Le Galion Review

We (wife, 5 yo son, myself) spent a day at Le Galion. The only disappointing part of the day was having to leave in the middle of the day to return back to the ship.

It was everything that we try to search out in a beach:

- Very few people, and not the rowdy touristy types

- Great sand, palmed lined scenery

- No hotels, no resorts, no jet skis, no parasailing, no t-shirt sales places

- Nobody selling anything

- Great little sand in your toes walk-up restaurant. No frills, just basic good island food, priced right. Nothing but a few picnic tables on the sand. Perfect for us.

- The bread was great!

- I only saw two people serving at the restaurant, and one person cooking, and both of the servers were super friendly.

- Thumbs up to Bella the beach dog (owned by one of the people at the restaurant), who played and swam with us when he wasn't try to catch fish

- The restaurant rented chairs, umbrellas, and basic beach stuff, kayaks, floats, etc.

- Calm water with a break a fair amount away

- Easy to get to, it couldn't have been more than 5 minutes from Orient, but felt a world away in regards to atmosphere

Super family friendly for young kids.

Would go back again in a heart beat!

I love this beach. It's the best beach on the island for small children and one of my faviorite of the island's many beaches. Thanks for the great review and beautiful pictures.:)

:)

gary

Hi,

Thanks for your wonderful review and pictures. LeGallion beach sounds perfect for our group, which includes a toddler & 5 year old. However we are there for a limited time---8AM to 4:30PM on a cruise ship. We would have to take a taxi and I've heard its hard to get a taxi back from the beach since its off the main road a bit.

So my question is, did you drive or take a taxi, and what was your experience in returning to the ship. I read there is a place called Chez Pat on the beach and they will call a taxi if requested; however, they have never returned my email and I'm afraid to chance not getting back to the ship! Also, are there rest room/changing facilities on the beach. Any info would be appreciated -- our cruise departs July 15th.

Hi,

 

Thanks for your wonderful review and pictures. LeGallion beach sounds perfect for our group, which includes a toddler & 5 year old. However we are there for a limited time---8AM to 4:30PM on a cruise ship. We would have to take a taxi and I've heard its hard to get a taxi back from the beach since its off the main road a bit.

 

So my question is, did you drive or take a taxi, and what was your experience in returning to the ship. I read there is a place called Chez Pat on the beach and they will call a taxi if requested; however, they have never returned my email and I'm afraid to chance not getting back to the ship! Also, are there rest room/changing facilities on the beach. Any info would be appreciated -- our cruise departs July 15th.

Just in case the OP rented a car I will tell you that LeGalion is not far from the main road where the taxi's are going back and forth from Orient Beach so in the instance that your driver does not come for you it is not a huge deal. It would take only a few minutes to walk back to the main road to get a taxi. Just a FYI LeGalion as well as Mullet are very popular with the islanders and both get very crowded on weekends.

We didn't rent a car. Just grabbed a taxi off the boat, and told them where we were going. No problems at all coming back. The server (a young super friendly blonde lady), was happy to call a taxi for us, when we closed out our tab (food, drinks, float rental, chair rental, etc. can't remember how much but I thought it was a great price). She asked me to wait just a minute while the service located the nearest cab, and then called her back. I might have waited for 3 or 4 minutes, for the service to call back, and the cab was waiting before I even had time to walk back to our beach spot and pack up our stuff. It was a cab on the way to pick up some people from Orient and bring them back downtown. It was maybe 20-25 minutes back to downtown. We had her drop us off down-town to look around and we took the water taxi back. Downtown didn't do much for us, too touristy. I didn't even have to get out of the cab at Orient to know it wouldn't have been our thing :)

It wasn't crowded at all when we where there but it was mid-week.

The restaurant (small hut with picnic tables) area had a mens and ladies room, that was plenty large enough to change in. They had the basic beach food, chicken, fish, ice cream bars, the meals came with a small salad, and fries, ice pops for the kiddies, etc. And I'll throw in another mention of the bread that was very good.

Here is a picture of the restaurant eating area (and no that is not me behind my son, I wasn't in that good of shape, even when I was his age):

Wonderful review Wake74 -- Sounds like its easy to get back to port in time.

Were you there recently? We are going in 3 weeks so wondering if the situation is the same.

Was the name of the restaurant "Chez Pat"? That is the only place I can find when I search on LeGalion.

The beach looks so beautiful and quiet (we will be there mid week also). Thanks again.

We were there last week (06/14/12), only bad thing is that we aren't there this week :) Work productivity hasn't been stellar this week :o

I honestly didn't pay too much attention to the restaurant name, it was the only thing really on the beach, you can't miss it.

Forgot to mention that they also take credit cards. I think there was a CC minimum, like $20 or something reasonable.

Have fun!

Here's another one facing out towards the break. Note that there is a bit of sea grass in front of the restaurant, but it clears up just to the left of it.

Wonderful review Wake74 -- Sounds like its easy to get back to port in time.

 

Were you there recently? We are going in 3 weeks so wondering if the situation is the same.

 

Was the name of the restaurant "Chez Pat"? That is the only place I can find when I search on LeGalion.

 

The beach looks so beautiful and quiet (we will be there mid week also). Thanks again.

I was there last summer on a Tuesday afternoon and there were loads of kids. We didn't stay and instead went to Orient. It may have been a day camp outing, that is what it looked like to me. The islanders do love this beach and it is one that they like to visit on their free time so it may have just been that as well. When I have visited mid-week in March I have never found it really busy.

Thank you so much for this review and pics!!! We will be there the week of 7/1 with kids ages 7-10. We are hesitant to go to Orient beach with them. This looks like the perfect alternative. Heard that it is good for kids but didn't see many reviews on it. We are doing a private tour with Joyce Prince so I'm thinking we'll have her take us here instead of Orient.

Thanks for the great pictures! The little one seems to be having a great time!

Thanks so much, Wake.

We're spending a week in St. Martin this time and renting a car. I plan on going to a different beach every day. Definitely Le Galion.

BTW Your son's a sweetheart.

We were there last week..June 20th (Weds) There also were a ton of school kids there like a field trip kind of thing. We were told because of that everything was closed..No food, restrooms, chairs, or anything.. :( We were disappointed..So you may want to check before they let you out there.. The water is very shallow & nice for kids..But there is a lot of sea grass which we didn't like. I wouldn't say its a very pretty place but ok for the day. If we went back, we would look into going to another beach. We did make arrangements with the taxi driver to come back & get us. He did not come back but sent another driver in his place which we were fine with. :)

Hmm.....we must have gotten lucky. The place was pretty desolate when we where there two weeks ago. Must be hit or miss. I'm glad we ended up there on a good day.

Vettebuff - Thanks for the kind words about our son. We've been blessed with a healthy, very well behaved son. He's equally happy entertaining himself or joining in a group at a kids-club at the gym, cruise ship, church, wherever. Not to mention he travels well, which is a big help.