St. Maarten — The Wrong Time, The Wrong Bus, and One Bite of a Hamburger

We want to be fair to St. Maarten before we tell this story.

Hurricane Irma hit the island in September 2017 and it was one of the most destructive storms in Caribbean history. When we visited in November 2019 — two years later — blue tarps still covered roofs across the island. Rebuilding after a storm like that takes time, money, and a supply chain that island logistics make genuinely difficult. St. Maarten was still in that process when we arrived.

That said — we still had to eat the hamburger.

The Bus

Our tour was booked through the cruise line. The bus filled with smoke somewhere on the French side of the island on a narrow two-lane road. It did not pull over. There was nowhere to pull over. It stopped in the road and blocked one lane of traffic while we waited for a replacement.

We waited nearly two hours.

The road was busy. Right outside the windows were restaurants on the French side with menus we could not read and food that looked genuinely excellent. We could see it. We could smell it. Nobody in our group spoke French.

We ate none of it.

Mullet Bay

When the replacement bus finally arrived we made it to Mullet Bay. The beach has a good reputation. That day the water was murky. The beach was overcrowded. The facilities were not good. The food options were limited to hamburgers and hot dogs and we will leave the details of the facilities at that.

I took one bite of the hamburger and threw it away.

I did not get in the water. I was too frustrated to care.

Maho Beach

We did not stop at Maho Beach but we drove past it on the tour. A plane came in low over the road as we passed — the famous Princess Juliana Airport approach where aircraft clear the beach fence by what feels like nothing. Even from a moving bus in the middle of a genuinely bad day it was extraordinary.

Maho Beach is the one thing about St. Maarten that lived up to its reputation. We experienced it entirely by accident from a window seat.

The Race Back

Traffic on the way back to the ship. We arrived over an hour late.

The cruise line waited because we had booked through them. This is the single most important practical lesson from the entire day — if you are taking an excursion in St. Maarten book it through the cruise line. If your independent tour runs late the ship does not wait. Ours did.

The Honest Verdict

St. Maarten is not a bad island. We visited a recovering island at a difficult moment in its history and had a comprehensively bad day on top of it.

The French side has restaurants that looked genuinely extraordinary through a bus window. Maho Beach is one of the most unique experiences in the Caribbean. Dawn Beach on the Dutch side has a significantly better reputation than Mullet Bay. Orient Bay is one of the most beautiful beaches in the Eastern Caribbean.

We saw almost none of it.

If we go back it will be on our own terms — independent research, our own car, the French side restaurants, a proper morning at Maho Beach for the planes, and enough time to actually experience the island rather than a tour bus version of it.

Before that happens there is more of the Caribbean left to explore.

Practical Notes for Visitors

If you are visiting on a cruise: Book excursions through the cruise line. The ship waits for official excursions. It does not wait for independent tours that run late.

Best beaches: Dawn Beach and Orient Bay are generally recommended over Mullet Bay. Research current conditions before visiting — the island's recovery from Irma has been ongoing and conditions change.

Maho Beach plane spotting: Check the flight schedule before you go. The experience is extraordinary but timing matters — arriving between scheduled landings means a long wait.

French side dining: If you can navigate the language barrier the French side restaurants are genuinely excellent by reputation. Google Translate handles menus reasonably well these days.

Hurricane recovery context: St. Maarten was significantly impacted by Hurricane Irma in 2017. The island has continued rebuilding since then. Reviews and conditions from pre-2017 visits may not reflect the current reality.

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