Last December 2019 before Coronavirus reared its ugly imposition on all of us, Mike and I went to the French West Indies on the Windstar Line’s Wind Surf.  We first cruised on the Windsurf many years ago in the Mediterranean when the ship was first launched. We enjoy smaller ships and the places they can go that larger ships cannot. While it is small, it still has 300+ people on it and it makes up for its size in so many ways.

For example, personalized service is so much better on a smaller cruise. The waiters get to know your name and your preferences for food and drinks.  By the way, the food was quite good; much better than most cruises. In addition to the dining room, they had two other restaurants available for dinner; Stella Bistro that was a French restaurant and Candles that took over the Veranda restaurant the served breakfast and lunch.

The Wind Surf just came out of drydock where it was modified and added a couple of rooms and updated the venues and mechanical parts. I have to say our room looked like it did years ago so I don’t really know what they did. The one thing not available on “sailing” ships are balconies. I have to admit, I missed being able to sit outside our cabin.

For entertainment, there were two musical groups in a couple of different bar areas.  Between the music and the delicious drinks, we had a comfortable end of the day. We were a bit surprised to find out there was a sommelier on the ship. We started a few conversations with him that resulted in a wonderful wine dinner after he found a few other couples who were game for a special dinner. The wines and champagnes were very good and his pairing suggestions for the food worked very well. It was held in the French bistro restaurant (Stella Bistro).

The Wind Surf just returned to the Caribbean from Europe and this was the first trip since dry dock. A number of people came over on the two-week journey and stayed on the St. Martin week.   One another note, Mike and I visited many of the islands where the cruise would take us with the exception of three: St. Lucia, Dominica, and Guadeloupe. On our other visits, we were on small chartered sailboats that just held 6 of us plus a captain and cook. We really loved those trips. Many of my comments about the islands we visited before contrasted with the changes in the many years since our original trips to the islands.  

On this trip, we traveled with friends one of whom is a travel agent. It was fun to travel with us. Since we had an early flight out of Ft. Lauderdale, we stayed over night on the east coast.

We flew to St. Martin a day ahead to make sure we were there without worrying about a “just-in-time” flight. The airport in St. Martin is still rebuilding from the effects of the Hurricane Irma two years before. The airport functions but it certainly has a long way to go. Along those same lines, many of the hotels are back in operation but the island is  still rebuilding.  

We stayed at the Holland House overnight. It is a very nice hotel in the middle of Front Street, the main shopping street in St. Martin. Their staff was very helpful throughout our visit and I would recommend it if someone was going early for a cruise. Otherwise, I would stay at a hotel on the beach. Duty-free shops were all around us. All of the jewelry or designer clothes anyone could want was on either side of the entrance or across the street.

The back of the hotel faced the beach and it was simply beautiful. The view was the “boardwalk” with its wide promenade and then the gorgeous blue water and beach. We had a very lovely room with a balcony so we could just sit and watch the sunset or sunrise or any other time.

They had nice bars inside and out. They also had a nice place for dinner so we didn’t bother going anywhere. The food was good. The service at the restaurant was a bit spotty.  

It is really to travel with a travel agent because she knew who to contact for anything and the best way of getting around as well as the better tours. Fran arranged a driver to picked us up at the airport, dropped us off at our hotel, picked us up from the hotel the next day, and picked us up from the ship when we got back. The driver was really great. We just had to get in his van and off we went at the right time.

The next day, we went shopping (for a change). It is actually the only time I can get Mike to go into stores with me.

I love it and he is really good about the it especially because I bought him a shirt. Then it was time to go and our taxi came right on time and we left for the harbor.