krishnan

Overall, St. Lucia has a very appealing combination of beaches and lush mountains, and we stayed at 2 places that we really enjoyed: Stonefield Villas and Tikaye. But be forewarned that Stonefield and Tikaye are still more or less "enclave tourism", and we missed the level of cultural experience and interaction that we enjoy on our trips overseas - but I guess that's part of the tradeoff when you go to most parts of the Caribbean.

Since my wife and I couldn't make up our minds between Stonefield Villas and Tikaye, we decided to spend our first 5 days at Stonefield and the next 3 at Tikaye. The bottom line is that they're both great if this is the kind of vacation you're looking for (and they're considerably better value than Anse Chastanet or Ladera - by the way, we met several folks from Anse Chastanet who were not thrilled with staying there given the prices, and you'll read later in my review about the outrageous prices and marginal quality of the Ladera restaurant). But there are some differences between Stonefield and Tikaye, so here goes:

Views: Tikaye's is nice (we were in an Oceanfront cottage), but Stonefield's (at least from the Jacaranda villa where we stayed) is absolutely stunning. At Stonefield, you can look out one set of doors and one of the Pitons is at your doorstep, and you look out the other and you have the ocean. It's one of the most gorgeous views of any place we've stayed in.

Location: Stonefield is located halfway up a hill facing the ocean, and is about a 20 minute walk from the town of Soufriere. There is one shuttle a day from Stonefield, and you can also take an expensive cab back. The location makes it easy to check out the town (not much there, but it does give you a break from the beach and unrelenting beauty) and also to visit the nearby botanical gardens, sulphur springs, cocoa plantation etc. (we hired a cab for the morning that took us to all 3 locations). Tikaye is completely isolated - the last couple of miles on a very poor dirt road - and unless you have your own transport, you have to rely on their tours if you want to leave the resort. Stonefield is smaller and its villas are more individual and less cookie-cutter than Tikaye's, so it feels less like a resort and more like a group of houses tucked away.

Space/Kitchen etc: Stonefield is quite a bit larger. Even though our cottage was just one large room, it is split into a bedroom and an ample living room space, in addition to a kitchen and dining table on the side. Tikaye is just a bedroom. Both have comparable porches, and lovely outdoor showers (you'll get addicted.) The kitchen at Stonefield was a plus for us - though we didn't do any real cooking, we had loaded up at WholeFoods before we came - and we were happy to have some meals at home to avoid eating out every single meal and to just relax longer in our cottage. The staff at Stonefield were also terrific in arranging for the Stonefield shuttle drivers to pick up basic groceries for us at Soufriere. Btw, Stonefield tends to attract some families with kids (I suspect the kitchen is a big draw for families) whereas Tikaye is almost exclusively couples (I think young kids are not allowed at Tikaye).

Access to beach: Tikaye's beach is right at the resort (OK, you have to climb down the steps), but Stonefield uses the Hilton beach for which you have to take the shuttle (and there are only 2 shuttles per day). This makes the Stonefield arrangement much less flexible - they should really have shuttles much more often or on demand. The Hilton beach is too far to walk unless you want a major workout, and not feasible if you're lugging beach stuff.

Quality of Beach/Snorkelling: Beach quality is excellent in both places (we're talking the Hilton beach near Stonefield, not the closer Malgetoute beach). The only slight downside to Tikaye is the number of tourist boats that arrive there, though they don't stay too long - we were more put off by the number of locals in boats yelling and carrying on at 6:30am on one of the days we were at Tikaye. Snorkelling is reasonably good at both places and similar to what we found at the Anse Chastanet beach that we also visited. I'd say that the snorkelling is superior to what you find in Mexico, but does not compare to what you'd find in the Red Sea or top locations in Asia.

Food: The food at Tikaye was excellent, particularly after the dismal quality of the food we experienced elsewhere. Even the beach bar at Tikaye was great. We only had dinner at Stonefield once (because they had theme dinners on the two other nights that we weren't interested in), and the quality was very mixed - a great callalou soup but absolutely inedible fish (a couple we got to know there said the same thing). We had lunch once at a recommended place in Soufrieres (it was called something like Fredo’s New Venture) - the Indian-inspired dishes were just OK, and the rest was poor. But the worst food experience by far was our dinner at Ladera one night - a mediocre buffet which cost us $150 for two people - the only extravagance was an ordinary bottle of wine we shared with another couple! Do avoid eating at Ladera - yes, the view is nice, but it's not worth it – and in any case you can’t see the view after dark. If you want great views with uncertain food, you can get it for much less at Stonefield!

Staff: The restaurant staff at Tikaye are extraordinary. After the rave reviews from tripadvisor guests, we were frankly bracing ourselves for in-your face rah-rah. But we were pleasantly surprised that the service was terrific and friendly but not forced. Stonefield staff are friendly and competent but laid back (the manager practically avoids you!).

