St. Vincent and the Grenadines
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St. Vincent and The Grenadines are comprised of 32 islands and cays near the country of Grenada. The largest island is St. Vincent. Because of its volcanic origin, it has a very rugged and mountainous terrain. St. Vincent is known for its lush forests and uncluttered beaches. The Grenadines includes Bequia, Canouan, Mustique and Union, and a group of smaller (many unpopulated) islands.
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Places to Stay
BeachCombers Hotel
We spent two nights on St. Vincent and we stayed at the Beachcomber Hotel in Villa Beach. The room was nice enough, but the kitchen and bathroom were lacking. We also had no hot water. Beachcombers is a nice enough place to stay for a few nights, but I wouldn't spend an entire week there. |
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We stayed in a "deluxe" room (room 19) which is one of the few rooms with a view. The unit shared a porch with two other units. |
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The view was awesome from Room 19. We really enjoyed the scenic beauty from our porch. The continental breakfast was pretty bad. No coffee. I've never seen a continental breakfast where coffee was not out for the guests. |
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Our unit had a kitchen. It was pretty minimal in its supplies. The property also has a nice little pool which overlooks Young Island. A wedding was in progress while we were there, so one night we couldn't use the pool or restaurant area. |
The grounds at Beachcomber were also nicely landscaped. But will we return to Beachcombers? Probably not. We had no hot water. When we turned on the hot water a trickle came out of the faucet. We told the front desk and nothing was ever done about it, so we would not return to Beachcombers, although it is really in a great location. |
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Kingstown, St. Vincent
Kingstown is the major port of St. Vincent. Kingstown is NOT set up for tourism. We walked around on a Saturday and there were very few tourists. That said, you won't run into people that go out of their way to be nice. |
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There wasn't much to see or do downtown except for walk around. The shopping was very limited. |
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We had lunch at Basil's. (Basil runs a famous place on Mustique). The food and drinks were very good. It was air conditioned. We highly recommend Basil's! |
Villa Beach, St. Vincent
Villa Beach is one of the nicer parts of St. Vincent. Along the beach are numerous low-rise hotels. When we were there in February the beach was not that crowded. The sand was nice and the waves were very calm. |
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Across from Villa Beach is Young Island. This makes for a very picturesque setting. |
Young Island is where Johnny Depp and the cast of The Pirates of the Caribbean stayed while filming. We didn't have time to visit, but there is a free shuttle boat that will take you over if you like. |
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St. Vincent was a very tropical island. It reminded us of St. Lucia with it's greenery and wildlife. |
Carroll's St. Vincent Blog
Feb 10, Friday (We started Friday on Bequia)
Today is moving day. We packed our belongings and then hung out on the veranda and finished reading our books. We then ate our final Bequia lunch at Keegan's. Dave had the Shark Burger and I had a Cheeseburger and fries. The price was very reasonable ($44 EC)
Lancy was right on time in picking us up. We took the 2:00 PM ferry to St. Vincent. We were met by John, a taxi driver, who took us to the BeachComber on St. Vincent. At first glance the hotel is quite nice. We were in room 19. The view was awesome! It had a small kitchenette and a basic room. The unit had air conditioning, TV, etc. The only hang up was the lack of adequate linens and hot water. There was also going to be a wedding at the hotel on Saturday, so they told us that the bar and restaurant was going to be closed to all others.
We ate dinner at Sunset Shores. Dave had the grilled fish of the day (Mahi Mahi), and I had the Shrimps in Tomato/Basil sauce. Both meals were very good. They came with rice, potatoes, plantains, and Christophe (a type of squash). Our meals and a few beers each ran $150 EC.
Feb 11, Saturday
A cold shower started our day! We had the continental breakfast at the hotel. It wasn't that good. No coffee!
At about 10 AM we decided to take the bus to Kingstown. The fare was $1 EC. The "bus" was actually a mini-van. The music was blaring and they crowded as many people on the bus as possible.... 18 to be exact, plus the driver and fare taker. The driver drove like a "bat out of hell". We were deposited in downtown Kingstown.
It was quite busy today. It seemed to be market day for the locals. People were on the street selling veggies, eggs and the fish market was open. We traipsed around for a while and then stopped at Basil's II for lunch. Dave had a tuna sandwich and I had a bacon cheeseburger and we split the fries. We had a few awesome rum punches. Best rum punches we have had. Total bill was $75 EC.
We took a taxi back to the BeachComber. (No more buses for us) We spent the rest of the day on the beach.
At 6:30 we had reservations at the Lime Pub and Grill for dinner. We had salad and pizza for two. ($150 EC) The pizza was excellent. We even had enough left over for breakfast.
Feb 12, Sunday
We slept in and then killed time in our room until 9:45 AM. We had plenty of time to pack. We then checked out and waited for our taxi to arrive. He was supposed to pick us up at 10 AM. At 10:15 the girl at the front desk called him and he said he was coming. She got a laugh at his business card because it said "courteous, punctual, and reliable". At 10:25 she called a different taxi for us. We were at the airport by 10:40. Check in was painless. We stopped at the airport gift shop and bought some woven placemats. ($25 USD for 6 of them) The girl said that her sister in law actually made them.
The flight to Barbados only took about 30 minutes. Click here for the Barbados Blog
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