Lucky Stables in St. Marrten did a great job. We were there 10/9/2008 My husband had never ridden a horse before this experience with Lucky Stables. We did the one hour with the 1/2 hour beach ride. The guide was wonderful. He took our camera to take pics of us along the way. He was good at explaining what to do with the horses and was a joy to be with. We did some up and down trails and told us when to lean and it was really fun. When we got to the beach, he took off our shoes before we went in the water. It was a fantastic experience. The owner greeted us after the ride and talked to us about our experience and we had a nice chat with him about his business and his life in the island. He called us a cab when we were ready. They kept our bag in their office we brought with us with Clothes to change into while we were riding. It was so reasonable for the great experience we had and we have great pictures and memories! Yes, you can do it too! I am 52 yrs old and have not ridden since I was a teenager. It was wonderful!!

Land in The Valley on Windward Island Airways 223, leaving 1:00 pm, arriving 1:15 pm.

Wow!! this is paradise! mmm.. i´ve always seen on tour brochures those pictures of turquoise water on the white sand beaches and palm trees... finally i can see it by myself! As i live in the cold Andean Mountains in Ecuador one of my dreams is to move to a warm beach for life, hopefully on the Mediterranean Sea, so i can put my little shop to sell fresh juice and coconuts LOL... but the best for me it would be to wear the less clothes possible ´cause i hate it to feel like a stuffed bear in the cold.

Saint Maarten is a colony of the Dutch and French, the airport is located near Phillipsburgh (Dutch Side) and most of the populatios is black and they talk English, Papiamento and some Spanish too. I stayed a week at Majo Beach Resort, that was my prize... 7 nights accommodation with a hearthy breakfast buffet. I started by walking over the city a little bit and sneak into some shops, there are expensive shops for jewerly for all the people coming on the cruises from Florida, liquor stores which i didn´t miss to get a bottle of Amarula. The typical local drink is the Guavaberry.

On the area of the beach I was surprised to see a lot of houses with their roofs and windows broken then i realized this was because of the many hurricans, it should be horrible to experience one of those.

Visited St. Maarten for the first time and must say I enjoyed the sun, the beaches, the fresh fish and the lovely people. It was a short trip but I discovered the island by jeep, enjoyed the beaches at Oriental Bay, did a trip with a catamaran to the famous St. Barth, visited this Island by local taxi and discovered the nightlife at St. Maarten at the famous Bliss disco.

Highlights:
- the arrival at the Princes Juliana Airport: yes it's the same as shown on YouTube! The planes fly over the people heads standing on the beach, just a couple of meters away from the houses, very impressive!
- the 'people watching' at Oriental Bay, strings and body builders passing by on the beach and also some nice tasty sights :)
- the big yachts at St. Barth, I also want such a house!
- a tour of St. Barth with a local taxi driver, a woman passionate about 'her' island and also letting us in on some prices of the hotels there: between 1.500 to 2.500$ per night!!!
- a dinner in one of the cosy restaurants in Grand Case: during the day the area looks like hell, at night its a lovely place to have dinner

Less nice:
- apart from the beaches, some beautifull sights and the lovely people, there isn't much to discover on the island and next to each beautiful sight, you find an industrial sight.
- wanted to do some shopping at St. Barth but WHAT A PRICES! :) So only came back with a postcard and wisely left the bikinis and bathrobes in the shops :)

First discovery of the Carraibes but it tastes like more!

Saint Maarten is dividend into French and Dutch sides of the island.  Cruise ships arrive on the Dutch side of the island, where the shopping generally is located.  The better beaches are on the French side of the island -- about a 20 minute taxi or bus ride to the opposite side of the island.

On the French side of the island around Orient Bay, the beach is numerous restaurants and bars that provide lounge chair and bar services on the beach.  These are great places to relax because you'll have access to food and drink, and to the restrooms and changing areas at the restaurant or bar.

Our favorite is Kakao Beach restaurant & bar.  We rent lounge chairs at the Kakao Beach resort every time we're in St. Maarten (see the pictures).  This resort is not the cheapest on the beach, but the chairs are very comfortable (nicely padded and under large umbrellas) and the restaurant and bar are very convenient.  They have a server that will take your drink orders from the beach.  The restaurant also has reasonably nice semi-private changing areas and restrooms that are easily accessed from the beach.

I woke up actually being nervous about today. During last year's visit we did the historic tour of the island which took us to both the French and Dutch side of this unique island. This time we were splitting up. Michelle, Melissa, Scott, Justin and I we going horseback riding. We drove quite a ways from Philipsburg to Cape Bay where we met our horses at Lucky Stables. Here we were split into groups based on our experience. We of course were all beginners.

Yet another beautiful port. The cruise just keeps getting better and better. Today we booked another historic tour, which would take, is all around the island. We visited both the French and the Dutch sides. We learned some really interesting facts about this very unique island. For instance, it's actually two different countries, St. Maarten and St. Martin, I had no idea. If you called the French side from the Dutch side you would be charged for an international call. Yikes!

If you happen to find yourself in the beautiful St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles might I suggest you take a break from shopping the local markets and basking in the Caribbean sun and venture to Lucky Stables. Lucky Stables offers a variety of different trailrides for your pleasure. The 1-hour ride winds you around the trails and leads you to the Caribbean Sea where you and your horse get to take a dip together. There is also a 2-hour ride, which leads you up a series of hills to a lookout overlooking Cape Bay and then takes you to Cole Bay beach where you get to swim with your horse as well. Two other special tours are the Sunset ride which is the same as the 1-hour ride just at nightfall and then there’s also the Champagne Night Ride which is a romantic ride throughout the trails. You are then taken to a campfire where you toast champagne while roasting marshmallows. How cool is that? Lucky Stables is located on Traybay Sreet which is quite busy with delivery trucks, not the location I thought it would be in. When we entered the stables there was a counter where we could check our backpacks in. I brought along just my water camera and that was all I needed. I would have brought along a regular camera but I didn’t want to get it damaged when the horse and I went swimming. I’ll explain the swimming in a bit. After we mounted our horses, a guide led us down Traybay Street to a trail at the end of the road. We followed the trail as it winded up and down the hillside. The trail, like I previously mentioned, leads to a bay. This is the very same bay where Speed 2 with Sandra Bullock was filmed, which I thought was pretty cool. We stayed saddled up as we led our horses into the sea. The horses loved it! They paced back and forth between the gentle waves. We went deeper than I thought we would in the water. I knew we’d get wet but we were thigh deep in the water…and that’s sitting on a horse. Many of the horses pooped upon entering the water and the poop kept racing towards us with the waves. It was rather gross but funny at the same time. The horses were great. My horse was named Sancho. He was very peaceful but he was also as stubborn as a mule. All he wanted to do while we were on the trails was eat eat eat. Our guide didn’t appreciate this and was very stern and ugly towards our group. I wasn’t the only one who had a stubborn horse. The guide actually ended up cussing out my friend telling her she needed to go back to school to learn how to ride. She laughed at him and told him we don’t learn how to ride horses at our schools in the US. So the guide wasn’t the most friendly person, but he didn’t ruin it for us. We just laughed it off. Cape Bay is one of the few spots in the Dutch St. Maarten that has not been developed and on top of that is only accessible by horseback which makes it quite the exclusive venture. It’s a great opportunity and if you have the chance to take advantage of it, I say go for it!