Marigot Beach Club & Dive Resort

I came to Saint Lucia to experience the fantastic scuba diving. Vanessa at the dive center treated me like family and set me up for a wonderful week of stunning diving. The wonderful staff of the beach club and especially at Doolittle Restaurant are the kindest most wonderful people you could have the luck to spend your vacation with. Fiona made sure that I was quickly signed in to a quite clean comfortable room. Soeria, Yolanda, Fiona and all the wonderful staff made my stay a one of a kind experience. Diving with Captain Andre and masters Dylan and Junior was great. I cannot stress enough the sense of warmth and kindness that the wonderful people of Saint Lucia brought to my one of a kind experience. Everyone and everything about Marigot Beach Club and Dive Resort is a 10 out of 10. Thank you to everyone! I hope to see you all very soon!

One doesn’t have a lot of choice when booking a last-minute holiday at the end of November for early January, especially when twin beds rather than a double are required. However, I would class our stay in a Firefly Studio at Marigot Beach Club & Dive Resort as “fair +”. Marigot is about 1 hr 20 mins drive from the International airport. Access to the Resort is via a ferry which is free for residents, but one must be sure to tell Reception if due to arrive or leave at night-time and allow “island time” for it to appear during the day. The room itself appeared recently decorated and the beds were comfortable, although the kitchen was rather sparsely equipped: there was only a bare minimum of cutlery, crockery and cooking utensils (after asking, unsuccessfully, for dessert bowls, we had to eat our breakfast cereal from large serving bowls!) The small shower room was more basic (one day the loo wouldn’t flush) but there was always hot water. Similarly, the free wi-fi was reliable. As we were well up the hillside (bear this and the steps in mind), we had a magnificent view over the bay from our terrace. It would have been useful if there had been written instructions for using the safe and TV in the room. Indeed, both our safe and telephone were faulty, requiring a number of staff call-outs and long periods without telephone contact with Reception. We would also have appreciated literature pertaining to the island eg how to get about (we only discovered there are (green licence plate) public (mini)buses on the island on our last day), local restaurants (not many!), comprehensive information about places to visit etc. Assistance from Reception was largely limited to making contact with agents responsible for the tours advertised on their wall, many of which were more suitable for youngsters (zip wires, tough hikes) or those inclined towards party boat trips. We were unlucky when we asked Reception to provide a taxi driver to provide a private day tour to the Soufriere area (Morne Coubaril Estate, Diamond Waterfall and Botanic Garden, Sulphur Springs “volcano drive through”) - Fred is best avoided but Samson (who did our runs back to the airport) was good. Marigot is at least an hour away from things to see, often on tortuous potholed roads. The island is not easy to get around without a rental car which also makes buying food provisions difficult. There is Pam’s Community Store about 15 minutes’ “slog” away, at the top of the steep hill opposite the Resort, and Promise Supermarket is another 15 minutes and another hill further, but they sell little other than basic dry goods and no alcohol. One needs to be able to drive to visit a “proper” supermarket like Massy’s. The Resort’s swimming pool is extremely small, as are the two private “beaches”; swimming/snorkelling in the bay is underwhelming. A heavy palm branch fell on me whilst I was on the beach, luckily deflected somewhat by a sun umbrella so that no major injury was sustained, but it could have been much worse. The Resort’s shop, gym, and spa were not open, massages could not be arranged, and despite being advertised on the boards, the restaurant’s specials nights did not occur. Luckily, we had more to fill our time as our main reason for visiting St Lucia was to do some scuba diving. We did this via Dive Fair Helen (DFH) who have a dive shop on the premises. Although the Resort website states that they do dive/accommodation packages, no details are given without emailing and there is no link to DFH from the Resort website; one has to search the internet and contact them separately to obtain information. One can also hire kayaks or book snorkelling trips at the dive shop.

We booked this place via the internet for an all inclusive day pass on as a cruise. The woman who checked us in was disinterested and did not know how to process the pass. We waited a half hour for her to figure out what to do with us. Also, calling this place a beach club is a stretch. There is a little beach with some tired old chairs. The environment on the whole is pretty and a lot of people were diving. The water was clear and there were cool fish so it could be great for that, but we were there for the day resort advertised on their site. The biggest failure, by far, was the service. We appeared to be turned over to the Doolittle’s restaurant for the all inclusive bit. We returned to the bar several times for beer and eventually our orders were filled. When it came time for lunch, they kept pushing back the time it would be open from 11:00, then to 12:00 and ultimately 12:30. When they finally begrudgingly seated us, they simply ignored us for about 30 minutes. Eventually, we just got up and left and found a taxi to return us to our ship for lunch. In the end, for a total cost of over $150, the two of us got three small beers each and a pair of 20 year old chairs on a public beach. We recommend others considering Marigot Beach Club pass on the day pass.