My husband and I stayed at the Sunterra Flamingo in December 2006. This resort is on the Dutch side of this wonderful island, an island that is half Dutch and half French owned. The Dutch side of this island is called "St. Maarten" and the French side of the island is called "St. Martin." After just returning from St. Lucia yesterday, my husband and I realized that we never reviewed our trip to St. Martin/St. Marteen and that we needed to do so because it really was a blast and one of our best vacations EVER!

Despite some airport and flight delays (due to bad weather) that rendered us stranded overnight in San Juan, Puerto Rico, we arrived in St. Marteen, very excited about our vacation. The drive to the property from the airport was quick, smooth and uneventful. Check-in at the Sunterra Flamingo Beach went relatively smoothly. This resort is in a rather funny location, as you go up and around several concrete buildings and structures, then down into a little U-shaped cove or bay (Simpson Bay), to reach this resort. Once there, the "front" of the resort faces you, in an area with a little drive through, some flowers, shrubs and greenery but more concrete than beach or grass! There is only one main road into and out of the cluster of resorts concentrated in and near the Sunterra but the area is pleasant, clean, well lit and very safe. While it does involve walking up a bit of an incline, there are several nice restaurants right off the main road, perhaps a 15 minute walk from the Sunterra Flamingo.

The main lobby of the hotel is small but well furnished. There is a staircase that runs off of the main lobby, leading up to other banquet and meeting rooms...that was a bit strange. Upon entering the resort, which we booked via an RCI timeshare exchange, we noted that the resort looked a bit dated. But nonetheless, everything was relatively clean, bright and well-appointed, if not somewhat stuck in the 80's.

Our second floor room was large and had every basic item that one would expect in a typical timeshare resort, ie: queen sized bed, several easy chairs, side tables, dressers, a T.V., a functional safe. Again, the furniture, while very dated and tired looking, was clean, intact and functional. Our view of the ocean and beach from our balcony was gorgeous. Our bathroom was good enough, if not a bit small and cramped. Overall, our room and our bathroom was always kept lovely, tidy and clean. I did generously tip the housekeeper each and every day for doing such a spectacular job!

While very small and a bit rocky, my husband and I frequently used the resort beach on Simpson Bay. The beach was easily accessed from our room, as it was a short walk down a few stairs, across one other resort unit and there we were, directly onto the beach! My husband and I never had difficulty locating a chair, towel service was no problem and resort workers, while not overly friendly, were pleasant enough and fairly accommodating. The beach bar and grill served up great grilled local fish, burgers and fries, etc. Although it looked nice, albeit a bit small, we never ventured into the resort's pool because I found the beach too nice to avoid!

My husband John and I spent several days traveling around the island by car. The island is relatively small and very manageable by car. I found driving to be quite easy and we never encountered problems or felt unsafe going from one point to another. This was one of my favorite vacation activities...discovering the island! The only problem we encountered was a bit of a "bait and switch" with Enterprise Rental...not even worth mentioning. But after working out the kinks with Enterprise, we rented a great little car for about $45 US dollars a day and we kept it for the entire week stay.

My husband and I first visited the capital of St. Maarten, Philipsburg, which I really loved! The shops and restaurants are all quaint and colorful. The entire atmosphere of the town, while a bit "touristy" (after all, the cruise ships enter the port here), was tons of fun! After a couple of additional days of driving around, we realized that Simpson Bay was really not the best representation of this wonderful island, so we spent our time venturing out further. We never made it to Orient Beach (due to a bad weather day). Eventually, though, we discovered the French side of the island, Grand Case and Marigot! As serious foodies and hopeless browser/shoppers (me), now, we were really in love with this place!

Marigot, a town on the French side of the island, is very European-like and quite beautiful. There are dozens of little boutiques, shops and cafes, all nestled into quanit little alleys and winding streets. There is a lovely marina, which is home to several neat little restaurants and cafes. My husband and I shopped, browsed, ate and drank on the French side of the island a LOT and LOVED every minute of it!

Grand Case, a town between Marigot and Orient Beach (on the northern part of the island...Simpson Bay is on the south...Grand Case is about a 30-45 minute drive from Sunterra), is known as the "Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean." I had a wonderful red snapper dish at the Restaurant du Soleil and another seafood specialty at Auberge Gourmande. My husband sampled some Dorado (mahi-mahi) and other local fish dishes (tuna) at these restaurants and said it was some of the best food he ever devoured!

Sunsets were beautiful, the water was gorgeous, people were nice, traveling felt safe, prices were not too expensive...what more can be said?

