A Sunset Drive in St. Maarten

Not a boat

We should be clear, because the words get used interchangeably and they should not be.

A sunset cruise is a catamaran. We do not operate boats and we are not going to pretend otherwise — if that is what you want, ask us and we will point you at the people who do it properly.

A sunset drive is what this is: taken to a west-facing spot with somewhere to sit, given time to actually watch it, and driven home afterwards.

Where

Grand Case is the one most people should pick. The bay faces west, the strip of restaurants sits along it, and you can watch the sun go down and then eat the best dinner on the island without moving. Thirty-five minutes from the Dutch side.

Cupecoy has the most dramatic light — low cliffs, a west-facing beach, and the sun going down over open water. Fewer facilities and it is about the view rather than the evening.

The Simpson Bay lagoon is the calmest, with the boats and the light on the water. Good if you want something short and close.

Maho works if the timing is right, with an aircraft crossing a low sun. That is luck rather than planning, and we will not promise it.

The timing

Sunset here is between roughly 5:45 and 6:45 depending on the season.

The thing northern visitors get wrong is how fast it goes. There is very little of the long dusk you get further from the equator — the sun drops, the colour is extraordinary for fifteen minutes, and then it is dark. Arriving twenty minutes late means arriving after.

So we leave earlier than feels necessary, and we build in the bridge.

From a ship

Only with a late all-aboard. Some ships stay until eight or later, and on those calls this is a genuinely good use of the last part of the day — Grand Case for sunset and an early dinner, back to the terminal after.

If your ship leaves at five, this does not work. We will tell you that rather than sell you a drive that gets you there as the sun goes down and immediately turns around.

Making an evening of it

The natural version is sunset then dinner in Grand Case, which is one stop rather than two and the best evening available on this island.

See dinner driver for how the evening runs, and the parking problem it solves.

What it costs

Per vehicle for the evening, waiting included, whatever the party size — and the waiting is the point, because sunset is not a moment you want to watch with one eye on whether your ride is still there.