Swimmer50

We have a trip planned to St. Thomas in March. We (my husband and two kids, ages 18 and 15) are looking for a two bedroom condo/resort type unit right on the beach. I have narrowed the choices down to Elysian and Secret Habour, with the cost difference for the 9 nights we are staying coming in around $1900.0. It sounds like the beach area at Secret Harbour is nicer, but we don't get the chance to choose our particular unit, and would prefer to be 2nd or 3rd level with an updated unit. I have not asked to see if they honor room requests. Pool at Elysian looks nicer, and we usually spend some time in the pool, but beach is not as nice? And with Elysian, we will use VRBO. We will have a rental car and may drive to some other beaches also, but I still would like a nice swimming beach outside of our room area. Restaurants, tennis, location all seem to be about the same. Can anyone share additional information about the two places? Or has anyone stayed at both recently? The price difference seems significant, so I am wondering if that is also an indication of quality or is Elysian just a great bargain?

amer_can

Depends on where in the Elysian you are located..All units are up the hill from the beach area, pool and restaurants (2). All the units are up and away from the amenities. Same with Cowpet Bay next door. Secret Harbor is pretty much alone and without the closeness to the Ritz for a special lunch or?? It is located lower and closer to the water and with very lovely surroundings, smaller than Ely. Can't remember a pool but I'm sure there is one. Which one is less $$$? I do lknow we had resv. at Ely. and when we arrived they had some foul up and we were sent to Blackbeards..OK but not what we wanted at all. So never again. We have stayed several times at Cowpet and liked it very much.Can't imagine the price being so different unless the owners of the unit are scrambling for rental income. But you are right $1900 is significant. BTW there is nothing the matter with the beach area at Ely. You share the beach, which is fairly large, with Cowpet people. be careful where you go for another beach as there was some trouble at Coki last year with baddies!!

eastenderusvi

There are two restaurants at each, all are operated by the same corporate group and have basically the same menus. One is a beach bar and one is "fine" dining.

Secret Harbour has a triple diamond rating with AAA. That means all units have to meet minimum requirements. There are units on the beach and also on the hill. The pool is in between.

virginia

i have stayed at sh twice & love it. their beach is raked nightly & loungers put back in place. there is really good snorkeling off the right hand side of the beach & out in the middle of the bay. it is in a very large cove so almost never has any big waves - thus nice for swimming & snorkeling. has dive shop on site.
we were there before the restaurants changed hands but they've added beach service so that is nice. the beach bar has a fun atmosphere.
you will want a rental car at either location.
the units are well maintained & quite large. the views are nice & each has a good sized balcony or porch.
as i recall they do not take specific room requests but on 2nd visit i did make a room request which they said they could not promise, but which they did honor anyway.
not sure why the price difference is so great but think i would go back to sh anyway.
sh pool is not fancy. we only used it a couple times at night after coming back from dinner. i don't play tennis anymore so cant speak for the courts.
looking at Elysian's page it appears they only have 1 bedroom units where sh offer 2bdrm - one of which will have 2 beds. each will have it's own bathroom.

Jimmie

SH is significantly nicer, but I don't think it's $1900 nicer, especially if you have a car and can visit other beaches. The SH pool is nothing to write home about -- we went last August and it was actually kind of cloudy and gross on that day.

How about splitting the time between the two -- like five nights Ely and four nights SH? You've got the car, and they are just down the road from one another.