By Mark and Clare, Pack With Purpose. We haven’t stayed at Sonesta Ocean Point yet, so this is our researched guide rather than a firsthand review. Everything below comes from the resort’s own information, current booking listings, and recent guest reviews. When we’ve been, we’ll update this with how it actually felt.
Princess Juliana airport’s runway ends at Maho Beach, and the jets come in low enough over the sand that people fly to St. Maarten to stand under them. Sonesta Ocean Point sits on the point at the end of that beach. It’s 130 suites, adults only and all-inclusive. On Expedia’s Canadian site it’s a five-star with a score of 8.8 from just over a thousand reviews. It’s also one of only two true all-inclusives on the island, and the other one is the family resort next door. Whether a week here is a good idea comes down to how you feel about the planes.
Getting there
The shortest transfer of any resort we’ve covered. The airport is about a kilometre and a half from the front desk, five minutes by taxi, and there’s no shuttle ($). St. Maarten’s taxi fares are government-regulated. On the official rate sheet, the airport to Maho is US$8 for one or two people. The resort, however, says to expect US$10 to $15, in cash to the driver. WestJet Vacations, however, includes the transfer in its packages.
Air Canada and WestJet fly Toronto to St. Maarten nonstop year-round, about four hours and forty minutes, and Air Transat adds a Saturday flight from October 31. From Montréal, Transat flies Fridays from October 9, Air Canada starts October 31, and WestJet has one flight a week. Air Canada Vacations, WestJet Vacations and Sunwing Vacations all sell Ocean Point as a package. Canadians don’t need a visa for stays up to three months. You need a passport valid for the whole trip and a return ticket. The island also asks you to fill in its online entry form at entry.sx before you arrive, up to a week ahead. Prices at the resort are in US dollars. In fact, US dollars are accepted across the island.
The setting and who it’s for
Ocean Point is what Sonesta calls a resort within a resort. It’s a separate, adults-only tower of 130 suites at the end of Maho Beach, on the Dutch side of an island that’s half Dutch and half French. It shares its grounds with Sonesta Maho Beach Resort, the 420-room family all-inclusive next door. Ocean Point guests can use everything at Maho Beach. Maho Beach guests, on the other hand, don’t get into Ocean Point. That arrangement is the point of the place, and one of the main complaints about it, so we’ll come back to it.
The planes come first. Reviewers put the jet noise at roughly 9 in the morning until 9 at night. One says it starts at 7, and a December 2025 guest says the last arrivals land around 10 or 11. A July 2026 reviewer listed the takeoffs and landings as the best part of his week. Likewise, a couple who stayed in February got used to the noise quickly and wore earplugs at night. An April 2026 guest gave the resort four stars and called the planes its one minus. A guest on her third annual visit says to book an ocean-facing room because it cuts the noise.
Who it suits
Two adults who want a small all-inclusive with a five-minute airport run, a rooftop bar, a casino next door and a village of restaurants and shops at the gate. In other words, people who’d rather have that than a beach. Plane-watchers, obviously.
Who should skip it
Anyone whose idea of a resort is quiet. Anyone booking for the beach itself, because Maho Beach is public, narrow and rough. And anyone who reads adults-only as no children anywhere. The lobby and the restaurants outside Ocean Point’s own doors are, after all, shared with the family resort.
What the all-inclusive covers
In the rate
Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Azul, dinner at Portofino, Bluefin’s poke bowls, and every restaurant at Maho Beach Resort next door during its hours. Premium beer, wine and spirits at the Ocean Point bars and the Maho Beach bars, plus a minibar restocked daily with soft drinks, water, beer and spirits. 24-hour room service, and Wi-Fi in the suites and around the resort. The gym and the daily classes (yoga, HIIT, Pilates and a soca dance class), as well as the daytime activities and live music. All hotel taxes and service fees and, per the Expedia listing, gratuities. No restaurant takes reservations for parties of ten or fewer. You turn up.
Costs extra ($)
Spa treatments, and excursions through the tour desk. Parking in the Maho Village garage at US$10 a day, and faster Wi-Fi packages from US$16 to US$79. The airport taxi, and the two casinos, which are run separately. Also, there’s no resort fee. The resort holds US$50 a night on your card for incidentals and releases it at checkout.
There are no club levels. What you pay for, instead, is the suite. The top categories come with a butler, faster Wi-Fi, turn-down and one pressed garment per person on the first night. On stays of five nights or more, they also get a bottle of wine a day, to a maximum of three. Guests are split on the butler tier. An April 2026 guest says the pool chairs are plentiful and there’s no need for it. Meanwhile, a May 2026 guest in a Rooftop Butler Suite says the service didn’t match what she’d had at Sandals for the money.
