Reviewers Rating: 
Excellent
I wanted to share my experience of staying at the Anse Chastanet hotel. We stayed there for a week in April 2001. The hotel is two miles north of the town of Soufriere, reached by a narrow, bumpy, and quite exciting road. Anse Chastanet is perched on a steep hillside above a beautiful gray sand beach. The first thing you notice is that everything is on a different level- you are constantly walking up or down steps to get around. Definitely a good workout, and helped us keep the extra pounds down from eating all that rich Caribbean fare! The next thing I noticed was how friendly and welcoming the staff were. Although there were a few exceptions (there always are!), by and large everybody was wonderful.
I was initially somewhat disappointed in our room,which was a standard room (their cheapest). We arrived in the late afternoon, when the sun was streaming into the westward facing balcony, and it was HOT! All the rooms have no airconditioning (also no phones and no TV-which was great!), and I had been concerned about how comfortable it would be, so I was disturbed with the heat and lack of breeze. In talking to other guests, it seemed the rooms with an ocean view had less breeze than those facing the Pitons. We quickly adapted to the afternoon heat, however; we stayed on the beach in the afternoon, going to the room after sunset. At night the ceiling fan made sleeping pretty comfortable. As a side benefit to having a room open to the outdoors, at night we were serenaded by a chorus of tree frogs. It was truly marvelous sleeping! I would recommend that you avoid the standard rooms, however- the room itself was rather small and had no dresser. We ended up living out of our suitcase the majority of the time. We did have a lovely balcony with a view of the ocean.
I should mention that I was very impressed with the quality of the housekeeping. They not only put our mess away, they organized it better than we had!
One of the things I liked about this resort was that we seemed to meet a lot of people with similar interests. This resort is not one for the sedentary! You've got lots of activities to choose from: snorkeling, scuba, hiking, biking, and so on, and everyone there seemed active and adventurous.
The hotel has two restaurants, one at beach level and one higher up the hillside. The beach restaurant was your only option for lunch; you could either get a buffet or order off the menu. The buffet I found interesting,with a number of local vegetables and spiced dishes. Like buffets everywhere, food that is sensitive to over-cooking (like fish, for example)tended to be tough. Breakfast and most dinners were served in the restaurant on the hillside. Food was generally very good, but I did get a little bored with the seasonings, as everything tended to be "Caribbean", which seems to relie heavily on fruit-based salsa. Wine connoisseurs, beware- you will pay amazing prices for not very good wine. I think this was generally true, not just of our resort, but the island in general. Our favorite wine ended up being a Lindemann (Australian) shiraz for the snazzy price of $28 US! (about $9) in my local grocery back home. Yikes!
The snorkeling and diving were spectacular, although the water clarity left something to be desired. The dive shop folks at Scuba St. Lucia were wonderful- helpful, very friendly, and very informative.
One thing I'm puzzled about- everybody seems to feel that you "can't miss" the botanical gardens and the "volcano". I wasn't terribly impressed with either, although the gardens were pretty- I just like the wild lushness of the rainforest better. The "volcano" is an area maybe 300 yrds wide that has some boiling mud springs in it- very stinky! Perhaps my mood was somewhat spoiled by the fact that, although we had rented a car, we arrived at the gardens and the volcano at the same time as the tours from the cruise ships in Castries! Please take note: if you're going to these "major" attractions, check with the hotel and find out what the cruise ship schedule is. Simply driving around and exploring the island was more fun for us than the designated attractions.
All in all, we found Anse Chastanet, and St. Lucia in general, to be a wonderful, romantic, and relaxing place. Even as I write this, I am pining for the soft, fragrant breezes, the chorus of tree frogs, the great service, and the wonderful people. I'm already trying to figure out when we can go back!
Jim Cunningham
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