Kris,
You're very welcome and I hope this premier trip is just the first of many yet to come. The very nice thing about St. Maarten/St. Martin is, IMHO, that you can "do it all" or "you can do nothing at all" and either way, you'll end up having a wonderful time.
Two words of caution, and this will apply to almost any location on the island, but particularly in the areas between Atlantis Casino and the Maho shops and restaurants - don't walk those roads at night. You might be tempted to walk to Atlantis from the Towers or to Maho from the Towers, and I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but it's just not a wise thing to do. And the other thing is don't leave stuff of any kind of value in your car, not locked in your glove compartment or even locked in your trunk. Sadly, there are gremlins on the island who have created a cottage industy of breaking into locked cars at the beaches and other locations, too, and stealing items that appeal to them that owners "thought" were safely locked out of sight in the trunks. I don't know how they do it but in a matter of minutes they can be into your car and out of sight, your possessions never to be seen again.
As to rental cars, there are many good ones and a few not so good. Personally, I've been using Lesley Bruce of Kennys Car Rentals for the past 5-6 years and find him to be really great to deal with and we're able to get our car at the airport through him. A simple email to him will get you a rate quote:
bruce@sintmaarten.net
The only rental company I've personally had a really bad experience with was Budget and that was a long time ago so who knows, perhaps they've cleaned up their act and gotten it all together by now.
If I can be of any further help, please don't hesitate to send me a private message here.
Respectfully,
pat
:-) :-)