Maho Beach with airplane videos

[2FromTN]

We just returned from St. Martin on the Carnival Glory. We had a great time and the highlight of our trip was our stay at Maho Beach and watching the airplanes land. We rented a van from Arthur's for about $110 including all the taxes and insurance. Since we wanted to see the airplanes in the afternoon, we started out counter-clockwise around the island. We wanted to find a beach in the morning and then do Maho beach in the afternoon. We skipped Orient because we had kids with us and ... well... we didn't want to explain to them the "cultural" differences between our beach clothing culture and theirs. Anyways, we thought we would try Grand Case but we couldn't find any parking. Starting from there the traffic started picking up as we continued toward Maricot. In the city of Maricot, the traffic was terrible. We moved along in stop and go traffic for about 20 minutes. As the driver, I was very uncomfortable especially because there are many yahoo moped & motorcycle drivers who speed through the streets between the lanes coming within inches of the car. At this point I'm thinking that we may not find anywhere to go but we finally get to Maho Beach and wouldn't you know there is plenty of parking and a great little beach with a couple of restaurants. We got there around 11AM and there were only a couple of other families on the beach. We rented a couple of lounge chairs ($10 each) and an umbrella ($5) and kicked back while the kids played in the water. There is some pretty good snorkeling on the far left side of the beach as you are looking out from the beach to the water. The airplane show was awsome. Smaller planes would land about every 5 minutes or so but starting around 1 local time is when the big boys started arriving. It's hard to discribe what is is like but I did have my video camera and uploaded some video files. I have included a couple different formats:

 

Plane directly overhead:

WMV format (1.5 megs)

http://cruising.thestansfields.com/video/PlaneOverUs.wmv

MPG format (6 megs)

http://cruising.thestansfields.com/video/PlaneOverUs.mpg

 

Plane from side:

WMV format (1.3 megs)

http://cruising.thestansfields.com/video/PlaneSideView.wmv

MPG format (6 megs)

http://cruising.thestansfields.com/video/PlaneSideView.mpg

 

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to answer them.

[RN7997]

Really cool video. We will be in St Martin in less than 2 weeks. I have 2 sons 6 and 8, I think they will love it there. I rented a car for the day. Did you drive by Orient at all? I am just curious how the parking looked there?

As far as Maho, were the planes constant? It would be neat to see, but I don't know if I could stand a whole day of that.

Thanks

[maggieq]

We plan on going there next week via taxi. Just want an idea of how much chairs/umbrellas cost.

 

Thanks.

[gtaylor]

Great video!

 

Thanks for sharing.

[2FromTN]

Really cool video. We will be in St Martin in less than 2 weeks. I have 2 sons 6 and 8, I think they will love it there. I rented a car for the day. Did you drive by Orient at all? I am just curious how the parking looked there?

As far as Maho, were the planes constant? It would be neat to see, but I don't know if I could stand a whole day of that.

Thanks

The smaller planes were pretty constant at about 5 minute increments. These are still pretty cool to watch especially for kids. The bigger ones (757s) start coming in after noon. Also, it's fun to watch them take off as they start at the beach end of the runway and really kick up alot of sand.

Here's a link to the schedule for the big planes:

http://www.bywindkal.com/SXMJets.html

 

We stayed for about 2 hours and that was plenty of time.

[2FromTN]

Did you drive by Orient at all? I am just curious how the parking looked there?

Thanks

We did not drive by Orient at all so I don't know how the parking was.

[2FromTN]

We plan on going there next week via taxi. Just want an idea of how much chairs/umbrellas cost.

 

Thanks.

 

The umbrellas were $5 each. There were 2 types of lounge chairs, padded and no pad. My wife wanted extra comfort so we got the padded ones which cost $10 each. Not sure how much the non-padded ones were.

[luv2travel29]

awesome video THANKS!! i will be going to maho in a couple weeks... i was thinking of stopping at little bay beach for a while before maho.... have you heard anything about that beach? good or bad?? thanks again!

[2FromTN]

awesome video THANKS!! i will be going to maho in a couple weeks... i was thinking of stopping at little bay beach for a while before maho.... have you heard anything about that beach? good or bad?? thanks again!

I think I recall a few people talking about this beach in this group. I'm thinking they said it was a good beach.

[etravel]

Hello, do you think we could get to Orient in morning, and go to Maho in afternoon? On AOS, departing from St.Maarten at 530pm. Thanks!:)

[2FromTN]

Hello, do you think we could get to Orient in morning, and go to Maho in afternoon? On AOS, departing from St.Maarten at 530pm. Thanks!:)

We didn't do Orient but I remember the sign. It took about 20 minutes or so to get to Orient as there was not much traffic up that side of the island. It took us about an hour to get from the Orient Beach area to Maho Beach but that was going through Grand Case and Maricot and both of these towns the traffic was bad. I think there are "short cuts" which bypass the towns so I think you could do both beaches. Have fun!

[kal]

Hello, do you think we could get to Orient in morning, and go to Maho in afternoon? On AOS, departing from St.Maarten at 530pm. Thanks!:)

 

Like the previous poster indicated, the morning trip to Orient should be fairly quick (about 20 minutes). When you travel from Orient to Maho, don't go thru Marigot. Head back toward Philipsburg but follow the road thru the Dutch Quarter and over the top end of the Salt Pond continuing to Simpson Lagoon, the airport and Maho. You'll still hit a bottleneck just before you get to Simpson Lagoon and onward to the airport. That trip should take 30-45 minutes.

 

Check out the flight schedule for Big Jet Activity at the airport.

[Puckhog]

I'll be in St Maarten on Wed Nov 29th on the Victory arriving at 11:00 (I guess 12:00 local time) We're renting a car and going to Maho for a couple of hours, then to Orient for a couple of hours.

 

Where did you park at Maho, and how much was it?

[kal]

There's plenty of free parking

[Puckhog]

thanks

[Shine]

We were in St. Maarten in February and again in March....went to Orient in February and it was packed, (5 ships in port that day)...also the water was very rough. When we went back in March, we were one of only 2 ships. We rented a car from Arnold's ($65 with insurance) and headed over to Mullet Bay beach, (this was on a Sunday and traffic was very light); there was plenty of free parking and we rented 2 chairs and 2 umbrella...($20 total)...there were 2 bars/food stands there. Beach was beautiful and the water was awesome. Around 1:00 we left and drove to Maho for the planes, (took about 10 minutes); the restaurant/bar was mobbed; we had lunch/drinks there and watched the planes come in. After the Air France jet comes in around 2:30 - 3:00, most people leave as that is the last big jet of the day. There were plenty of people on the beach and there were chairs available. From Maho, it took us about 15 minutes to get back to Arnolds. A great day.