Excursions: Our best excursion was a sunset cruise, which was absolutely gorgeous. We did an OK hike to the En Bas Saut waterfall: the hike through the “rainforest” down to the (very cold) waterfall and back up was ordinary compared to other rainforests we’ve been to. But the drive from Stonefield to the trailhead was quite interesting, and the overall excursion is a good change from the beach. The botanical gardens are worth a short trip (make sure to get a guide at the front entrance), as are the sulphur springs and cocoa plantation – nothing extraordinary, but again reasonable as a way to see something on the island other than the beach. The Friday fish fry at Anse La Raye that we did from Tikaye is very small and local – although there are a lot of tourists milling around, it still feels quite authentic with the big mamas behind the stoves and the teenagers preening around. We heard that the real music and dance action begins after the tourists get bused off around 10 pm. We also meant to check out the mountain biking next to Anse Chastanet but didn't feel up to it given the temperatures.

joan

Wow, it's nice to finally see a review of Stonefield Estates here on Fodor's. My husband and I rented a villa above the Pitons once, and I know what you mean about that "unrelenting beauty". Just awesome, wasn't it?

Suprised as heck that you didn't enjoy your meal at Ladera - that's the first time I've heard a negative about the place.

It sounds like you did not rent a car - did you? It does sound limiting to only have two shuttles a day to the beach. Would you have rented a car if you knew ahead of time about the "enclave" feeling of the two resorts? I know that we did, and running errands, getting groceries for the villa, shopping in Soufriere, etc, we felt very involved in the culture. I like that!

ctkathy

We had a wonderful dinner at Ladera, but it wasn't a buffet.

Having stayed at the Hilton, I felt a bit intruded upon by the various busses that dropped off folks from Stonefield and Ladera to take up space at the rather small beach. In February the Hilton was filled, then add to it all the other 'guests' and you can get the idea that it was cheek to jowl. Perhaps in the summer this wouldn't be such an issue.

floridadventurist

krishnan - That was most helpful. Thank you as my husband and i are escaping to St. Lucia in December and were thinking TiKaye might be a little isolated for us. We have also planned 3 nights at Ladera for the experience. Stonefield looks stunning and the packages are reasonable.
Is there a charge to snorkel at AC if you staye at
Stonefield?

Kaymit

I am so sorry you had a bad expereince with dinner at Ladera. My husband and I spent our honeymoon there a few years ago and just loved the food, including the buffet.

I just had a friend return from there from his honeymoon on my recommendation and he and his new wife just loved Ladera and the food as well at Dasheene. The only thing they didn't like was that they thought the service was slow (2 hours for dinner) but that is the Caribbean.

Maybe you just hit htem on an off night when the chief was off or sick???

krishnan

First, my apologies for the late reply - I was out of town for the last couple of weeks.

To floridaventurist: you do have to pay a charge at Anse Chastanet to use their snorkel equipment if you're not staying there (don't remember what it was, but I'd guess about $10-20 including the fee for the marine park), plus you have to pay for the water and/or land taxi to get to AC. Snorkelling at the Hilton is free for Stonefield guests. Overall, taxis and snorkelling fees etc. may seem a bit expensive, but they're very small compared to the costs of your room and board, so I'd just grin and bear it.

And my sympathies to ctkathy for the crowding of the Hilton beach by other hotel guests (although it wasn't overly crowded when we were there in end-March), but there's probably some business arrangement between the hotels. Also, we saw several locals using the beach as well, and I believe most of the beaches in St. Lucia are open to the public. Personally, I enjoyed seeing the local families frolic about, and more generally I think this is a good policy since it makes the beach less of an "enclave" - if I lived near a beach in the US, I certainly wouldn't want it fenced off for private use by a hotel. But as a tourist I can understand that you'd want to know this ahead of time so that you can calibrate your expectations and make your choices accordingly.

I'm glad that others have had good experiences eating at Ladera. But we're not the first to complain - I've seen several other negative reviews of the food (check out tripadvisor.com which, even as a dedicated fodorite, I think is worth looking at for its hotel reviews). I suspect that it's not so much that the food is truly awful, but that the quality of the food (sometimes? for foodies?) is pedestrian and does not live up to the prices.

And finally, in reply to joan, we did not have a car, because we had been put off by the reports on the poor roads - but they've recently repaved the road along the west coast from Hewanorra airport, so at least that road is in very good shape. On the other hand, roads like the one to Anse Chastanet and Tikaye are still terrible. But overall a car would certainly give more flexibility. In terms of whether the car would have alleviated the "enclave" feel, although we did do grocery shopping on our own, wander around town, have lunch with a local guy, etc., I agree that you're more likely to meet up with people when you're on your own (even getting lost could be an opportunity to do so!). And certainly renting a house like joan did would make it less enclave-ish than staying in a resort.

2trvl

ttt
ti kaye and stonefield villas in St. Lucia

Minooka1145

Just wanted to jump in and say that I stayed at Ti Kaye and just loved it! The food was fabulous and I felt like I could just hang out all day and be the vegetable I wanted to be on this vacation.

I was traveling alone and made many friends so never felt alone, unless I wanted to.

Now that I have a special someone I would love to go back with him and enjoy the isolation with him .