquamania/Dive Adventures. They were a good group of people, though they did back out the boat. I can't complaint, though, since I was one of the people who booked last minute and they sqeezed me in.