Belle Vue Masonry & Wood Splendora

The place was very clean, with excellent service and a breathtaking view. It’s an attractive Caribbean-style spot, and the walk to the beach was easy and pleasant.

From the time we booked, I felt uneasy. Ale sent a generic WhatsApp asking us to switch to a smaller room because the one we’d reserved was “double booked.” I raised it with airbnb since the booking couldn’t be refunded, but Ale didn’t communicate with them. When I spoke to Ale, he said the replacement was more expensive and had a roof terrace with views. I reluctantly agreed, but that wasn’t what we found when we arrived. There were no views, the roof terrace was a building site and unsafe, and the terrace in the listing photos belonged to a different room. The promised sun loungers were pictured on the roof terrace. We were also shown the original room, but its photos included dining areas from another room. At least two families arrived during our stay and refused to stay. In our room, the bed was small and hard, and there were four leaks, including onto the bed and a live socket. The tables were cheap, there was no sofa, and we got bitten badly. The outdoor kitchen sounds great in theory, but in practice it was awful, with cockroaches and other nasties. The airbnb listing shows all the hosts as one person, and most of the reviews seem fake to me because they’re from staff or friends. Seven different people contacted us about the booking, each with different information. The team’s communication was awful and made an already stressful situation even more stressful. There’s much nicer accommodation in a better location in gros islet. Don’t let a map and the fake reviews fool you.

The steep drive is worth it for the views. This guesthouse also gives you a more authentic St. Lucia stay. My only gripe is the bathroom: it needs updating, and I’d rather have a shower than the bathtub.

The view was nice, but I wouldn’t recommend staying here. It’s a long way from the center, there’s no bus, and walking back means tackling a very steep hill. You really need a car, and you’ll have to be comfortable driving steep, winding roads. Our room was tiny, dark, and had no windows. There was just one small, uncomfortable bed, a mini fridge, and one chair outside for what was supposed to be a two-person room. Bugs and mosquitoes were everywhere. Later they gave us a mosquito net, but there were two cockroaches inside it. We went without water for two days, with little effort made to sort it out. The kitchen was poorly equipped, too. We repeatedly had to ask for basics like a knife and a pot, for the stove to be made to work, and for the Aircon to be fixed. Staff weren’t always around to help. The bathroom window had no mosquito net, and the soundproofing was so poor we could hear everything from people outside or in neighboring rooms and apartments. The owners weren’t unfriendly, but the property simply wasn’t ready or in a fit state to host guests.