E'RE just back from St. Lucia and have a few things on our mind. Chiefly, are traffic jams now just a given in the Caribbean? In the last few months we've visited Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Aruba and Grand Cayman and suffered through traffic imbroglios on each. The tie-ups we just experienced on St. Lucia were particularly bad. Mind you, on St. Lucia this is not the case of road construction or clogs for some special event, but genuine gridlock lived out each day at rush hour, on the main road between Castries and Rodney Bay, St. Lucia's two principal areas of commerce, residence and tourism. From chats with locals, we hear that provoking the dilemma is the government's allowing cheap used cars from Japan on the island (as many as a hundred each month), and that St. Lucians who previously couldn't afford their own transport are buying up the vehicles as fast as they arrive. So, who's the real beneficiary? The government, which is raking in an import duty fee of 100% per car. We don't argue with the right of St. Lucians to own a car - and, as we said, this is an increasing problem on a number of islands - but as far as this destination's appeal for visitors, these status symbols may become the goose that killed the golden egg. On the road front, note that the island has a gleaming new highway for a couple miles south of Castries that everyone calls the Millennium Highway, while the road between Soufrière and Hewanorra airport continues to deteriorate miserably.
As long as we're bitching, let it be said that R&R also doesn't enjoy the racket of helicopter flights in and out of the Soufrière area. The leading culprit is the Jalousie Hilton, which sits smack between St. Lucia's spectacular Pitons. The hotel built a landing pad so that its guests had an alternative to the long (60 minutes and up) transfer via wriggling roads from either of the island's two airports to the Soufrière area. During our visit, the whacka-whacka of blades chopped through this edenic setting once or twice an hour. Is nothing sacred? Can we give our support to the guest who suggested that each room at Ladera - the wonderful resort that overlooks Jalousie and the helicopter flight path - be equipped with a grenade launcher? (Just kidding!)
On a more positive note, the real reason we zipped through St. Lucia was to sample the goods on offer at the spanking new Hyatt Regency, which opened in April on the manmade isthmus next to Pigeon Island, just north of Gros Islet. The 284-room hotel is the first to be built on the island in years, and it was awarded the AAA Four Diamond Award only a few weeks after opening its doors. Our thoughts? Well, we hoped for something swanky and lush, like Hyatt Regency's fab Kaua'i resort, but the St. Lucia property is much more straightforward, and does little to break new ground. That said, the St. Lucia hotel sits on a wide stretch of good, calm beach, and behind it is an expansive tropical pool - a two-level, free-form lagoon. All of the rooms are identical, and priced according to view. There is also a category of rooms that have private lanias (patios) that open onto a separate pool. These rooms are identical to the standard pool view rooms, but the perk here (priced $150 a night extra in high season) is that you can step right from your patio into the water. Nice, but worth it only if you're the type that likes to spend a lot of time at the resort, and in the pool.
There are three restaurants at the Hyatt Regency St. Lucia, and the meal we had at the indoor venue called Admiral Rodney's was excellent. The menu here is different than most: it's organized around the travels of the British Admiral - so there's a section devoted to his trip to India (the restaurant has a tandoor oven!), and Asia and the Caribbean. We found the seafood and naan (Indian bread) delicious - Admiral Rodney's is definitely worth a visit if you're staying at any resort in the Rodney Bay area. A chief component of the Hyatt Regency is a huge casino, which is built and but still awaits occupation - government leaders have delayed signing off on the permits for the casino license. We don't think the casino adds anything to this resort - in fact it may detract from the hotel and the island - but the Hyatt Regency folks are getting very anxious about obtaining the license since this is expected to generate a large share of the revenue at the property. Rates at the Hyatt Regency are WICKED PRICEY, but the hotel is discounting aggressively to get rooms filled before high season and right now you can snag a double for as little as $112.50 a night.
Immediately next door to the new Hyatt Regency is the site of St. Lucia's future Rosewood resort, or at least the carved-out lagoon and barest outline of a foundation for it. Little exists of the structure yet, but this promises to be a very different resort for the region, designed much like gorgeous South Pacific hotels, with huts built on stilts over the water. This may set a new trend for the Caribbean, but one detail seems very out-of-place with the usual Rosewood operations: unlike the carefully sequestered and private settings Rosewood enjoys at Little Dix Bay and Caneel Bay in the Virgins, the St. Lucia property will be literally cheek-by-jowl with the Hyatt Regency. It's scheduled to open in late 2001.
PEAKING of Rosewood, the company has had a bumpy ride getting their new Martineau Bay property open in Vieques, the little developed island off Puerto Rico (Rosewood has begun calling Vieques one of the Spanish Virgin Islands which, while correct, is better than referring to the island as a U.S. Navy Bombing Range). The resort, as you may recall, was scheduled to open in late 1999, but its debut was pushed to spring, and then fall 2000 - the old standby of "construction delays" being the excuse. After Rosewood announced a "first quarter, 2001" opening date, word came from the hotel's developer that Rosewood had been kicked out as managers, due to the aforementioned problems. Now, we are told, Rosewood is officially back in and the hotel will open in December. Coming from the company that runs Caneel Bay and Little Dix Bay in those other Virgins, we're anxious to see how this resort lives up to its esteemed siblings. For the latest on the Vieques bombing issues, the Navy's official site can be found at http://ww.navyvieques.navy.mil. The opposition can be heard at: http://www.viequeslibre.org.
RENADA'S Spice Island Beach Resort is closed for a six-month expansion and renovation. The $4 million project will add a swimming pool (the resort has never had one for everyone, only the private plunge pools in six individual suites), 12 additional rooms, a fitness center and health spa, and shopping boutiques. The 16 whirlpool beach suites and private pool suites will be upgraded with new furnishings and décor, while the central dining room, bar, terrace and reception area will be demolished and redesigned. Spice Island is scheduled to reopen on November 1 and we can hardly wait to see the improvements at one of our favorite spots. Reservations: (473) 444-4258.
K, not all this month's news is about resorts. Here's one of the choicer bits of gossip we've stumbled onto lately. Antigua has been experimenting with e-commerce, though don't confuse it with anything like Amazon or its ilk. Instead, the island has become home to a company that creates on-line gaming sites, channeling lots of money into the ether of offshore bank accounts. But also, a couple years ago, a Brit porn starlet named Amber arrived in Antigua and began baring her assets to one and all on a site hosted on Antigua. The government turned a blind eye, until a few weeks ago, when the London Observer ran a story about Amber's host country and how the site was just a money-laundering front. Antigua quickly shut down the site and deported Amber and her four colleagues (by the way, Amber claims she's 19 on the site, but those in the know say she's at least 22). While we're on the subject, we just noticed recently how a number of teleporn ads list phone numbers starting with the familiar area code (473), along with that of a few others. Our understanding is that these operations get a share of the long-distance proceeds generated (on top of whatever charges the caller bills to their credit card), so which government do you think doesn't mind being linked to the ad headlined "Come Swing With Me"? For that matter, what do the citizens of (767) and (268) think of their ‘undercovers’ industry?
S summer winds to a close and hurricane season heats up to full force, there aren't many festivals on the schedule, but one to watch out for is in the Festival de Las Americas 2000, October 5-7, in Aruba, of all places. Salsa, merengue and cumbia will be performed by top Latin performers from the Caribbean and the Americas, including Carlos Vives, Olga Tañon, Danny Riviera and Tito Rojas.
E'RE headed to Martinique, Guadeloupe and Marie-Galante next month and will share the latest on those delightful French islands on return. Until then, how about a nice ti punch?
