Best Things Nearby:
In our opinion Maho Village is the most exciting area on the island. The nightlife is supurb with Sopranos Piano Bar, Casino Royale, Sunset Beach Bar, Club Q and Bamboo Bernies.

Best Things About the Resort:
Recently remodeled rooms, nice pool with excellent view of the beach and airport. There is a very large supermarket within walking distance. All suites are also equipped with satellite TV, air-conditioning, and direct dial telephones with Internet access.

Resort Experience:
Each suite has a panoramic view of the ocean, pool deck and the tropical garden. The suite includes a tropical and elegant ambiance, featuring Caribbean style rattan furniture, Italian ceramic tiles on the floor, enhanced by kitchen and bathroom marble tops.The kitchens are fully furnished, equipped with American appliances including dishwasher, microwave and large refrigerators. All suites have modern amenities such as Internet access, air- conditioning and satellite television.Each day there are activities planned for the guests. We attended the wine and cheese social, and were impressed with the nice gifts they were raffling off.The sister resort, La Plage is across the street. We saw rooms in both resorts and found that La Terrasse was in much better shape and more modern.

• Unit Type: Studio
• Activities: Very Good
• Amenities: Good
• Unit Satisfaction: Very Good
• Family Friendliness: Good
• Service: Good

Best Things Nearby:
Restaurant named Citrus. Beaches AND Bernies at the end of the runway.

Best Things About the Resort:
Clean Near everything

Resort Experience:
I liked this resort because it was near everything (Casino, Restaurants and A great beach (at the old golf course down the street) Grocery, and Night life) It was clean and accommodating as I mentioned before it is near a lot of things to do. Check out a restaurant named CITRUS, and it was the best dinner that I had on the Island. And a fun place, called cherry's or cherries, which was next-door and a lot of fun (dinner show). The only drawback to this hotel is that It is at the bottom of the airport runway—literally—but it is only active from 9am to 6pm daily. Rent a car so you can explore the island, and ask your hotel concierge what time the bridge opens. Trust me, you will know what I mean when you get there. Then avoid it at all costs at those times. A great island overall.

• Unit Type: Studio
• Activities: Fair
• Amenities: Fair
• Unit Satisfaction: Very Good
• Family Friendliness: Very Good
• Service: Very Good

Best Things Nearby:
Shopping, nightlife, restaurants, beach, pool, hot tub, grocery store.

Best Things About the Resort:
Location, and everything a family needs is within walking distance.

Resort Experience:
When we stepped into the three-bedroom suite, we felt like royalty. It is very spacious, with a whirlpool bath off of the master bedroom and two double beds and its own bathroom, and the third bedroom was also a king bed and had its own bathroom. Both bedrooms with king beds had sliding glass doors off onto a huge private deck with our own hot tub, table and chairs, and deck lounges that overlooked a beautiful pool and the ocean.

The kitchen was fully equipped with a full-size fridge with filtered-water dispenser, icemaker, etc. We had a wonderful dining room and front room, each with all-glass picture windows looking out over the pool, ocean and sunset beach bar, Maho Beach, and views of planes landing. We, however, could never hear the planes take off and land inside our suite. But we did love to watch the people on the beach get blown into the water, and even saw a shirt blown off a guy and land 100 yards into the ocean when an Air France jet took off.

Our rooms had five TVs, with a big-screen in the living room, where a couch also made out into a bed. We had a CD player and VCR and DVD players in our rooms as well. Talk about spoiled! Each room had an air conditioner and the suite came with a dehumidifier, which we loved, being from Montana, where it is very dry. All bathrooms were marble with beautiful rock floor tiles.

To give you an idea how large the suite was, it had its own door buzzer, because you could not hear knocking from the main living quarters. We were early, and the maid made a special effort to do our suite first so we could move in early, and we had a great young man who checked and cleaned our hot tub almost every day. We even had our own washer and dryer. I can say with no hesitation that this was the finest suite we have ever stayed in.

• Unit Type: 3 Bedroom
• Activities: Excellent
• Amenities: Excellent
• Unit Satisfaction: Excellent
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Excellent

The sister property to the (in my opinion) BETTER La Terrasse across the street, La Plage was just opened in early 2004. It sits between the ageing Maho Beach Resort and Maho Beach, and has its own private little sandy spit which is separated from Maho Beach proper by a rocky area.

La Plage is bigger and more bustling than La Terrasse. The prices are a bit higher, too, simply because it's "beach front."

My advice? Skip the crowds and the higher prices. Go for the quieter, smaller are with a better pool across the street at La Terrasse. And walk 2 minutes more to get to the beach.

For the aviation buff, La Terrasse is the ultimate in accomodations for St. Maarten. It was just completed in December 2003.

This gorgeous resort sits parallel to the Princess Juliana Airport runway, and every room has a balcony from which to view the big planes landing. But they're soundproofed so your afternoon nap won't be disturbed. (Planes don't land here at night.)

Just steps from Maho Beach, the resort offers studio rooms, and suites from 1 to 3 bedrooms. The beds are very comfortable, and the bathrooms are palatial with amazing water pressure and plenty of fresh towels every day. All rooms come with kitchens which are complete and well accessorized except for no oven (though the fancy toaster oven will do in a pinch for fish or other small meats.) Rooms are large and airy, decorated in island style. All have oceanview balconies overlooking the terrace pool and have great views of incoming planes.

The pool area is about the most stunning of any resort I've patronized in the Caribbean. The massive zero-entry pool is sparkling clean and was totally deserted during my entire stay. There are some other small dipping pools with waterfalls nearby which offer a great water massage. A couple of hot tubs and outdoor showers round out the wet area, along with a viewing deck for watching the planes arrive and depart, or for watching the people watch the planes arrive and depart, which is just as entertaining.

Expect a studio that sleeps 2 to run $130 in the summer, twice that in winter. A 1 bedroom suite will run you $210 in summer, and twice that in winter. There is a whopping 21% room tax to add on to that! Booking through Travelocity or Expedia, and pre-paying your room in full at the time of booking may save you quite a bundle, as it did me. I got the 1 bedroom suite for only $130. The resort also offers airline employee discounts. Call Lucy in the sales office to enquire.

The lovely thing about this resort is the fully stocked and reasonably priced grocery store in the basement, so you can cook your own meals! The store also offers a buffet every meal of the day. Also, the store has liquor at those ridiculously cheap St. Maarten prices...about 1/4 that in the US!!! (Example: 1L Bombay Sapphire Gin $31.89 in Dallas, $11.50 at the La Terrasse grocery store.) The store is open until midnight.

The only annoyances I experienced at this resort were the fact that the water comes out yellow (probably due to iodine purification) but it tastes fine. Also, there was the minor annoyance of the alarm clock being reset every time I left the room. Your room key is inserted into a slot just inside the door which turns on the electricity in the room. So when you're gone, the lights and TV are out and the clock resets (though the A/C and fridge continue to operate).