I Finally Visited St. Maarten!

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finally

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St. Maarten! This small Caribbean island, divided between the French and the Dutch, is an iconic holiday destination and home to just over 70,000 people. It's also a bucket-list destination for aviation enthusiasts, made famous by low landings over Maho Beach at the end of the Princess Juliana International Airport runway. Personally, I basically grew up watching low-res videos of St. Maarten here on YouTube, and since I started posting my own videos, I knew it's a place I had to visit at some point. After saving up for some time, the opportunity to go arose and I booked a holiday there for February last year.

Why am I only posting this now? Well, what better way to celebrate 100,000 subscribers! So, join me as I spend a week in paradise and see what this incredible island has to offer in stunning beaches, scenery, and of course, planes! Naturally, getting there is half the fun, and the journey began as most do on this canal at the Calgary domestic terminal. For a couple of different reasons, Air Canada ended up being the best way to get there, but obviously via Toronto. At the time, that flight from Toronto to St. Maarten only flew once a week and left late in the morning, which meant I had to take an overnight flight from home to get to Toronto on time.

The first flight will be aboard this former 787-9 Dreamliner delivered in May 2016 and registered as Charlie Foxtrot Golf Hotel Zulu. Interestingly, this registration belonged to a Canadian Airlines 747-400, which later became an Air Canada one. To my knowledge, that is the only 747 registration that AC has reused on any of their aircraft. It's probably just a coincidence, but given the history, I wonder if someone at Canada's AC was behind this. Now that it's a wide body with proper reclining seats, I also splurged a little and put in an offer to upgrade it, hoping to get a better sleeping pod, even if only for a short time.

I've done this before on another flight and they accepted the lower amount without a problem. Fortunately, that was also the case today, which was also a pleasant surprise for my traveling companion, who certainly wasn't expecting it! Even with that upgrade offer, you'll still have access to AC's Maple Leaf Lounge. Unlike WestJet, it makes sense for them to stay open until midnight for late night departures. There isn't much food at this time of day as you would expect, but there are still plenty of free drinks and plenty of free seats. Sometime around midnight, boarding

finally

began, with Zone 1 shuffling through the crowd bleary-eyed and on this Dreamliner for the next 3 hours or so.

My seat to Toronto is 6A, which Air Canada calls an “exclusive class” seat. Waiting there was this pillow, blanket, and mattress protector, all integral parts of the Signature Class experience according to AC. I was planning to go to sleep as soon as possible, so I put on the mattress protector before sitting down. I have only flown once in these Dreamliner capsules and they are very well thought out. However, they aren't necessarily the focus of this video, so to avoid taking too much time, I'll link to another video of mine from Air Canada that goes into more detail.

Soon enough, the cabin service director walked up, introduced himself, made a good effort to pronounce “Praglowski,” and handed out the menu for this relatively short flight. As the schedules are a bit strange, in these red-eye hotels there is only breakfast service, which is served approximately one hour before landing. Also, an important note if you are in Business on the 787-9, seats 5A and 5K are missing a window, along with 8A and 8K. However, Row 6 gives you pretty much the ideal view of the wing of the 787. Even though it will be a completely night flight, I knew those engines would sound fantastic.

Here is the exit from Calgary on runway 35R. I stayed up a little longer hoping to see some aurora, which I've had luck with on other red-eye flights. Unfortunately they didn't show up, so I went to sleep. I was woken up about two hours later with this hot towel service. I quickly fell asleep again and woke up to the tray of food in front of me! Here we had the usual Air Canada breakfast: an omelet with a croissant, bread, some fruit, yogurt and this cup of coffee. Honestly, the omelet is one of my favorite things about Air Canada business class, it never fails to hit the spot, even if they've changed it slightly in the last few months.

Everything else was pretty tasty too. I think Calgary to Toronto is one of those overnight flights that seems too short to get enough sleep, especially when you want to make the most of this seat. I thought about skipping the breakfast service, but after eating it, I was glad I didn't. However, that service is very timely and concluded perfectly as we approached Toronto. Unfortunately for my view of the engine, the windows fogged up quite a bit on the descent, something I had never seen to this extent. There's a wing and an engine out there, I promise! I can confidently say it was the best red eye I have ever had!