Amenities
The rooms
All 130 are suites, in ten categories. Overall, they score 4.5 on TripAdvisor, with cleanliness at 4.6. A Junior Suite is 460 square feet with a king or two doubles, a private balcony and a southern ocean view. The Swim-Out Junior Suites on the ground floor are 470 square feet and open onto a pool only swim-out guests use. Two 2026 reviews call them the room to book, one for the Edge pool view, one as a honeymoon setup. The butler suites run from 617 to 2,600 square feet, the largest with a wrap-around terrace and an open-air tub.
Sonesta refitted the suites through the first half of 2026 with new layouts and furniture. An April guest, for instance, describes a recently updated room with a big TV and strong water pressure. The lobby and Martin’s Bar are being redone through September 2026.
Maintenance is the recurring knock. Recent reviews mention air conditioning that failed for two nights, a wine fridge that didn’t work, and a coffee machine and then the water and toilet on the same day. More than one 2026 guest also calls the bed very firm and noisy. So read the newest reviews the week you book.
Pools
Four at Ocean Point, open sunrise to sunset. The Edge is the cliffside one with the zero-entry beach and the bay in front of it, and the guest who wrote it up calls it the calmest and quietest. Above Maho Beach, the Point pool has the deck with the umbrellas and cabanas, plus live music from 3 to 5. Then there’s the Seascape, with the swim-up bar and loungers set in the water, and finally the swim-out pool behind the ground-floor suites. Over at Maho Beach, the Oasis pool has a swim-up bar, waterslides and the crowd. Nobody in the 2025 and 2026 reviews complained about saving chairs. In fact, four of them said there was never any need. If you’re booking a fall stay: the Edge pool is closed for maintenance from September 7 to October 13, 2026.
Food and dining
Azul is the restaurant the reviews agree on. It’s the glass-walled one over the Edge pool and it serves all three meals. The advice from guests across the year is to eat there. An April 2026 guest called it the best food she’s had in the Caribbean, with a menu that changes daily. A repeat guest in December 2025, however, puts it lower: cruise-ship quality, not gourmet, fine if you order a couple of mains. Breakfast at Azul is a small buffet plus eggs and pancakes made to order. Two guests also mention the local birds landing on the tables.
The rest is where the reviews turn. Bluefin does poke bowls with sustainably sourced fish and Portofino does northern Italian at dinner. Even so, a September 2026 guest wrote that every restaurant other than Azul was terrible. The Ocean Terrace buffet at Maho Beach draws the same complaints through 2026. Cafeteria food, lukewarm dishes, long lines at the omelette and carving stations, and cheese with mould on it at one guest’s last meal. It’s closed for renovation from September 1 to October 17, 2026.
The rest of the Maho Beach side: La Fontana for Italian, Palms Grill for Caribbean lunch and a Mexican dinner, and Jing’s Kitchen for Asian. Then the Village Tavern for pub food with live music, Pizzeria Napoli until 10:30, and a café from 6 in the morning. Guests who tired of it walked into Maho Village for dinner, which you can’t do at most all-inclusives. Azul asks for what the resort calls Resort Elegant in the evening.
Bars
The Sunset Lounge on the roof is the one guests write about, and a May 2026 visitor only found it several days in, so ask on the first. Otherwise, Martin’s is the lobby bar, One Zero is the pool bar, the Seascape is the swim-up, and Azul has its own. Sonesta calls the pours premium, and the reviews split three ways on that. One February guest found cheap well liquor. A November group found a wide range and weak mixing, whereas a May guest found the drinks good with a huge variety. Sheryl at the Point pool bar, 25 years at the resort, is certainly the name that comes up most. In the evening the bars that serve both resorts run one bartender each. As a result, a Canadian couple who stayed two weeks in November say the wait could be long.
The beach
Every beach on St. Maarten is public, so the resort can’t reserve chairs on the sand or serve food and drinks there. Maho Beach is the plane-spotting one, narrow, with the airport fence behind it. Reviewers describe the water as rough and no good for snorkelling. A November 2025 guest called it not very inviting, and an April 2026 guest called it nonexistent. Even a June 2026 guest who loved the resort wrote that it’s not the place to come for the beach. What the resort offers instead is the Palms Beach, a raised, man-made beach area on the Maho Beach side with loungers on a first-come basis. Mullet Bay is also within walking distance. Notably, nobody in two years of reviews mentions seaweed.
Spa and gym
The Serenity Spa’s treatment rooms are in the Maho Beach tower, and Ocean Point has two outdoor spots of its own, a gazebo over the water for massages and a Zen Garden. The gazebo couples massage is the treatment guests write about. Three of them, between November 2025 and July 2026, mention the sound of the waves and the birds. Treatments are paid ($). The gym is 1,700 square feet and open 6 in the morning to 10 at night. A 2025 review calls it big, clean and full of equipment.
