Rentals by owners are different to hotels...

Most hotels do not provide cooking facilities. They want you to spend money in their restaurant. They usually don’t provide a kitchenette with pots and pans and crockery or utensils. They usually have TV in the room but they don’t provide DVD or CD players.

But, because hotels have higher income from so many guests, they can afford to offer more services than individual apartments rented out by owners. Hotels include daily maid service, which we can only do by specially bringing in a maid JUST FOR YOU at extra cost. They usually have chairs on the beach where we only have loungers around our private pool. They have reception staff waiting to answer questions so you don’t have to telephone us to ask them. They have a bell boy to carry your bags rather than you wheeling them to your room. They have restaurants directly on site and usually have taxis on hand to take you places instead of you calling one or renting a car.  Of course, for these services they charge you an extra one or two hundred dollars a day.

A few disadvantages...

Originally the complex where our apartments are located was a 400 room hotel perfectly placed on the hillside at the northern end of Orient Bay. THAT CLOSED SOME YEARS AGO. It is now a residential complex with individually owned apartments. Some apartments are occupied by couples or families. Others are rented to tourists like ours. The great economy that you gain by renting from an owner comes with a few issues some guests might consider disadvantages. If the following really bothers you, you should pay the extra money to stay at a hotel.

What was the reception area of the former hotel is now closed. The restaurants that were there closed too. But we do have a pizza place on site and GRAND CASE, a whole town of restaurants, just a mile away. 

As with most residential complexes, there is no bellhop to carry your bags to the apartment. There is supposed to be a golf cart for that purpose but to be honest we often can’t locate the security guard who drives it as he also uses it to patrol the complex.

We have a fabulous pool which is well maintained, but we do not own the buildings by the beach and the deck they are somewhat dilapidated.  The deck around the pool was built on sand and constantly needs minor repairs. That usually isn’t an inconvenience to swimmers and there are plans to replace it in the future.

We STRONGLY advise you to rent a car.  Walking to restaurants at night through a few poorly lit areas is ill advised... just as it would be in your home town.  Taxis can take quite a while to arrive and to be honest, over the length of your stay, will cost more than a car for the week (which we can arrange for you).  There are great restaurants to visit, sights to see and DUTY FREE SHOPS to browse.  Why limit yourself to what is nearby or spend hundreds on taking taxis? If that is what you want you should bite the bullet, pay the extra and stay at a hotel.

When the complex was a hotel, few of the guests had cars. Now there are 400 residents and parking in the most convenient spot can be challenging. We recommend that you drop off bags and groceries and then park where you can. There is a LARGE dirt car park down by the tennis courts where you can always park. The upper car park near reception is often full when residents return from work.

If you have any further questions please send them to us an email.