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Testimonials
Paula Stoffels, British Columbia
"We arrive on Saturday to the beautiful island of St. Maarten... and we are prepared with our very own copy of the "St. Maarten Island Guide". Thanks guys you have done a fantastic job of creating the ultimate travel guide! We now know the best places to go and see... saves us hours of time researching! :) See you soon!"
Joyce Cummings, Springfield MA
"The tips about how to negotiate good deal save me $1200 on the new diamond bracelet I bought – thank you very much!"
Jan Campbell, UK
"A great read and so many things I didn't know after going to SXM for so many years! Well worth the few dollars even without the coupons! Thank you SO much!"
Sara- Beth Thiesen, Little Rock , AR
"My goodness…these coupons and discounts made my day and my husband happy…"
Joe, the Bachelor, USA
"I found the Adult entertainment part quite inspiring and I liked your recommendation – will visit again for sure…"
Jed & Clara, NY
"We had a really special time in St Maarten we will never forget and thanks to this guide we saved a fortune!"
Richard and Sharon from Seattle.
"We have been cruising for years and only now we found a real source for information from someone who really knows what they are talking about – love your 1-day plan option – it made it so easy for us to really decide what we want to do without all the hassles. Thank you guys!"
Michelle, NY
"We enjoyed a great lunch in Escargot, exceptional! – thank you for the coupon!!"
Ben Thompson, NJ
"They did not tell us on the ship about the ‘secret beaches’ – we are glad you guys did…we had a blast!"
Jessica, Chicago IL
"After getting the eBook, the whole family asked me what to do, as if I was a local St. Maartener…I definitely felt like one…"
Sweet St Maarten St Martin
Oh Sweet St Maarten – St Martin Land
Things to make you go ‘hmmm…’St Maarten, St Martin, SXM, Sint Marteen?
This category is going to be for those ‘uncategorizable’ (if there is such a word) items, tid-bits, funnies and otherwise odd posts that we cannot find a home for.
This first one is about the name St Maarten – St Martin. In a previous post we went into detail about the history of St Maarten – St Martin, how it came into being and which European countries fought with each other over centuries for dominion over this little island – you can read it here.
So, we’ve established the obvious – St Maarten is the Dutch spelling and St Martin is the French spelling but why, in the long form is it Sint Maarten instead of Saint Maarten? Obviously – the Dutch way of saying ‘Saint’.
The pronunciation of Saint Martin in French goes something like this: sah mah-tah (imagine the ‘h’ is a semi-silent version of the letter you’re saying – so you would ‘think’ ‘n’ in your mind whilst saying ‘sah’…..but wouldn’t quite say it or finish it off. A difficult thing to picture I know. Just imagine you have a mouthful of croissant and can’t touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth to pronounce the ‘n’.
The pronunciation of ‘Sint Maarten’ in Dutch goes something like this: sint mahhrr-tin.
I won’t even begin to tell you how to pronounce St Maarten in Dutch, let alone the other local languages we have such as Papiamentu, Creole, Patois or even Spanish.
It’s interesting to us to see how many different ways people spell the names beyond the obvious. We have the lovable ‘SXM’ abbreviation which is the international airport code for St Maarten, which is thrown in for good measure on occasion, giving us St Martin SXM, or SXM St Maarten or SXM St Marteen.
We have the confusing double letter ‘a’ quite often switched with the ‘e’ to produce St Marteen (believe it or not, that was how JFK airport spelt it for quite some years at the departure desk!)
Lastly we have the downright obvious wrong ways such as Saint Marteen, Sint Martin, St Marten, Martin St, Maarten St, St Martin Martin, St Maartins and even…..wait for it…. Saent Maerteen!
We’ve seen ‘em all.
But you know what? Unlike most places you would visit, no one would pull you up on it, because whatever works for you – is cool for us as long as you have a good time when you get here!
The St Maarten Island Guide Team
