Rendezvous

Our second time to St Lucia, first to this resort and we are already planning next years visit. The hotel - staff, amenities, rooms, beach etc are all first class. The hotel is close to the centre of Castries, and at the end of the local airport runway, but within the hotel grounds, in your room, in any of the restaurants, or on the beach your wouldn't know it. The staff were excellent throughout, and the meals were the best we have had on an all inclusive holiday. I would agree with a previous reviewer, the meals in the French Trysting place restaurant were no better than in the other restaurants, and the Malibar beach front restaurant was the best for both lunch and dinner. We went late September, the beach is about a mile long and we would usually see no more than 10 people when we walked it. Already looking forward to next years visit.

We've just enjoyed another stay at Rendezvous — our fifth — and again enjoyed it greatly. The staff members are excellent: friendly and fun. The food was extremely good, and we much enjoyed the beach front Malabar restaurant. We like the hotel for its various qualities, and also the fact that it's a good place to go for daily exercise. There's plenty of beach and good walks available, such as up to the Vigie lighthouse to see the panoramic view, or into the bustle of Castries. It's a very public beach and unlike, for example, the one at the sister hotel of Body Holiday, which is smaller and more peaceful. It all depends on what you are looking for. The bay is fine for swimming but no good for snorkelling. If you are a diver then the scuba team are professional and nice people. The complementary dives (not all are, though) are a good attraction for some of us. The champagne bar is an excellent place to call into before dinner: you can literally chill-out in the nuclear-powered air con and enjoy the cool drinks. There's wifi just about everywhere, but it's somewhat temperamental. The hotel is very well managed. After Storm Kirk the damage was quickly cleared up, and the restaurant teams managed to keep everyone fed and happy, despite the deluge of rain that swept into the premises. We won't mention names of excellent staff as it would be a long list and we'd regret leaving anyone out. The hotel isn't very large and there's a very social feel to the place. As always, we met some nice people. I suspect we'll be back.

For the most part we enjoyed our holiday but there were one or two issues. Location was not for us, very built up area on busy roundabout, the hotel was tucked away with the beach (lovely) to one side and roads, industrial units, storage (I think) depot with lorries and other traffic and the local airport to the other sides. Having said that the constant traffic noise/sirens etc decreased as you went further from the roads towards the beachfront where it was not noticeable at all. The aircraft noise was minimal from the little airport but be aware the runway ends almost opposite the hotel entrance. There was also an issue with a trip we purchased through the hotel which is too lengthy a tale of woe to go in to and was not resolved or handled well by staff without some quite major complaining. Having said that the other trips, one to the rain forest bird watching, and the other to Pitons, waterfalls and hiking were superb in every way with excellent guides, drivers and staff support throughout. The food was excellent, as were the drinks and entertainment, we enjoyed it all so much. Do try the champagne bar before dinner, great way to start your evening. We did very much enjoy our time in St Lucia and the Rendezvous understandably gets a lot of repeat guests who enjoy the great food, drinks and beach, the staff are very good and do go the extra mile to please, but for us the location did let it down but that was probably our error in thinking it was further away from the bustle and traffic jams of Castries than it actually is .