Maho Beach - newbie questions

We have a port of call at St. Maarten soon and my friends booked a tour to Maho Beach. Are beach shoes needed there to get into the water to swim? Are there facilities open there now, restaurants, rest rooms, etc.? Are there umbrellas and beach chairs available?

We were there last May pre-hurricane and Maho beach is not the beach I would want to lounge on. It was narrow and crowded. There are facilities at the Beach Bar for changing though.

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Technical challenges trying to upload a pic but I don’t see chairs and umbrellas in the picture

Maybe someone who has been more recently can chime in.

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There are two beach bars at Maho. As previously posted, it is a rather narrow beach and does get crowded - especially in the afternoon when the bigger planes come in. The bar on the southern end of Maho Beach (Sunset) does not currently have umbrellas and chairs due to most of the sand in front of the bar being relocated during hurricane Irma. It is open for business, however and has full facilities. The bar on the northern end of the beach (Driftwood) does have a limited number of chairs and umbrellas and some sand that has been brought in. You do not need water shoes to go in the water, but there is a fairly steep entry. The big attraction at Maho are the planes, not the beach itself, but even so, it is a decent beach - albeit crowded at times.

This is what I recommend and is what we did when we cruised last year. We took a cab from the port to Mullet Bay - AMAZING beach with chairs/umbrellas (at least before Irma, not sure about now). I can't say enough about how fantastic this beach was. We asked our driver to come back for us around 12:00/12:30 and took a quick (ten minute +/-) drive over to Maho to watch the planes come in. There are plenty of cabs there to pick you up. The cab we grabbed at the port gave us wristbands that so all we had to do was find drivers with matching shirts (there were many). I forget what we paid for the round trip taxi fare but it wasn't bad. The water is good at Maho, you can definitely hagd out in there but it can be very crowded. The beach is not one that you would think of for a "beach day" but is worth spending a couple of hours to see the planes!

I was just there the first week of February. The beach is about 1/2 the original size. There were a few chairs with umbrellas but not many. Sunset Bar & Grill was opened with all facilities. I also went to Friars Bay (Kali's Beach Bar) and spent a few hours there. Little rocky at the beginning of beach but not bad. Guava Berry Colada's were delish!

No chairs or umbrella as of Feb. 15. Was there. Sunset bar open and completely renovated.

I was there in January. We made the mistake of paying RC $35 each to go watch the planes. Taxi's are about $9 per person each way. As others have stated the beach is narrow and crowded but not too terrible.