I definitely could have slept longer, but even two hours lying down is much better than sitting upright. However, from here we headed to the E gates, a very familiar move to me, but not so familiar at this time of the morning. Unfortunately, due to the flight schedule from St. Maarten, which left around 11 a.m. m., this connection lasted almost 5 hours. Spending that amount of time in Pearson is never a good way to start a vacation, but I found a pretty decent place, got some work done, and watched the sun rise while I waited. To say the least, it turned into a beautiful, clear winter morning, and I had a great view watching this Emirates A380 arrive from Dubai.

Since British Airways stopped flying theirs to Vancouver, this is, sadly, Canada's only A380 service. About an hour before boarding, the 737 MAX that took us the rest of the way was towed to the gate, one that was then 5 years old and registered as Charlie Foxtrot Sierra India Quebec. It feels a little strange boarding a narrow-body aircraft from these particular gates, but the flight to St. Maarten is another 5 hours or so, so the MAX is the perfect type for this route. Plus, it could always be much, much worse. However, by now, you can imagine how excited I was to go here, and I was eagerly waiting for boarding to begin.

At least more than usual. As expected, Business Class was fully booked in this case, so my seat for the next 5 hours was 13A, one of the Preferred seats in the first half of the cabin. Row 13 is always a reliable choice in the MAX, with excellent legroom and an even better view of the engine. I've flown on Air Canada's MAX many times and, simply put, all the seats have the usual things you'd expect, plus adjustable headrests and power ports. Also, curiously, the in-flight entertainment screens seemed to vastly overestimate the MAX's range. With that, we were finally on our way to much warmer latitudes.

Here's the exit from Toronto, on runway 23. We headed southeast from Toronto, climbing through the clouds and getting beautiful views of the south shore of Lake Ontario as we settled in for the next while. On Air Canada MAXs, the contents of the seatback pockets are the same, so you don't need to see me reviewing them again, but one new thing is that they've actually brought back the physical onboard purchase menus. They would later be used a lot on this flight and almost everyone wanted something from there for lunch. All the more reason to sit up front, I guess.

We later crossed into Pennsylvania and flew over the Appalachians, which gave us a great view of this super interesting landscape. Inflight service finally began and I had the usual cup of Coca-Cola and bought a smoked meat sandwich plus a snack as we flew over Maryland. We made another right turn over Norfolk, Virginia, and if you look closely, you can see some aircraft carriers at the naval base! With a few more views of the city and the northeast corner of North Carolina, we left the North American mainland behind and headed toward the Atlantic. Without much else to look outside, I fell asleep for the next few hours and woke up just north of the Tropic of Cancer.

That came just in time for the second drink service, as we approached the northeastern Caribbean and began our descent. Sitting here, just looking at the water below, I was extremely excited for the week ahead. The thing is, my vacations in a warm climate haven't really been anywhere outside of the US. Realistically, this is a long way to go for some double-digit temperatures, and you can see why most Western Canadians generally stay in Mexico or the southwestern United States. State. Although I knew all this would be worth it. Soon enough, the water below got closer and closer, and here is our arrival in St.

Maarten, landing on runway 10. You have no idea how long I've wanted to say that! It's hard to explain how surreal it felt in that moment, but here we are! First things first, we hopped on a bus that would take us to customs and passed this Air France A330 getting ready to leave for Paris. After an easy trip through customs, I now had another new stamp in my passport! Walking out into the warm Caribbean air was amazing, even if I was dressed for... about 30 degrees cooler. With luggage in hand, we hopped in a taxi to where we would be staying for the next few days and on the way we passed right by Maho Beach itself.

That would be the focus tomorrow, once I had a good night's sleep. Now, obviously with a trip like this, it pays to be close to the action, which is why I chose the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort, which was just a short walk from said beach. It is an all-inclusive which was also a first for me, but given the location and the possibility of having views of the airport from the room, I thought it was the best option. While checking in, we were greeted with cold bottles of water and even cold towels, which was much appreciated! We booked a Signature Island View room on the 10th floor which was spacious, air conditioned and most importantly had an absolutely incredible view of the airport and the rest of the island.

From the balcony you could see... Practically the entire track, except for the beach to the south. That was fine for my purposes, since I planned to do most of my observing from there anyway. The balcony turned out to be a great place to take off, and the Air France A330 from earlier was taxiing for takeoff right at that moment. For context, Princess Juliana Airport has a single runway, Runway 10/28, oriented approximately east to west. It is the main gateway to the island and is one of the busiest airports in the northeastern Caribbean. It also serves as a hub for flights to nearby islands with smaller airports of their own.