Overall, our stay at Sunterra Flamingo Simpson Bay was great. The only downside of the entire vacation was the near continual pressure from the timeshare reps. Aside from that, we really loved St. Maarten but when we return, and I'm sure we will someday, we will definitely stay on the ocean (versus the bay) and probably on the French side of this wonderful island!

We stayed at the Flamingo in December 15-22nd. We had never been to Saint Marten and have already decided we want to go back. The room was ready for us by 12:00 which was a big plus. We had spent the first two nights on the French side. Our resort there was nice also, but I will say the French were not as welcoming in the Orient Bay area. We enjoyed the full kitchen in our studio room and felt it was quite spacious compared to other "studios" we have stayed in. Found some very reasonable places to eat. "The Talk of the Town" in Grand Case has fabulous ribs. 8$ for a full rack and three sides. Homemade icream that is out this world. Also had good food at the Beach Bar at Dawn Beach. A must is the Sunset Beach Bar. Its so fun to watch the planes come in as close as they do. The only real negative at our resort was we went down to eat at the restaurant by the beach and heard the waiter or manager or whoever it was screaming at the chef. He did so two or three times as we were deciding if we would eat there and it made us decide to move on. We had an oceanview room and loved waking up everymorning with different ships out our window. At night you could watch the cruise ships leaving Phillipsburg. (Another fun place to visit.)
Definitely a plus in our book and we hope we are fortunate enough to return someday.

We stayed in Flamingo Dec1-till Dec8. Overall it was pleasant experience. The beach was ok. Couple of days was windy, but it didn't stop us enjoying the warm ocean water.
Room was great. We stayed in Ocean villa on 3rd floor. Everything what we needed, we had in a room, including plenty of towels. Kitchen was well equipped. I was impressed.
Now, what i didn't like :
to get to our building we had to pass dumpster, and it smelled so bad.
Check in was a nightmare, i took us more then an hour to check in. Checkout was ok time wise, but charges on my bill were unexpected. I never went to a beach bar and had 3 charges from there. They waved it, but that is not the point. One more thing i was very angry with - on check-out day, they start coming to your room an hour early to your check-out time. It was so annoying, when the mate opened my door 3 times. I understand, they had to clean the room as soon as possible for the next guests, but common.
I'm trying not to concentrate on all those negative thing and i would come back there again.

The resort is quite good, but there are serious drowbacks.
The check-in is very inefficient. I was begging the front desk to allow early check-in, even just to leave my luggage in there and make sure everythign inside is in working order, but they refused. I was there at 10am, but couldn't get in until 3:50pm. The first room they've assigned was on the 1st floor, and had a broken balcony door. Obviously, I asked to change rooms, and was given one that hasn't been cleaned from previous guests! The forgot that they didn't intend to use it that day, and didn't clean it. By the time I went to change rooms for the 2nd time, the reception area was a mad house! Just a large number of people, with their luggage who were getting angry and impatient. The third room they've assigned was overlooking a parking lot, a wall of a building, and a dumpster. It was 6:15pm, the sun has set, I was tired of runnign back and forth with my bags, and my day was basically ruined.
The room was spacious, had all the equipment, and a quite strong AC. They do charge $1 per day for electronic safe.
The negative to all this is that only one maid service is included. So, I did expect them to change bed linings only once. What i didn't expect, was that they only once changed the bath towels! I took several showers per day, and the towels were constantly wet and not clean by the and of the week...
I wish they'd change towels every day, like they do in other places.
The resort notifies guests to NOT tip beach attendants. Well, my experience was that they don't even budge until you tip them! All beach chairs remain locked together, and you need at "attendant" to unlock them. They also provide umbrellas, but those usually go to people who tip well... Fortunatelly, there was a shadow from the building, so I didn't need an umbrella...
The beach on the pictures seems larger than it is in reality, and it is shared with another, much bigger resort. So, in high season it gets VERY crowded for my taste. Although it's "not allowed" by the resort policies, people leave their towels under palapas very early, and around 8AM there's no space in the shade, except in the "deep shadow" of the building, far away from the water. People who "reserve" those places under palapas sometimes don't show up until mid-afternoon, but I guess if you tip well, the "beach attendants" won't remove your stuff after 1 hour of non-use as per resort policies...
The beach suffered major erosion while i was there - strong waves created a sharp 4-5" drop in the floor as you go in the water: a shallow, maybe 1-1.5' water followed by a 4" wall-like drop. One side of the beach, near the very end, was ok with a smooth descent, but the rest was very difficult to get in/out.
The waves also seemed to wash away most of the finely crushed shells and sand, and left sharp rocks and lerger particles. Many people prefered to wear rubber shoes in order to get into the water. The beach has gotten pregressively worse while a was there...