gorgeous, perfect stay in paradise. my boyfriend and i had a "studio" room that had a kitchenette, full bathroom (with 2 sinks!), couch, coffee tables, TV, dresser, coat closet, and best of all--a beautiful private terrace that had a table and chairs for al fresco dining (we also used the space to practice yoga). the pool is a few steps away, and is absolutely gorgeous. we could walk to the marina/downtown st. francois area, but once we got a rental car, getting around was easier and more efficient. complimentary breakfast was a very nice addition--fresh fruit, croissants, bread, coffee, juice, muesli--and it was relaxing to eat in the main house every morning with the doors open, overlooking the beautiful grounds. the only negative was the bed--very hard and pillows were not great either, but it's possible that the beds in the bigger rooms are better (our bed was 2 single beds put together). we woke up every morning to the lulling hush of palm and tamarind trees swaying in the Caribbean breeze, in addition to softly chirping birds. the room had great black-out curtains, so even with floor-to-ceiling windows/doors, we slept soundly into the morning without being woken up by the bright sun.

FYI I speak French fluently. Most of the staff there is not particularly well-versed in English, and we were the only Americans staying there, to my knowledge. so if you know no French whatsoever, it might be tough to communicate, but that being said--there's not a whole lot you need to interact with the staff for, and hand gestures would likely suffice for most of what you'd need to chat with them about.

We enjoyed our stay here. Staff was friendly, just up the street from the center of town. Very quick little drive. When we where there half the location was condo, and other half hotel so a mixed bag of people.

If you are considering booking this hotel I would really recommend looking elsewhere.

It's not really a hotel, the front desk is housed in a separate building to the rooms, which is only open mon - sat, from 8.30am to 8.30pm. This is the only building that has wifi, so no internet access in the room at all.

When we arrived, after a delayed flight, we were outside the operational hours of reception and had a number to call for someone to drive to the hotel and give us access and a controller to switch the air conditioning on. What she didn't tell us was that there was no running water, we had to call her back after we discovered this gem. We were told there was a water problem on the island and it would be back on at some point the following day. We since discovered this is not true, and it was a regional problem that Saint francois suffers from. Quite why there hasn't been an investment in a water tank if this is a recurrent problem I don't know. Having said that there's very little investment shown in the property at all.

The room was very, very tired. Decor and furnishings had random stains, burns marks, chipped tiles, holes in the wall. The bed was like sleeping on a rock, and the pillows were equally stone like. We had booked a studio for two adults and a child and our five year old daughter with us who was apparently supposed to sleep on the couch. A spare duvet was provided if you hunted for it, replete with cigarette burns, but no sheets, no duvet cover and wait it's Saturday night, so you can't complain to anyone until Monday, and you're checking out on Tuesday.

In the interests of being fair, the pool area is nice with a huge pool, and the gardens are well maintained. There are however no pool attendants so be prepared to take your own pool towels.

There is no daily housekeeping, nowhere to put your rubbish, or get replacement rubbish bags etc.

And for our third night we were really delighted to come back from a days sightseeing, looking forward to a shower and feeling refreshed, to find the water was off, again. So another night of a family of three, sharing a studio, where you cannot flush the toilet because they don't even provide you with bottled water to top up the cistern manually, or actually even apologise for failing to meet any basic standard of hygiene. The water was still off the following day at 11am when we checked out so it's anyone's guess how long the remaining guests have waited to indulge in the luxury of a shower and the ability to flush their toilet.

This was an off the hoof, last minute long weekend away for us, and frankly, due to this hotel, we are really wishing we just hadn't bothered.