Part of what makes this airport so unique is the land right at the end of the runway. The end of Runway 28 is not typically used for arrivals for that reason, but heavier aircraft, including most wide-body twinjets, depart in that direction and head west over the beach. Enjoy this A330 taking off towards a beautiful sunset! The Air Canada MAX that brought us also took off about half an hour later, departing in the “usual” direction of runway 10. Departures from runway 10 are accompanied by a right turn immediately after takeoff to avoid said terrain, which is quite a spectacle. However, it's definitely not as close as it seems.

After settling in and getting familiar with the place, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at one of the restaurants, cooked on this lava rock! Feeling quite tired from red eyes and a long day of travel, I headed to bed for a busy day of plane spotting ahead. I woke up very well rested the next morning to the same beautiful view from the balcony. Seeing the current resort in the sunlight now, it is very nice and had these beautiful views of the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. After a great breakfast, it was finally time to see Maho Beach in person!

The location was really ideal, and it was only a two minute walk there. Finally seeing these famous signs in person was like a childhood dream come true, just like everything else about it. The sheer number of private planes that were parked here was incredible, especially one...particularly large one that was hidden in a corner. In fact, standing here in this place that I had seen so many times in photos and videos, I could imagine what it must have been like in the days of the KLM 747. That said, I think the airport put up a higher fence at some point in the last few years, so getting clear shots after the planes cross the fence is a little trickier now, especially forThe videos.

However, not to be discouraged, I found this totally safe pile of rocks on the other side of the beach that did the trick. Needless to say, I spent most of the day there, minus a water break here and there. Now, it's a little difficult to condense an entire day of airplanes into an already dense video, so enjoy this little montage of everything I saw. For the purists, I'll have a proper compilation of everything posted soon. After what was a very productive day at the beach…not doing beach things, I returned to the resort to wait out a brief but fairly heavy rain.

Trying some of the other restaurants that night, Sonesta has a great atmosphere, although looking out over the water and seeing nothing is an eerie sight. Now, some of the days here...we weren't necessarily spent directly in St. Maarten, and I don't want to give too much away at this point, but they were well spent on other aviation-related nonsense. I returned to Maho many times during the week, and it's a great place to watch the sun set over the water, as well as occasionally watching Twin Otter fly overhead. I will also mention that one of the best things to do during downtime was to just sit on the balcony with one of the many strawberry slushies you could get downstairs.

Of course, planes are only part of what there is to see here, and one of the days we took a self-guided tour of the capital of the Dutch side of the island, Philipsburg. As mentioned above, the island itself is divided between French and Dutch, with the French side being the north and the Dutch side being the south, which also includes the airport. This makes for an interesting arrangement, which I'll talk about later. The town of Philipsburg itself is located in the southeast corner of the island, and also nearby is Fort Amsterdam, a historic fort built in the 17th century.

Now, the Dutch side of the island has a bus network that runs during the day and makes it very easy to get around for just a few US dollars per trip. We got on one that would take us first to the fort and then we would walk to Philipsburg from there. We got a good view of the Simpson Bay lagoon along the way, and if you previously thought that was a lot of private jets, well, these yachts were something else. We went up into the hills and back down again before getting off the bus near the fort.

Looking across the bay from here, you could see the cruise ship terminal in the distance and the city of Philipsburg to the north. To get to the fort you walk through one of the resorts and this park is right at the end of that peninsula. At the top of the hill are the ruins, which have a stunning view of the bay, as well as fascinating history. Reading about... the almost 400 years of history of this place while looking at this beautiful blue water is truly extraordinary. Walking through the park here you can also see some animals and very different vegetation than what I am used to.

From there, it was only a 15-minute walk to Philipsburg. The town of Philipsburg is home to approximately 1,800 people and given the proximity to the cruise terminal, this main street was lined with shops, mostly souvenir shops, but also a considerable number of duty-free shops. Now, it is worth mentioning that in 2017, the island was hit hard by Hurricane Irma, the worst natural disaster in the island's history. The island appears to have recovered since then, although some parts, such as the airport, are still under repair. One store owner told us they would get tons of Canadians before the hurricane, but a major resort at the western end of the beach was demolished in 2018 and has yet to be rebuilt.

