Jill: I don't think it ever gets "cold" at Ladera. We were there in November and my boyfriend never even felt like he needed long sleeves. I tend to be chillier than he is, and there were only one or two evenings when I wore a lightweight (silk knit) sweater at dinner. You don't need heavy jackets at all. We did bring lightweight windbreaker/rainjackets and I only wore mine once during a brief shower for about 10 minutes; my boyfriend never wore his. <BR> <BR>If you leave lights on at night they will attract moths; it's no big deal, just don't leave the lights on when you don't need them. We left the lights off when we weren't in the room at night, and when we were in the room at night we still didn't use the lights that much. We brought a couple of tiny "tea light" candles which were nice. We also found that with all the lights off we could see an incredible number of stars on cloudless nights. <BR> <BR>It's about a 15 minute ride to the beach at Jalousie, and maybe a little longer to Anse because you have to ride to the dock and then take a water shuttle from there (all free). When we were there, they had 3 shuttles to & from Jalousie each day (morning, noon, late afternoon) and 2 each day to Anse Chastanet. It's not a bus, just a van. They will bring snorkeling equipment for you too if you tell them you want to snorkel. Chairs are provided for both places & you bring the beach towels Ladera provides. If you want to go to the beach at a time before or after a shuttle, the front desk will call you a taxi which doesn't cost that much. <BR> <BR>There really aren't any other places to eat within walking distance of Ladera. You COULD walk into the town of Soufriere where most of the restaurants are (in the daytime anyway) if you wanted to, but it would be a VERY long walk. Walking back would be incredibly difficult because it would be all uphill. There is a restaurant that is walking distance from the Jalousie Hilton, called Bang, and we enjoyed their food a lot (and Piton beers were very cheap there too!). After dark (the sun sets around 6) you really don't want to be walking around anywhere because there are no lights on the roads and it would be dangerous (I don't mean because of crime, I mean because of blind curves in the roads so drivers couldn't see you walking). Even walking the roads in the daytime, which we did a couple of times, isn't the safest thing to do -- most of the roads are narrow and they don't really have any shoulder, so if a car comes (and people there seem to drive really fast), you have to get off the road quickly and stand in the bushes until it passes. There are quite a few good restaurants in or near Soufriere, which is a short taxi ride from Ladera. We liked the Hummingbird, Bang, and also ate dinner at Jalousie Hilton which was good. Heard good things about two other restaurants in Soufriere: Captain Hook's and Camilla's. Our favorite was Dasheene at Ladera though.

Lisa, did you do the meal plan at Dasheene? Can you do it just for one or two meals? We would like to do Bang, Hummingbird, maybe Captain Hooks while we are there, but I also want to eat at Dasheene a couple times and not pay attention to the prices. <BR> <BR>Did you do a horseback ride through the rain forest? Thanks.

Jeff, <BR> <BR>I got the meal plan at the Dashene. For $48 per person, you go soup, salad, appetizer, main course, and desert. Then on the romance package, we got a bottle of wine free with each dinner. We loved the Dashene, we just did not want to have to get a taxi to go elsewhere. Other people we met went to the Bang and other places, but we just loved to eat at the Dashene. Amazing food. If you go, try the Rasta Pasta with jerk chicken and cream sauce. <BR> <BR>We also went horseback riding on

I will finish....sorry <BR> <BR>We went horsback riding on old plantation. We only went for an hour, but was very fun.

Jeff, no we did not get the meal plan. For us we decided it was not worth it because we would not have gotten our money's worth -- we rarely order appetizers or dessert. Sometimes we might split an appetizer or salad and then each order an entree and a glass of wine. I don't think our bill was ever over $60 total in the 4 meals we ate at Dasheene. But if you were going to order all the courses then the meal plan is probably worth it. I have no idea if they would let you do a few days of the meal plan but I bet they probably would -- just ask.