Martinique and Club Med 2, March 4, 2015

Club Me 2 docked at San Juan

As a birthday celebration for Hallee, I thought it would be nice to get away and enjoy some peaceful time together. In San Juan harbor I had seen the Club Med 2 which I thought was a beautiful ship. It had masts and sails, so I thought it would be a cruise on a quiet boat under sail gliding peacefully through the Caribbean. Hallee liked the idea as it would be possible to visit some additional Caribbean island to the Lower Antilles that we had seen on the map but not visited. Being in Puerto Rico, Martinique was appealing as it was a French island and we could experience a different culture. We had enjoyed our previous trips to Paris and thought this would be similar. If you follow the rest of the blog, you will see what happened.

Our day started off with a trip to the San Juan Airport and a short 2 hour flight using Seaborne airlines to Martinique. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early and went to our gate to wait for the flight. Seaborne is a partner with American Airlines so they had the last gate at the end of their terminal. When it came time to board the flight down the steps we went and on to a beautiful looking Saab turboprop plane. Upon entering the flight attendant told us to sit anywhere in the back beyond row 10. There were only 5 passengers, including ourselves on this flight on a plane that held 40. It was a pleasant flight skipping along islands and landing easily in Martinique at Fort de France. The only observance was the air-conditioning becoming colder and colder. Because the plane did not have many passengers and there was no temperature control, it progressively became colder. We asked the flight attendant, but she apologized and said it was beyond her or the pilot’s control to regulate the temperature.

We disembarked the plane and were led to customs and passport control. There were no forms to fill out! It was really quick only asking where we were staying. On to pickup our luggage and meet our driver to take us to our hotel for the evening. We meet the driver who was on his phone and told us to wait. He led us out of the terminal with use pulling our own luggage to a Mercedes van that held 15 or so people. We were the only occupants. “You can put your luggage here.” He opened the back and motioned to the spot where I lifted up the luggage. This was going to be an interesting ride. Hallee asked how long it was to the hotel and he replied about 30 to 40 minutes. We were going to the south of the island to a lodge called Plein Soleil.

We traveled some beautiful highways winding past the coast and up into the mountains. This was really nice we thought. Then all of a sudden he turned into a dirt road, lined by a sugar cane field with lots of ruts and holes. He weaved here and there in this large van on this narrow road. Our only thought was, “are we going to be ok and not become a statistic in those tourist nightmares where two Americans are robbed.” About 10 minutes of this ride we arrived on the top of a mountain with a paved entrance and island architecture. Boy,  were we relieved. Upon looking at TripAdvisor ratings the one con about this Plein Soleil was the rough road to reach it. We check in and were assigned a lovely villa. The staff spoke English and were really kind and helpful. The room and site looked just as they were pictured on the Internet. This was a really nice place to spend a couple of nights exploring Martinique. We made arrangements to have dinner at the hotel as it was a top rated restaurant. Dinner did not disappoint, it was a fixed three course meal. We had cocktails in the lounge overlooking the water and were ushered in for dinner.

We stopped at the desk to make arrangements for taking a tour the next morning which was confirmed for 10. We headed off for a restful night.