Trish

My husband and I just returned from a week in Guadeloupe. We travel a lot but not usually in the caribbean but when a ski trip to Austria didn't work out I started to look at warmer destinations. While looking at delta.com I found two ff tickets to Guadeloupe.

With the tickets confimred I was off looking for reasonably priced accomadations. The hotels were quite expensive especially with the exchange on the Euro so I started looking at vacation rentals. We had good experiences renting in France and Italy so we felt comfortable trying it in Gwada.

We lucked out big on our rental. Our gite was 500 euro for the week and included final cleaning and such. We had a three bedroom two bath house with a private pool and bar-b-que. The gite was located in Pigeon a small community in Basse Terre. We were close (5 min drive) to Malendure beach as well as restaurants, boulagerie's, and supermarkets.

As Carnival was going on we went in to Basse Terre and saw some parades but that was about all of our carnival activities. We went snokelling off Pigeon island. We tried to do some hiking since there is some great trails near our gite but it rained a lot in the nights and we found the trails too wet and slippery. We twice visited the beautiful Grande Anse beach near Deshaises.

We were worried that the island would be very expensive but it really wasn't even with the exchange on the dollar. We didn't have too many suppers out since we had such a nice kitchen and bar-b-que plus the sunset was so beautiful from our gite that it was hard to leave.

I would highly recommend this island at least on the Basse Terre side of the island there was few large hotels and the beaches were uncrowded. It was such a relaxing week. My husband is fluent in french and I studied it for 12 years which certainly helped as english didn't seem to be widely spoken. We were flying on direct flights from Atlanta and there was only abot 50 people on the flights I'm hoping it was just an off week or I guess they won't keep this run going. If anyone has any questions about Guadeloupe I'd be happy to try to help.

highflyer

Hi Trish,

I haven't been to Guadeloupe in many years (about 18!) but thanks for your report.
Please could you give more details on your gite rental?

Thanks!

Odin

I've often recommended Guadeloupe as an inexpensive destination, since alot of accommodation are gîtes or apartments, there are French supermarkets, plenty of street food and it is a beautiful island.

greenie

Thank you for the report. When I saw DL was flying to Guadeloupe, I thought about it too. I wonder how much longer they'll continue to service this route?

Also, if you speak no French, would it be too terribly difficult to get around? Is there any English at all?

How was the Club Med there? Anyone have experience there?

Peace, Greenie

ejcrowe

Thanks for posting about Guadeloupe, an island seldom mentioned on this forum. I'm surprised you were able to find FF tickets during Carnivale!

Is gite the same meaning as villa? It's a word I've not read before. Is Gwada what the locals call Guadeloupe?

Trish

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'm usually on the Europe board so I didn't know how much action there would be over here.
This is the link to our gite http://www.abritel.fr/offers-detail/...694db76ad790fc
The house is extremely well equipped as far as pots and pans, dishes etc. There is a full size fridge and a small fridge, gas stove and oven. There is also a washing machine. There is no a/c but we did not miss it there was always a good breeze. There is screens on the windows and mosquito nets on the beds as well as fans in the all the rooms. The only negative that I felt that there was is if you aren't sharing this place with people you are very close with there is small high windows in the bathrooms that open into the kitchen and living room you can't see anything but you can hear things (I hope that's not tmi). If someone wants me to email them some of my pics of the house let me know but his represent the house quite well.

I really hope that I just flew this route on an off week for Delta since next week is President's Day weekend because I would love to go to go back and if I wasn't on the direct flight it would be a long haul to get there.

As far as the language goes I would try to pick up a few basics of french before I left but over all the people were so freindly that I'm sure you could get by. The people across from us on the plain stayed in Deshaies in a small place and did't speak much french except what they learned before they left and had a great trip.

The Club Med is on a the other part of the island (Grande Terre, I was on Basse Terre) I saw some people checking in with Delta who stayed there and I was surprised to see a Club Med guy take them right up to the check in carrying all the luggage so they must offer pretty good service. From our pool we could see this big sailing ship (looked like a pirate ship from our distance) go by and Guy who owns our gite said it was from the Club Med, I'm not sure where they were going but it looked nice.

Odin, I was really surprised at the cost of stuff I'm almost embarassed to say I brought a lot of food and wine things with me because I was so sure it would be expensive there. We ate at one more expensive restaurant, La Touna my three course set meal was 32 euro and very good. My husband had a swordfish with foie gras and it was only 16 euro I think, so even with wine and the exchange it wasn't bad. We spent no time in Grande Terre in the more resort like areas but I'm guessing it wouldn't be too much more expensive. For lunch I loved bokits with the fried bread and salad and chesse stuffing for 2 euro.

jaimevacances

Hi Trish - We went to Guadeloupe 2 yrs ago and stayed in Gosier. We loved it. We flew American. I've heard that Delta goes there but you can't access the flights to Guadeloupe on their website; I emailed Delta this week and they wrote back saying they don't go there! Anybody know what's up with Delta? I've heard from others when Delta first started the Atlanta - PTP route that the flights were 1/2 empty but it's no wonder if they tell people they don't fly there!

highflyer

Thanks for the link to the gite. It looks lovely especially the view!

Trish

Jaimevacances, that's crazy about Delta, when I booked my tickets the agant didn't know where Guadeloupe is and what the airport code is but at least they didn't try to talk me out of going! I just checked Delta.com for a March date and they showed the flight available. Were you checking Saturdays because they're only flying there once a week.

caribtraveler

Trish: Thank you for your report. Not a lot of those about Guadeloupe here. Your rental looks really nice.

jaimevacances

Hi Trish - I just found the Saturday flight from ATL to PTP on the Delta website....But I had 2 Delta Reps tell me definitively that they do not fly there. No wonder the flights are 1/2 full!
We just booked a trip in April with our 2 kids on American (using credit card miles for 2 of the tickets) flying from Philadelphia to Dominica for 6 nights and then taking the ferry to Guadeloupe and staying at a gite in Bouillante for 5 nights and then flying home from Guadeloupe. We loved Guadeloupe and are looking forward to going back. We've never been to Dominica but the waterfalls and rustic nature thing is very appealing to my husband. By the way, did you have the house in Pigeon to yourselves or was it shared? It looked beautiful from the photos.

Trish

jaimevacances, the house was just to ourselves but the price did change if you had more people sharing it. Guy (the guy who owns the house) has a home upstairs but it's completely seperate. He stayed there maybe 3 out of the 7 nights. We only saw him the first night when he got us settled in, another morning when he came to clean out the pool after a windy night and then the last day. Have a great time on your vacation it sounds wonderful.

trd541

I'm actually a french native, and have always wanted to head out to the French Caribbeans. Is Guadeloupe the first island on the French Caribbeans side that you've done? To be honest, Martinique would have been the first to come to mind. I see a few of you have gone to Guadeloupe at different times of the year... what would be the best season to go?