Apparently the property was purchased by Sunwing and is supposed to become a Planet Hollywood, but years later, nothing has happened with that yet. Still, this part of Philipsburg is very pretty, with brightly colored buildings, murals, and a great waterside atmosphere. After grabbing a cold drink and some food on the beach, we found another bus stop and headed back to Maho. Now, the next day, we still wanted to go a little further and also see the French side of the island, so we ended up booking a tour through the counter that Sunwing had right in the lobby.

If you ever doubted Sunwing's presence in these vacation destinations, well, more than ever, I think WestJet got a good deal. Our fantastic guide, David, took us initially along the same route as yesterday, but this time with a few stops to appreciate the views. The Dutch side of the island, as seen here, is more populated than the French side, with around 40,000 people. Officially, it is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the French side is an overseas collectivity of France. Interestingly, however, only the French side is part of the EU, and euros are used there, as well as a combination of Netherlands Antillean guilders and US dollars on the Dutch side.

We made another quick stop in Philipsburg and then continued on to the French side. Now, even if one side is the EU and the other is not, there is still free passage between the two. We stopped a little further from there to have a view of the Atlantic Ocean and the different landscape on the east side. Also, just visible in the distance from there was the island of Saint Barthélemy, about 20 kilometers away. Next we would head to the capital of the French side, Marigot, and along the way you could see that this side looked quite different.

We also passed through the island's second airport, Grand Case Airport, which serves the French side but usually doesn't see anything bigger than the ATR 72s. Finally, we ended up in Marigot and had some time to look around and enjoy of the views. The French side of the island is physically larger, but has a slightly smaller population, around 32,000. Of course, when you are in France, you can't stop here and not buy some pastries. In some ways this seems a little more European than the Dutch side. However, the views over the water are equally impressive, and one thing I can't get over is how clear it is!

I could have easily spent a few days here, and if I ever return to Saint Martin, I think I will do just that. Our last stop on this tour was at the border crossing near the airport, where they have this monument that commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Concord. It was signed in 1648 when the French and Dutch officially divided the island between them, and it is also this treaty that allows free movement between the two parties. This monument was inaugurated three centuries later, in 1948, on the 300th anniversary of the signing of the treaty. That being said, we were back on the Dutch side after a super informative and really enjoyable couple of hours all over the island of Saint Martin.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and after this incredible week of aviation, warm weather, and exploring somewhere new, it was time to head back out into the cold. Flying home would be the exact opposite of how we got here, heading first to Toronto and then back to Calgary from there. The flight to Toronto left late in the afternoon, so I spent most of the last morning in Maho Beach and got a few things I didn't already have. After enjoying one last all-inclusive meal and free drinks, we finally headed back to the airport. Princess Juliana Airport still seemed quite temporary at this point while repairs were finished, but the departure process was relatively simple, passing through security, customs, and then heading to the fairly busy gate area.

It turned out that we were leaving at the same time as some US-bound flights, as well as an Air France flight, so it was understandable. Before the hurricane, they had four airplane bridges here that were apparently damaged along with the entire upper level, so at that time it was all ramp or bus boarding. However, they did have ice cream cones available after security, which was money well spent. From here the trip home was uneventful and our plane arrived on time and another 737 MAX 8 took us back north. As expected, we were invited up the ramp with beautiful sunset lighting and I settled into 13A once again.

We ended up heading west due to the weight, according to our captain, and were able to get one last look at Maho Beach as we took off into the sunset. However, for your viewing pleasure, I will not shorten this and leave it as the full takeoff footage. This was one of those rare vacations where it actually felt hard to leave and the trip home was a bit of a blur after that. Simply put, this flight to Toronto involved purchasing more food on board, sleeping, and a welcome back to Canada with the lights of the GTA. We then spent a long period of time in Pearson purgatory aka international baggage claim and then unfortunately spent the night because it was too late to make any other flights to Calgary that same day.

Waking up literally the opposite of last week was... not great, but this last flight home was at least another Dreamliner, which involved a bit of a delay, a nice seat in the exit row, some good views of the wing 787, IFE broken, more shopping on board and, finally, more snow. All said and done, this truly was the trip of a lifetime, and I can't thank you enough for watching it. ...and for watching my silly little airplane videos over the past 13 years. I don't think Alex in 2011 would have imagined what creating a YouTube account would become. It has been an absolute privilege to be able to share my passion for aviation in this way and I will be forever grateful to everyone who comes back again and again for a new video.

Not to mention the countless people I've found a common interest with thanks to these videos, especially those who have become a big part of my life. Sincerely, thank you and see you next time.