You are right. I booked the Sonata but it was a Toyota Corolla if I remember correctly now. I had already suppressed that again and just looked up what I had booked. Here I really did not enjoy driving.

I hope at least they didn't charge you for the Hyundai and downgrade you. The Corolla is substantially cheaper per their price list.

Good question, not sure. But as I visited in March I paid Winter rates. The per day rate is only 1 Euro difference, weekls rate 45 � (could be a bug). I fear I paid the higher rate including insurance, at least that�s what makes the sum I paid. That�s really outrageous.
Did I say it was on the Dutch side

If memory serves me right (and that is a big question these days) the Dutch side gained some sort of independence about 10 years back. It is now a country with its own administration and prime minister within the kingdom of the Netherlands. I have noticed a definite decline on that side over the last 10 to 15 years. Maybe that's why your EU phone didn't work.

That is correct, it is an independent territory within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and not part of the EU. For the phone I still had a contingent from Anguilla, fortunately the same zone. In the French part is also the Euro official means of payment, in the Dutch part officially the Antillean guilder. De facto, however, it is the US dollar.

Finally we went to our hotel, the Belmond La Samanna. It is again a series of smaller houses with one main house.


Inside, it's quite intimate with lots of open areas and an unused pool.






Check-in was relatively lengthy, but still OK.

Let's move on to our room. I ended up booking a One Bedroom Suite. I had long considered booking a suite with plunge pool, but ultimately decided against it. The pool is a round whirlpool and quite small, but it cost over 400 � more per night. Today I regret it a little bit whereby I do not know with all the mosquitoes whether we would have had much of the outdoor jacuzzi especially in the evening.
Our suite was downstairs in a smaller building.



It may even have been an upgrade to an Oceanfront Suite, nothing was said about that. If, then we had nothing of it but of course you always do not know what you would have gotten otherwise.
The suite itself was a good size, but the furnishings were not my cup of tea.





At first I found the small kitchen wasted space and butt ugly, but at least it was practical.


Not everything here was really super well thought out.

What shocked me was the furniture. OK, it was mostly old-fashioned, but a polyrattan sofa in a $2000 suite? That's OK on the terrace, but not in the living room. Was also super uncomfortable and for me a no-go.

The bathroom could not fully convince me either. Sure, there was enough storage space, but from my point of view you can expect a bit more.



The terrace was also not mega, but quite nice.



What was a real problem was privacy. Both bedroom and living room had windows with good view from footpaths.


But now we come to the real problems. I don't mean this one yet:

One problem was housekeeping. This smoke detector probably hasn't seen a cleaning rag in a while.

Probably not a good idea to turn on this fan. Housekeeping still did it regularly, but didn't shake off all the dirt either.

I've already hinted at it, there were a few problems with mosquitoes. If you then itch at night, the bed can already look different in the morning. But do you have to put the sheet on again in that state?

I was very disappointed with the room, which is not in proportion to the "reasonable" Belmond prices. On my complaint in the questionnaire I then got the answer that they will renovate the rooms shortly. Unfortunately, I have read this sentence too often lately. Why are hotels generally renovated when I was there?

The Belmond is built on a strip of beach. Behind the beach are the cottages, behind them a road with parking and behind them again a few facilities like a tennis court. There is also a small garden between a few houses.

There is also an outdoor pool at La Samanna. It's under the bar terrace, so it's not private at all times. Otherwise, it's actually a nice pool with decent service. What you don't have now are spectacular views of the sea.





Some snacks



There is a second pool by the Italian restaurant. It is right on the beach and was always very crowded.

I agree the room looks quite underwhelming, especially compared to Cap Juluca. Also the maintenance of the outdoor areas does not seem to be the best. Overall your photos give off a quite run-down, slightly shabby vibe. Actually, I am a bit surprised about that. Supposedly, the hotel was fully renovated, including all rooms, for the reopening after the hurricane in 2018.

Anyway, thank you as always for your great trip report!

Thanks!
I also wondered about the condition. It looked good in the photos, especially the curtains with the color gradients. I had made here extra one night longer because I was more convinced of La Samanna than Cap Juluca. I see it differently now.
As for the public areas, I did not see them so negative. The hotel also had a few advantages, more on that later.

Without question, at a hotel like La Samanna, the beach is extremely important. It is said that the Belmond is located on the most beautiful beach of St. Martin, which I gladly believe. It is not quite as dreamlike as at Cap Juluca, but still very beautiful. There were enough sunbeds and the service was always very attentive.








So far everything OK one could think, but there was unfortunately also a big problem. Because it is the most beautiful beach, day guests come. And because they don't want to come by car and stay in the back area of the beach, they come by boat. This is aggravated by the fact that it is not only individual vacationers with their sailboat, but also prtyboats.




The gentlemen then come not only to splash and sunbathe, but also like to listen to music. I once made a video of a boat that was actually quite far out. the "music" was heard at room volume on the beach.
Makes you wish you had a good old cannon. Or an axe, if you're into manual labor.....
But there were also friendly guests


An example of snacks.


What you could also do quite well was look at airplanes. But it is of course (and fortunately) not the Maho Beach.

What was an absolute dream on the beach were the sunsets. We just couldn't get enough of them.

Now to a very unpleasant thing, for which the hotel could not do anything. On our fourth day we went to the beach and we got a shock. Beautiful brown algae had spread on the beach. I tried to go into the water again, but it was no fun. In addition, the sea was getting rougher and rougher, so the red flag was also raised. An employee said he had never experienced anything like it.




Considering that we were there in the absolute high season, this is of course unattractive. If you have that all the time, you can forget about a beach vacation.

A few years ago we were staying on the Orient Beach side and had a similar issue with the seaweed. It actually was much worse than in your pictures, as in a 2 ft berm all along the beach. Going to the beach on the other side of the island solved that issue, the beaches there were pristine and weed free. Seems to depend on the overall weather conditions and the wind.