Entertainment
Live music by the pool from 3 to 5, a band some nights, and then live music at the Village Tavern until midnight. A spring 2026 reviewer noted there are no big shows or dancing in the evenings. Similarly, a March guest wanted more music by the pool. What Ocean Point has instead is Maho Village outside the gate. There’s Casino Royale, with 400 slot machines, table games and a lounge, run separately and 18 and over, and then the bars and restaurants along the strip. In June 2026 Maho Beach soft-opened the Pelican’s Nest, a 59,000-square-foot rooftop with mini golf, a climbing wall and a running track. It’s included, and Ocean Point guests have access to it.
The adults-only question
Ocean Point’s own tower, pools and restaurants are 18 and over, and that holds. Still, the lobby, the two restaurants just outside it and everything on the Maho Beach side are shared with a 420-room family resort. So children are part of the week the moment you leave the adults-only building. A group of 28 in November 2025 felt they’d paid for adults-only and got the family version. A December 2025 guest hardly knew the kids were there. Similarly, a couple from Lethbridge who stayed two weeks say paying for Ocean Point to get away from the family side was worth every penny.
Service
Service scores 4.5 on TripAdvisor, and the names recur. Smiley on room service, the Azul team, Ms. Sharon at the buffet, the butlers Ranjeet and Dane, and a general manager who, in a February 2026 guest’s words, listens and acts. The complaints are specific rather than general. A chaotic check-in in May 2026, a December guest who stopped tipping over rudeness she met daily, and security at the door at 11 sharp over a late checkout in January. Finally, two things guests say management doesn’t bend on: refunds when a flight is cancelled by weather, and late checkout.
Our take
Ocean Point earns its 8.8 on Expedia’s Canadian site and TripAdvisor’s top spot among the four hotels in Maho in a specific way. A small adults-only tower with the shortest airport run we’ve covered, a restaurant over the pool that guests trust, four pools with chairs to spare, a rooftop bar and a village at the gate. If the planes are a draw and the beach isn’t, it’s a good week.
The catch, however, is the price. On Expedia’s Canadian site the lowest suite for two was about CA$1,100 a night for a mid-October stay. For a week in early February 2027 it was about CA$1,333 a night, CA$11,289 for the seven nights with taxes, before any package deal. That’s more than we quoted for Cayo Levantado’s private island. TripAdvisor guests, meanwhile, give Ocean Point’s value 4.2, their lowest mark for it. At that rate, the maintenance thread in the rooms, the buffet next door and the mixed reports on the bars all count for more than they would at half the price.
If you want the Dutch Caribbean with a real beach, our Sandals Royal Curaçao guide is the comparison for couples. If you want adults-only with a hillside instead of a runway, there’s Secrets St. Lucia. For the plane-watchers, check current pricing on Expedia and compare the suite-only rate against a package with the flight in it. Then ask for a room facing the ocean.
When we get the chance to stay, we’ll update this with the firsthand version. Until then, this is our honest read from the research.
What to pack for Sonesta Ocean Point
Sonesta Ocean Point: Our Star Ratings
These ratings are based on aggregated guest reviews and the resort’s own information. We haven’t stayed here yet; they reflect what guests consistently report. Five stars is excellent, one is poor, and half-stars are allowed.
Category by category
| Item | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rooms | ★★★★☆4.0 | Suites refitted in 2026 and scored 4.5 by guests; the maintenance thread costs the half star |
| Pools | ★★★★☆4.0 | Four of them, chairs to spare, closed at sundown. The Edge is out until October 13, 2026 |
| Food / Dining | ★★★☆★☆3.5 | Eat at Azul. The buffet next door is where the complaints are |
| Drinks / Bars | ★★★☆★☆3.5 | Rooftop bar, bartenders guests know by name, and three opinions on what’s in the bottle |
| Beach | ★★☆★☆☆2.5 | Public, narrow and rough, with jets over it. You swim in the pools, not the sea |
| Spa & Wellness | ★★★★☆4.0 | Book the gazebo massage over the water ($) |
| Gym | ★★★☆★☆3.5 | Open 6 to 10 with daily classes in the rate; few guests mention it |
| Entertainment | ★★★☆☆3.0 | Afternoon music and a band, then the casino next door does the rest |
| Service / Staff | ★★★☆★☆3.5 | 4.5 from guests for the people; the check-in and the refund policy pull it down |
| Getting There | ★★★★★5.0 | Nonstop from Toronto and Montréal, then five minutes in a taxi |
| Value for Money | ★★★☆☆3.0 | From CA$1,100 a night, and value is the lowest mark guests give it |
| Overall | ★★★★☆4.0 | 8.8 and 4.4 from the guests, earned by the location and Azul, held back by the price |
See how this resort compares with every resort we’ve rated, side by side.
Sources: Sonesta Ocean Point and Sonesta Maho Beach Resort official information; Expedia.ca guest reviews and listing details; TripAdvisor traveller reviews; Air Canada Vacations, WestJet Vacations and Sunwing Vacations listings; Government of Canada travel advice for Sint Maarten. All resort photos courtesy of Sonesta Ocean Point via Expedia.
