Oyster Bay Beach Resort - Dawn Beach - St Maarten (Dutch Sint Maarten)

In November 2009, we went a little nuts with our vacation and decided on TWO weeks. This was especially exciting since we knew we could sample 2 different resort holidays on St Maarten (Dutch Sint Maarten).

Our first week was spent at the Oyster Bay Beach Resort (you can check out a thumbnail description of the resort at the Resort Registry page here at Fine Resort Vacation). We visited Divi Little Bay in Philipsburg for our second week.

It had been over a year since our last visit - actually, probably a year and a half! Far too long! We're not sure why we love St. Maarten so much. It's only our 2nd Caribbean island (we've been to Aruba once), but we've been here 4 times already.

We find the people friendly, and island life lively. We don't tend to hang around a lot of tourist restaurants or attractions. Instead, we enjoy talking with as many locals as we can, and while we do our share of relaxing in the gentle ocean, it's more an "atmosphere" thing.

Anyway, in this particular review, we'll talk about our stay at Oyster Bay Beach Resort, and will try to be as objective as possible. When one is leaving bleak weather, grey skies, and snow (such as was the case in northern New Hampshire), it is difficult to be 100% objective when one arrives in sunshine, and is surrounded by singing birds, flowers, and tropical breezes.

I thought I had reserved a 1-bedroom unit; however, I was mistaken - it was a studio efficiency (probably the lock-out of the larger unit next door).

So, even though it was only a studio, we were more than comfortable - King sized bed, 2-burner stove top, coffee maker, microwave, toaster oven, and plenty of cookware for the size of the unit.

Our balcony overlooked the marina - all rooms here have really pretty views. Some overlook the poos area, some overlook the beach (which appears much smaller now that the Westin has built a huge resort at the opposite end of Dawn Beach (where we used to go when we would come to Dawn Beach in the past).

We really enjoyed the Oyster Bay Beach Resort. It has a lot of plusses (besides the nice views): Beautiful "infinity" pool (see photo), as well as a reasonably priced beachside grill and bar called Beau Beaus, where we had lunch one day when we didn't feel like leaving the resort. The resort does have a full-service restaurant which looked fine, but quite pricey by our standards. The grounds are immaculate, and tended by friendly and helpful staff who appear to enjoy working at Oyster Bay.

On our first morning, we were sitting on our balcony, and kept noticing people walking up the driveway carrying baguettes. We were instantly on our feet and walking down the road to a perfectly situated little Mom & Pop convenience store (actually, I think the real name was Mom & Pop) where there were baskets of freshly baked baguettes. The perfect thing to accompany our morning tea! (Ok.. it's not quite the healthiest breakfast, but boy is it good!)

The resort has a nice little fitness center with some weight machines, treadmills and the usual gear (some of the equipment was more for home use, was not in great working condition, and looked like it might have been "donated"). Although there were no washers and dryers in the rooms themselves, there was a fairly clean guest laundry.

There are also a few shops, including a beauty salon on the premises. We are not really into organized resort activities, so while we could hear the karaoke at the beach bar and strolled through the lobby during one evening's featured island dance and music show, we really cannot comment on how good they were. We did see a few mornings of beginner diving instruction and demos at the pool, which I thought were well done.

At the beach itself, there is another restaurant (not part of the resort)- and a fairly popular one from the looks of it - called Mr. Busby's. We met a number of people who said that they enjoyed it. It looked as though we could rent sea kayaks there as well.

I know I mentioned the infinity pool earlier, but it bears another mention. I was actually able to use the pool quite often - which is not always the case for me. I truly dislike chlorine. I KNOW that the resorts need to use it in treating their pools. However, sometimes the chlorine fumes are so strong, that I just cannot enjoy swimming in the pools. The pool here at Oyster Bay was different. It was truly an extremely pleasant pool for me, and I was a frequent visitor to the "infinity" edge, overlooking the sea. Just beautiful!

So, were there any problems that we should mention? Ok... nothing is absolutely perfect, right? And at Oyster Bay Beach Resort, there was one tiny little issue surrounding the electricity. For reasons unknown to us (and employees were not exactly forthcoming about this), nearly every night - and several times during those nights - the power would go out.

Now, this in itself is not a big deal; however, there was a large - very large - backup generator in an area below our room. When I tell you that it jolted me out of bed several times during the night with its extremely loud motor, I do not exaggerate. We do not like air conditioning, and prefer fresh air and open windows. Unfortunately, this generator was so loud that in order to get any sleep, we really did need to shut the balcony door. But, other than the power issues, we were perfectly content at Oyster Bay, and would definitely go back.