Thread: Hotel Room in SXM for April 30th

Hope you're going to have a rental car, Pelican is about 10 minutes from the school with light traffic. In high season, with heavy traffic and the bridge, it can take you 30-45 minutes to get there. Walking it would take you more than an hour.

Just some advice. You can get a cash rate on a rental car for $35 a day or so, I'd advise going that route. Don't fall for the first stupid rental agency you go to, either. I went to 4 or 5 in the space of 10 minutes and got offers from $35-50 a day, with 'authorizations' on my credit card from $200-600! For a SINGLE day's rental!

Finally, I found one who would rent me a car for a day for $35, only took an IMPRINT of my card (no electronic authorization), and I got that back the next day when I turned the car back in unharmed. Keep looking, you can find good deals. They'll tell you that everyone does the same thing, but they don't. I think the company I used was....shoot, I don't remember. It had a green & white sign, started with an "A" and was close to the airport, closer than Budget/Hertz/etc., in a long building with 4 or 5 businesses in it. Alico, maybe? I dunno, anyways....


Good luck!

Best deal car rental ( www.bestdealcarrental.com ) is a company near the airport- they come and pick you up for free from the airport or docks if you call them. Really cheap rates and good service.

Not that you should look for this in a rental company but..... A guy I know really well smashed 3 panels on the rental car, requiring a fair ammount of body work and repainting, and the estimate was fairly resonable compared to what I, I mean my friend, would have paid in the US.

Anyways, I recommend them wholeheartedly, even if they probably do not want my buisness anymore. I mean my friends buisness.

Hey Guys,

I guess I am confused about all of this rental car information. Why do I need a rental car if I am only spending one night there? Is there something that I am missing? I was going to just take a taxi to the hotel from the airport. Is that the wrong move?
Thanks for the help!
Nikki

I've used a bunch of the different rental agencies on SXM, and found that Best Deal did indeed tend to have the best deal around. But if you're comfortable with bargaining a little, when you get into the rental car area outside of the baggage claim, you can wheel & deal & try to find the best rate, if someone offers you one price, see if someone else is willing to beat it, often they will. They'll probably start by quoting you like $30-40 per day, but you can definitely get them down to $20-25.

Which brings me to the issue of rental vs. taxi. If you're getting in late, and leaving early the next morning, just take a taxi to the hotel & have the hotel arrange a taxi for you in the morning. It'll probably cost you $10-15 each way though, so price wise, it's about the same as renting a car. So if you happen to get into SXM early enough and want to do some exploring that evening, renting a car might be the better way to go, if not, if you're just planning on crashing & getting up early the next morning, the taxi is less of a hassle.

If you do rent a car, make sure to get it back to the rental agency with plenty of time to get it checked in, have them give you a ride to the airport, and have plenty of time to get your flight. We would usually go check in for our flight, check our bags, then go return the car so that when they brought us back to the airport, all we had to do was go through the security checkpoint and right to the flight. But if you're on the first flight of the morning, there won't be time for that, so just get the car to the rental place as early as possible so that they can get you to the airport in time for your flight.

Rent a car. The only way I might not is if i got in super late, was leaving super early, was right next to the airport, and dead tired.

If you're out aways from the airport the taxi rides will cost more than renting a car. If you have a car you can go out for dinner or for some entertainment.

one more thing- the line for the departure tax is often long. if you haven't stayed in st. maarten for over 24 hours you do not have to pay the tax, but you still need the stamp. I'm not really sure how this all works.... but if you're late, it's better to be a jerk and jump the line than miss your flight. With all the students coming in at the same time, seats are at a premium