Planning

 A little bit about us.  Me-a 77 year old retired teacher/social worker.  Husband-a 79 year old retired union commercial painter.  We've been married 54 years!

Our last trips were back in 2018.  To celebrate our 50th we went all out and splurged on almost 3 weeks in Moorea, Bora Bora, and Tahiti in May 2018.  Pure bliss and total relaxation.  Then our daughter said "do you want to meet up in Spain?"  I said yes and quickly planned a month long tip to Spain.  We'd spend time with our daughter and her family in Pamplona-for the running of the bulls festival, Barcelona, and Valencia.  They would then return to Doha, Qatar where they currently live.  My husband and I would continue on to Cordoba, Granada, Torremolinos/Gibraltar, Ronda, Jerez, Sevilla, Toledo, and Madrid.  That trip was not relaxing-very hectic but nice in its own way.  The only drawback was that our Spain trip took place July-August 2018 and it was hot!  Extremely hot!

Our next trip was to have been a month in Cuba for the summer of 2020.  This time it would be myself, my husband, our daughter/her husband/their son-our grandson, my stepdaughter/her husband.  A first time family trip!  We were all so excited.  It's not easy planning a trip to Cuba.  Many hoops to jump through due to our relationship or lack thereof with Cuba.  Then-you guessed it-our trip got canceled due to covid!  Ugh!

Fast forward to 2022.  Things starting to look up for outside the US travel.  With a lot of research I thought a return trip to St. Maarten/St. Martin was the winner.  Currently if you are fully vaccinated you just need to show proof of that along with approval from the island via a form completed and approved by the island.  If not fully vaccinated you would need a negative result covid test to enter the island.  I thought-we can do this!  We had been to SM many years ago in 1994.  Then we stayed on the Dutch side and rented a car for a few days to explore the French side.  This time I wanted to stay on the French side.  We decided to rent a car for our entire stay.  Post trip as I was writing this blog I decided to show pictures from our 1994 trip alongside those from this current trip.  It's cool to see the changes but also to see places that haven't changed much at all!

Thank you to so many on the Trip Advisor SM travel forum.  ElectricalEngineer, Pirate, sxmlover, BiggDogg, PassingThruCustoms, CanadaSunny53, itsbish, and many more.  I received answers to my post questions plus recommendations for things to do, places to dine.

I booked Grand Case Beach Club for 4/25-5/4/2022-a total of 9 nights.  I chose this place due to what I had read about its calm beach.  Being a non swimmer that was just what I wanted.  Booked through Trip Advisor with free cancellation before 4/18.  Cost $3066.66.  

Then I booked our rental car through Expedia.  Chose a Chevy Spark or similar model.  This was the car we had for our Alaska trip so I knew it would work for us.  Free cancellation up to 6 hours before scheduled pick up.  Pick up 4/25 and drop off 5/4.  Cost $304.20.

Now it's time to book our flights.  Jet Blue was the winner due to times and price.  We'd fly Buffalo-Fort Lauderdale-SXM and return.  Cost for the both of us $920.98 with adding 2 checked bags.  

All of these bookings were done on 2/21/2022. 

I had a voucher credit of $322.00 for trip insurance that I had purchased for our Cuba trip.  I used that voucher which was to expire 09/2022 for trip insurance to cover this trip.   

My husband had decided he would not do any scuba diving this trip so I decided to book a snorkel/swim tour.  Recommended by BiggDogg we went with Boomerang.  https://boomerangsxm.com   3 Island Adventure  Free cancellation before 4/26.  Cost $244.80 for the 2 of us.

I was feeling pretty good but then disaster struck in the form of Jet Blue.  On 3/20 I received an e-mail from JB stating that one of our flights had been cancelled.  It was the flight 5/4 SXM to FLL/Fort Lauderdale.  Everything else was fine.  I posted about my problem on Trip Advisor SM travel forum.  ElectricalEngineer responded stating JB should rebook and that there was a flight 5/4 from SXM to JFK.  Then we could fly from JFK to Buffalo.  Long story short after phone contacts with 4 or 5 people and 2 or 3 live chats with people JB did rebook our return flight 5/4.  SXM-JFK-BUFF.  No additional charges.  This process only took around 8 hours or so!

I then booked several dinner reservations.  I printed out the confirmation of those reservations.

I am contemplating a day trip to Anguilla.  On our 1994 trip to SM we did a catamaran day tour to St. Bart's and it was lovely.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to find us that same kind of day tour to Anguilla.  With some research and a lot of helpful information from a TA forum poster jaidazzles who did a day trip to Anguilla in 2022 I'm thinking I might be able to pull this off.  It all depends on whether my husband and I can get a covid test done no more than 2 days before planned arrival to Anguilla.  I also contacted a taxi service on Anguilla to give us a tour with beach time at Shoal Bay before heading back to SM.  I do hope I can pull this off.

Starting to breathe a little easier.  I decided to follow my usual routine when planning a trip.  I bought a small notebook.  In it I wrote down all the information about our flights, the resort, the rental car, the day tour, dinner reservations, etc.

I also printed out blank calendar pages for the months of April and May.  I fill in the dates with our trip information/details.  Like dinner reservations with times.  

The last thing I have to do is complete the island form to get approved to enter.  This can't be done more than 3 days before arrival.  For us that means I need to complete this on 4/22/2022.  Here's hoping we get approved!!  Update:  I completed the form for myself and my husband and we both got pre-approved.  However, I forgot to upload my husband's CDC covid 19 card that shows his booster shot. I should have uploaded his card twice but only did it once.  Oops!!   For myself I remembered to upload my CDC covid card twice-once for the regular vaccinations and then for the booster.  The information for all 3 shots is on the same card.  When I told my husband about my mistake he just gave me a look and said "we will have our CDC cards with us."  I don't think that will be a problem.   I did print out all the paperwork for being pre-approved as well as the mandatory insurance information I was sent after submitting payment $15 each.

So I think my planning is done for now and I can move on to finishing up the preparation process.