Please help. We stayed at Caneel Bay and LOVED the natural beauty, peacefulness, calm waters, snorkeling, scale of the rooms, no TV etc... Any recommendations for another island with similar ambiance, maybe a bit more in terms of cultural flavor....?

Caneel's snorkeling is what is hard to reproduce. Petit St.Vincent in the Grenadines is a private island resort with the attributes of Caneel, but nothing else on the little island. Grenada is lush, beautiful, with a local culture of both British and French heritage. Laluna is a small upscale resort there. And Martinique is a physically beautiful island too, and is a Department of France, with good roads, French social services, etc. Barbados, while well-developed, has resorts such as the charming Coral Reef Club, which is a quiet plantation-style resort on the beach in gorgeous gardens. On the wonderful island of Barbados there is a vibrant British-Caribbean culture--lovely people, lots of history, sightseeing. Barbados is heavily built-up around Bridgetown, but get out into the countryside and you'll have the mostly unspoiled Caribbean.

I would definitely pick St. John over Barbados....the snorkeling is some of the best in the world, a multitude of lovely crecent shaped, white sand beaches and crystal clear water with brilliant hues of blue.
Cruz Bay is your quintessential small island harbor town with wonderful boutiques and wonderful restaurants. I feel like we are going "home" each time we return.
We lived on Barbados many years ago...our first child, Melissa was actually born there. ......I'm sure it is also very beautiful, but St. John has won my heart.

"natural beauty, peacefulness, calm waters, snorkeling, scale of the rooms, no TV etc"

bora bora, moorea, yasawa islands (fiji), aitutaki (cook islands)

seriously though, in the caribbean, i'm looking at the following after recently visiting caneel bay:
guana island or peter island (bvi's)
petit st vincent
great from-shore snorkeling is a must for me as well

Thank you so much for your responses. I will look into all the suggestions and get back.

Have you thought about Caneel's sister property, Little Dix Bay on Virgin Gorda. The islands are similar in ambiance, but Virgin Gorda is British and more remote so IMO maintains a higher level of the Caribbean/West Indian culture.

I've been looking at this forum for a while gathering info for my August trip and I saw this post and had to register to apply. We'll be staying at Caneel for 3 days to start our trip and then renting a villa on Coral Bay. I can't speak from experience in St. John because this is my first trip, however from what I read you should check out the Kona Village Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii. I stayed there for a week 2 years ago and it really is heaven on earth. Pricey but worth every dime. No phones, No TVs and an amazingly tranquil setting. Check it out.

Check out Stonefield Villas on St. Lucia.

www.stonefieldvillas.com

Also, for any place you look into, check it out on tripadvisor first-it's very helpful seeing the candid photos to get the real scoop. We stayed at stonefield and loved it (no tv's, peaceful, etc), and there's lots to do on St. Lucia too.

Petit St. Vincent has ambience (no T.V.'s as of 2004 our last visit) that actually exceeds Caneel but the food is nowhere near Caneel even though Caneel is not what it was in the 1980's and 1990's until 1996-99 when it began slipping then it it bottom in 2004 and has consistently improved based on 1 visit we made and trips several trips 4-5 couples we went with several times in the 1990's who are good judges of food, in our opinion. But PSV ( no T.V's as of 2005) has Tobago Caye where the snorkeling exceeds Caneel but it is a 20+ minute trip away and generally we went 2 times in a one week stay. The local snorkeling was good but not as good as Caneel. Also, PSV does not have A/C but the cottages on the beach (request one) are cool with breeze but we went in Nov., Feb. April and May. It may be a little warm in August. Little Dix Bay as mentioned earlier is lovely and the food is better than Caneel in our opinion but it has 100 rooms but spread out so it does NOT seem crowded.
The snorkeling though is not good except at the Baths which is worth 1 visit but due to coral bleaching the coral is dead or dying and the number of fish, sea fans, sponges and sea anenomes has deminished substantially over the past 5 years. We have not visited Barbados or St. Lucia in 7-8 years but the snorkeling was not very good even then and it likely is not better now though both islands are lush and both have a number of good hotels and restaurants were available to us when we went. Since snorkeling is so important to us we have not returned and would not return to the British Virgin Islands either for that rerason.
Hope some of this helps you.

As a many time well pleased guest at Caneel, I recently experienced my first stay At Little Dix. I was delighted with my experience there.

While the off shore snorkeling there was not comparable to Caneel's, the no extra charge beach drops more than compensated for it. At a time of your choosing, a small boat will wisk you away to one of many beaches of your choosing. It was a wondeful experience, and I felt like I was treated like royalty.

Both resorts are similar, but different in their own uniqueness.

Although I love my beachfront room at Caneel, I felt my Premioum Ocean View room at Little Dix to be prettier.

This November, I am planning to do a combo of both, where Caneel's ferry will take me to Little Dix, and Little Dix will arrange for air taxi service to the St. Thomas airport.

We used to do the Caneeel/Little Dix spit and totally enjoyed it but I did visit this March and was overwhelmed by the "growth" of Little Dix and the amount of people - especially families with kids but might have been Spring Break time but Virgin Gorda does remain one of my favortie islands with so many nearby places for okay snorkeling altho that is not one of my priorites now. Biras has complimentary Boston Whalers so you can head out on your own in North Sound to little private spots. When at PSV, there was only one boat that took you to the Tabago Cays, and it was not inexpensive, but when we arrived we were very disappointed to find that it was fully booked the entire time and they were not interested in suggesting other arrangements. It would have been nice to know in advance so that one could make plans but not sure that I would have been happy making arrangements months prior. Also we fournd that to say that PSV's food is not comparable to Caneel's (or many other places) is a huge understatement!
Have friends who snorkeled Oil Nut and a couple of others on Virgin Gorda recently and said that it was enjoyable but not sure how "in" to great snorkeling they are.

I think Little Dix Bay would be a great choice. My husband and I loved the beach drops and experienced some wonderful snorkeling (it topped what we had experienced in two trips to St. John). The food at the resort was good. We love the exotic feel of Virgin Gorda. I have a review and pictures from our trip in December in an old post if you're interested.

Here's another vote to say skip PSV. We found the food there to be way below average. The only thing that changed on the menu each evening were the descriptions - it was the same dishes - rack of lamb or roast chicken breast on Monday, lamb chops or baked chicken breast on Tuesday, medallions of lamb or chicken cutlets on Wednesday - you get the picture. All the meals tasted like they were cooked at 5PM and held in a warming drawer until they were served at 8PM. Staff was as cold and unfriendly as could be - I'm sure they got that attitude from the owner/manager who over our 10 day stay never ever acknowledged us with a nod when we passed them on the pathways. The only time he ever said so much as a word was to say a brief hello at the weekly manager's cocktail party. All in all our stay there was a big disappointment and we have no plans to return. There are just too many better places to visit.

On the other hand we found Little Dix Bay to be among the finest resorts in the Caribbean. We've been there multiple times and have always enjoyed our stays. Very good food, terrific location, very attentive and friendly service.

You might also consider Peter Island resort in the BVI which is more couples oriented than Little Dix which IS now a popular family destination year around.

Peter Island also has two gorgeous beaches, plus the one at the spa. We just returned from a visit and the cuisine was better than ever before (two restaurants), service was perfect, and it was one of the most enjoyable stays we've had there in years.

Several couples reported good snorkeling on the far end of White Bay Beach.