Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Cap Juluca or Cove Castles?

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Many of the hotels have beautiful pools-Frangipani has a new pool, CuisinArt, Cap Juluca, Malliouhana, Sonesta. I cannot think of any hotel that has a swim up bar. I found a new web site www.debbiescaribbeanresortreviews.com/ It is new, but go to Anguilla, there is a poster named Howard that gives an excellent review of Frangipani and Shoal Bay. Hope this helps.

Just saw the show about Anguilla on the Food Network last night. The show was very informative and we are SO excited about our upcoming trip! We will be staying at Sonesta--it was featured and it looked wonderful for the price, compared to other hotels. Does anyone know which "gardenview" room would be the best to request? I heard you can see the ocean from some.

Cheri I am glad you sre excited. The Sonesta looked great. I did notice in all filming locations it was very windy. The water in Island Harbor was choppy. I could not get over how great Dune Preserve looked-pre Lenny it was on a higher Dune, climbing a less secure looking ladder. Scilly Cay is exactly as shown-owners always there-I think the rum punch is more rum than the receipe indicated. Have fun. We arer going again the end of March.

Dear Cheri - We just returned from vaca at Sonesta. We were in a deluxe garden room with a partial ocean view and it was lovely (234) The Sonesta was great from our point of view. We are in our mid 50s and I would say most of the couples were our age, altho several younger. The pool area was never crowded and the breeze was very nice - never a problem. You will probably have to go elsewhere for watersports, but with the island being only 3 miles wide - no problem!! There was no band to wake you up from your nap and nobody trying to get you to play volleyball! We did visit Cap and CuisinArt and it had a very differnt atmosphere. For the $$ we would go back to Anguilla and stay again at the Sonesta. The staff was very accommodating as well. Enjoy!! Jane

Jane, Thanks very much for the great info! I've been trying to find out which room we should request for about a month so I really appreciate it. What other restaurants on the island did you try and were the breakfasts good at Sonesta? I heard that the hotel is newly renovated. Is that true? We are not into water sports and will just be looking for wonderful beaches, so I'm sure we'll be in heaven in Anguilla! Any info you can provide is much appreciated.

Dear Cheri - We ate at Olivers, Mangos, Blanchards, Straw Hat, Trattoria (we were craving some pasta), Tastys, Smokeys and Ici. The less impressive meal was at Straw Hat which is supposedly a good resturant. Ici was OK and we ate there the last nite so we could pack, etc. We had the concierge make our dinner reservations. I might suggest you ask her (Carol) to try to get you a table by the water if you go to Olivers, Mangos or Straw Hat. I don't know about the hotel being recently refurbished. We had a deluxe room and it had a king bed, bath and small sitting room which is where the TV is located. I read somewhere to request a roman tub, which we had, but it was a large step into the tub which has an enclosed shower and no jacuzzi jets in the tub. The bathroom was on the small size. We did rent a car for 3 days and drove to different areas of the island Those days we got reservations at the resturants which were further away from our hotel. We ate the breakfast buffet every day. It was $20/pp for a full breakfast, $15/pp for continental.We didn'g get room service breakfast, but it was available. The room where they serve breakfast is very comfortable and relaxing and we enjoyed sitting there as well!! There is really no other place to walk to for breakfast. Smokeys is closeby if you want a change of pace for lunch or dinner. Actually we didn't eat too many lunches after eating the breakfast buffet. Hope this helps!! Jane

Jane - Thanks again for responding. We were planning to rent a car for our time there as we'd heard you need one if you want to really see the island. I did have some other questions about the room (since I have called and requested it). What floor was it on and how much of an ocean view did you have? Did it have a balconey or terrace? Again, thanks!

Just read the thread since I had read none of it before and found it sooo interesting since we were on Anguilla in December. We too ate at Olivers, Mangos, Santorini at CuisinArt (our "worst"), Blanchard's and found that we liked Straw Hat the best! We lunched at Pimms and Mouillahana and both were outstanding! I really wish that I had gone to the Dune Preserve - it was right next door from CuisinArt and we didn't even take a peek! That's a definate for next time!!!

Every time we go we have a new favorite. We love seafood, especially the local snapper, and lobster and crayfish. This last Novemnber we had excellent meals at Mangos, Blanchards, Santorini, Koal Keel, Trattoria, Pimms and Hibernia. Koal Keel was closed for almost a year, it is in a old plantion house,wonderful food and a different ambbience for Anguilla. This time our top meal was at Malliouhana. Scilly Cay is our favorite spot for people watching, enjoying, rum drinking and the lobster. Each one of you will have your own favorite! Lots and lots of choices. Enjoy!