TradeWinds Cruise Club - St. Maarten

My husband and I have enjoyed several wonderful vacations sailing on TradeWinds in The British Virgin Islands and St Maarten. Additionally several of our friends have sailed on all of the TradeWinds, Caribbean itineraries. Having read the other reviewer’s comments about the towels on TradeWinds in Antigua, I can honestly say that we have had a very different experience. Our friends and my husband and I have been on a different Yacht with a different crew on each TradeWinds adventure. TradeWinds has always provided a midweek towels (bathroom and beach) change as well as fresh sheets.

TradeWinds is a very unique experience, a semi-private Yacht with 4 or 5 guest cabins (depending on boat) and 2 crew. We have met the most wonderful people on these trips. The crew takes you to several different places to swim snorkel or dive each day followed by beach adventures and exploring.

Food is always freshly prepared - 3 meals a day - using local fresh fruit and vegetables and breads as well as mouth watering divine desserts. The Captain mixes up a pitcher of sunset cocktails to enjoy topside every evening. Bar is self serve if you wish or the crew can get something for you if you are relaxing comfortably in the sun. There is wine and beer (as well as soft drinks) available with lunch and diner meals, as well as hard liquor on board in the bar cabinet.

The Crew can't do enough for you to make your vacation a leisurely one, memorable, and truly a vacation from all things domestic and at the office. My recommendation is to try TradeWinds!

We spent our 36th wedding anniversary sailing with Trade Winds out of St. Martin. This was our 3rd Trade Winds sail. Our vacations with Trade Winds are the best ones we take. We love Trade Winds and plan to spend our anniversary each year on a Trade Winds sail from now on.

My girlfriend and I are well traveled. We tend to spend our vacation time engaging in various physical activities with tennis and mounting skiing being our favorite. So when the opportunity to go on a cruise arose, we have been a little skeptical. In our imagination, spending a week on a boat would be too static and, in all likelihood, boring. On the other hand, the memories of our recent trip to Hawaii suggested that there would be at least some enjoyable moments since we both like swimming and snorkeling for hours in a southern sea. So we decided to take a risk and swapped our time share for a week on a catamaran at Trade Winds Club.

From the very beginning we realized that we had done the right thing. The weather was in St. Maarten comfortable, with a temperature around 85F. We thought we got lucky, but learned later that the weather stays more or less the same year round in that area. So we embarked on the boat, took our shoes off and the week after was the first time we needed them again.

Our boat, like other Trade Winds boats, was a small catamaran, but it had everything to accommodate eight people plus the captain and his wife. The boat in fact is sufficiently large so you can have enough privacy.

We took off the next morning and the rest of the week traveled from one island to another enjoying various picturesque scenes, swimming and snorkeling with turtles and exotic fish. On one of the days we got to water ski, and that was very good – we could happily do a couple more days. We also had a kayak on board and used it very often to exercise or to reach an uninhabited island we had plentiful on our way. We spent on average three hours a day in the water, mostly snorkeling, and you do not get bored doing this.

Our companions were very nice people, and I suspect nasty people do not go on such trips. All of them had different interests, but everybody seemed happy and able to do what they enjoyed. The food preferences were also different, but the captain’s wife who cooked for us has done her best to accommodate everybody.

When we returned back, the island looked the same, but we did not. We got a healthy tan, and generally felt more optimistic about this life than a week ago. And this feeling is probably the best indicator to make a judgment about how good the vacation was. And if asked, I would definitely recommend this trip to anybody.