We just completed at visit to this beautiful resort and tried to find a descriptive phrase that would encompass all our thoughts. The phrase is "subdued excellence". If you want beauty, relaxation, fantastic beaches, and quiet, this is the place. As with any vacation or holiday there are some negative aspects and I'll sum them up first. When we arrived and presented our travel voucher, which clearly stated that we were to have a deluxe club room, king size bed, and air conditioning, we were assigned to a room that had none of the above. That's not quite true. There was a small, very small, portable air conditioner. My car air conditioner puts out more cool air than this unit did. We were told that all the deluxe club rooms were rented and that this room "was the same" as the deluxe rooms. After a bit of investigation we found this to not be true. We were able to speak with the manager who, by the way, is a very nice and concerned person who asked us if there was anything he could do to make up for the shortcoming. He offered boat cruises, etc., all short of either moving us to one of the deluxe rooms or refunding the difference. We declined the other activities he offered and since it seemed that we would be stuck in our present accommodations we decided to tough it out. We did this by placing towels over the louvered windows to trap what little cool air the a/c unit put out. So much for the negative aspects. There are too many positive aspects to list but I'll address some of the issues brought up by other people. First all the place is extremely beautiful. So much so that there is a garden tour offered to see all the exotic flora that abounds throughout. The entire resort was extremely clean with our room being no exception. It was cleaned thoroughly every day and supplied with nice clean towels and sheets daily. There were good size beach towels provided and changed every day if you so choose.As for "creepy crawlies", we did not see any tarantulas! We took bug spray along and did not find a need for it. The only "crawlies" were the cute geckos which scurried away if you got near them. Besides, they're harmless. We found the food to be extremely good with a very nice selection at every meal. The breakfast buffets were wonderful. Reasonably good wine was supplied in copious amounts throughout the dinner meal and cocktails and beer were to be had. We did find the wait staff and bartenders to be a bit brusque but not offensive. If you took the time to talk to them we found that they are very nice people. We found no "anti American" comments or actions even though the majority of the guests are British. All in all, everyone we met couldn't have been nicer. The beaches, all four of them, are excellent and not a bit crowded. Matter of fact they were very much deserted and there are lounge chairs everywhere. We spent most of our time on Eden (fourth beach), which is a short walk from the main complex. There is excellent security there, as throughout the resort. The pool is freshwater and very clean but a bit deep if you are thinking of bringing young children. But we didn't use the pool with the wonderful beaches available. This is not a "glitzy" resort with constant activity and no one approaches you to encourage you to participate in activities. The entertainment in the evenings was very good. On Wednesday evenings there is a beach barbeque with a live steel drum band. The band (Halcyon) is the same one that plays at Shirley Heights on Sunday evenings. It's not to be missed. To travel to St. Johns there is taxi service available for $12 US, one way. As for the big question of would we go there again. We can only answer with a positive "maybe". This is based solely on the fact that we didn't get what we paid for regarding our room accommodations. Being Americans, we enjoy our air conditioning and do not care to be misled when told that the rooms were "the same." If we could be somehow guaranteed before hand that we would have what we paid for we would go back in a New York minute. We are in our mid 50's and both retired which allows us to travel extensively throughout the world and we found this resort to be a shining jewel


(3 votes)



