114 days until the wheels touch the ground in Paradise. We booked an apartment on Orient Beach actually 60 feet to the beach. We will deal with whatever presents itself but look forward to being back. I will let you all know what we find.
Carib cheers,
doctorj

Excellent. glad you was able to get back this year! I'm jealous as we were booked for April and had to reschedule. We will be back next year!!!! give us lots of reports and pics, and have fun!!!

Life's a beach!

We'll be interested to hear what you find. 219 days until our cruise that stops in Sint Maarten. We will take a cab to Orient and see what is left of Club O. We were debating between a nude cruise and Club O for winter 2019, but Irma made the decision easy.

92 days to go! Excited to see the great folks at La Pimente and hopeful Thomas will have L'Astrolabe re-opened.

70 days for us.

2019 for us way to long

Island Bound

I am encouraged with Club O from direct communications. They are trying hard and will start to get rooms available as soon as they can. One cannot expect miracles as they wait for $ and approvals. They are taking positive steps to insure a new and beautiful resort. Let?s put our patience meters on ?Island Time ? and be happy that there will be a rebuild that we may enjoy again!
There are several rentals available on VRBO (www.vrbo.com) to accommodate us until units become available. Every $ going to the Island now is so much appreciated by those who try to recover.
See you on the beach in 106 days,
carib cheers,
doctorj

We just got back from a 10 day stay, found a great studio above the Pizza Shop in Orient Village, on VRBO.com Spent everyday at Club O, great to see so many of the staff there, running Perch Lite chair rentals etc. Beach was busy most days and Orient Village is starting to come back


Simon

We attended a talk from one of the 80 or so property owners of the Club Orient rental units during the mid-winter nude cruise we were just on. He had pictures that I hadn't seen yet online showing the damage. All that was left of his unit was the concrete slab. Their structural engineer went through and identified 30-35 units that could be repaired fairly quickly (by island time) to get the hotel at least started. He mentioned "by the end of the year" and I thought "2019 or 2020?". They counted about 55 total that can be salvaged, which is around 1/2 of their total rentals. The rest aren't worth saving and will be demolished (if they aren't gone completely) and started over. They had a map of the whole property with every building colored in green (worth salvaging), orange (probably not worth salvaging), or red (either gone already or should definitely be demolished). Most of the greens are the mini suite deluxe units owned by the management company that runs the resort. Most of the mini suites were red (totally gone except the concrete pad) except the one closest to the security gates which had burned down and was replaced by a concrete building painted to look like wood to match the rest). The big problem is that the government wants buildings in the high risk zones (within 80 meters of the water, which means all of Club O) to build to a new code that they haven't even come up with yet. The owner wasn't even sure if repaired units would be grandfathered or would have to also go by the new code. He does know that part of the new code will probably be anchoring the concrete slabs to the bedrock rather than just pouring them on the ground and "floating" them. Of course, that's what the shops between Pedro's and Kon Tiki did, but the buildings were blown right off the pads just like at Club O. Another idea being floated by the government is a requirement for "safe rooms" higher than the 8' storm surge that reached all the way to the lobby of the resort offices. They are not sure if that means one for the resort, several scattered throughout the property, or if every building needs one. He did mention a phased approach to rebuilding that included a final phase of new construction on Club O owned land out near the salt pond. Someone asked if they had thought about reconfiguring to a smaller number of bigger buildings, which they said they had, but seemed to be leaning towards keeping the current building format (I would thing the "safe room" requirement might change that thinking).

Just decided to bite the bullet and go forth with another try to spend a week on the island in September. Irma screwed up our plans for our 39th anniversary but we are betting that our 40th will be good luck. Already rented a condo in Pelican and booked airline ($$$$) for September 8 through the 15. Looking forward to our 1st non cruise vacation and our 1st venture of au naturel beach.

Originally posted by thedeputydog

Just decided to bite the bullet and go forth with another try to spend a week on the island in September. Irma screwed up our plans for our 39th anniversary but we are betting that our 40th will be good luck. Already rented a condo in Pelican and booked airline ($$$$) for September 8 through the 15. Looking forward to our 1st non cruise vacation and our 1st venture of au naturel beach.

We will be there right before you on the 6th for our 21st anniversary. Even if Club O hadn?t been wiped out, they would be closed then. It will be interesting to see how many are on the beach.

We are going to celebrate our 40th which is September 10th. If it pans out that my wife and I are comfortable being nude outside of our home then we'll look forward to going to Club O when they open. To be honest this will be a trip to do nothing but rest. We are both over 60 and we agree it's time to do something different. We have been to SXM on cruises but we really liked the island so we decided to do a vacation for a week. Initially we had reservations for our 39th last September but Irma had other plans. This year we are betting on the weather cooperating to give us a great vacation.

We're heading back on May 26th. Anyone else going in May?

I'm feeling hopeful now about Club O's prospects. Someone posted some photos of work being done--heavy equipment removing the collapsed buildings.

I also saw that post with a large excavator and clean up crew. Finally some signs of life!

Life's a beach!

We?re here now for 6 weeks. Work is being done though slowly. Most of the beach is cleared of debris except for the newer beach bars and shops close to club O. The debris from Pedro?s also has not been cleared. Just this week an excavator has begun to clear debris from club O although the damaged buildings have not been touched. Only loose debris has been put in piles. Each day we see trucks with debris from the area being brought to the dump area near cul de Sac. Little by little progress is being made. Just hope the french government gives the approval for the businesses to get back.