Marigot Bay Vacation apartment rental with beach/lake nearby, internet access, balcony/terrace and air con

Hi Neil, Many thanks for your lovely review, so pleased you enjoyed your time in Marigot Bay and our apartment. Thank you for taking the time to let us know.

Hi Jacob & Claire, Thank you so much for your detailed review, very pleased to hear you enjoyed your stay in our apartment and you loved St Lucia. Kind Regards Michelle.

Hi Kim, Hopefully I have responded to your points in the order you have raised them in your review. Unfortunately it has taken me a while to compose this response as to say I was upset by your review would be a serious understatement. Your views make you appear opposite to all our previous guests and visitors to the beautiful area of Marigot Bay. I have tried to respond to all of your points however I must draw the line where you refer to me as ‘Insane’ because we have some square shaped crockery and also the reference to the ‘Red light district’ due to the lighting. It should also be noted that you posted your first review on Trip Advisor shortly after your stay commenced, this was followed by a succession of personal emails which indicated your real reasons for posting your comments, prior to your final review on HomeAway (the site you had actually booked through) after you had left. I believe your comments are not only hurtful, inaccurate and misleading but are also in contravention to the review guidelines published by both Trip Advisor and HomeAway and I will be approaching both for your review to be removed. Yours, very sadly, Michelle. My response … Kim - The apartment is one of many apartments in this marina ‘shopping center’ and next to it is a cul-de-sac that is used as a taxi stand. So next door we have loud music and exhaust fumes coming from waiting taxis and also shouting taxi drivers. Sitting with an open window draws in all these Caribbean sounds and smells ;) therefore we rely on aircon. The balcony has the same problem. Me - There are a total of 12 apartments in the marina village of which approximately 6 are available for rental with the others being owner occupied. This does not constitute ‘many’. The Marina village is built in a courtyard arrangement and the apartments are positioned on the 1st and 2nd floors. On the ground floor there are a small number of shops consisting of a small supermarket, bank, jewellers, gift shop and a coffee shop/restaurant. There is a small single track road at the side of the marina village that stops at the bay. Across this road from the marina village are a small group of buildings that contain the police harbour masters offices, a taxi hut and a hair salon. During daylight hours there are usually a small number of taxis (2 or 3 in low season, 3 or 4 in high season) parked on the road waiting for clients, these normally have their engines switched off unless arriving or leaving. The taxi drivers wait in the hut where they usually play dominoes. The rare occasions we have ever heard music from the road is when they are washing the taxis and have the radio on. Our balcony is open air, therefore not air-conditioned, and is on the upper 2nd floor, with beautiful views of Marigot Bay and the Caribbean sea. When we use the apartment we constantly sit and dine out here and have never experienced any ‘unpleasant Caribbean sounds or smells’. We also have a fully enclosed air-conditioned downstairs dining area in the kitchen on the first floor which we only choose to use in the rare occasions that the weather is too bad to sit on the balcony. Kim - This brings us to the second problem. They offer the apartment with working aircon but during our 2 week stay (not finished yet) we twice had nonfunctioning aircons. Making it almost impossible to have lunch in the apartment. We leave the strong sun from 12:00 – 15:00 and eat in the apartment. Apparently there is a known issue with the aircon. The lady who is our contact person told us the problem started when they got a new neighbor (a bank). So why rent an apartment with aircon if you know it won’t work all the time? The first time we complained we heard that she was informed too late in the day and it couldn’t get fixed that day anymore (was fixed around 18:00). I actually told the onsite contact about this problem at 11:00. So how can this be too late? Now, on day 10, we got the same problem again. At 8:00 in the morning exactly the aircon stops and at 8:10 I have sent an e-mail. Then at about 10:00 the concierge comes over asking if it is the same problem as before. Duh, I already told the contact by mail. So his reaction is, ok we will call the aircon guy again. I doubt we will see him today, leaving us in a hot apartment again. Me - The apartment has 3 air-conditioning units, one large unit on the first floor kitchen/dining/lounge area and 2 further units in each of the bedrooms. Unfortunately immediately prior to this guests stay a problem developed with the large unit in the kitchen area, this was caused by some works being carried out in an adjoining unit. We immediately arranged for works to be carried out to hopefully fix the problem prior to the guests arrival. The problem appeared to be fixed and the guest arrived for his 3 week stay. Unfortunately after a few days the unit failed and the engineer was called and arrived to fix the problem on the same day as notified. All was well until day 10 when a further problem developed with the air-con unit. At this time it was discovered that the fault was due to a damaged pipe in the loft space which would require removal of part of the ceiling to make a full repair which was not possible with guests in situ. The guests were advised of this situation and were offered alternative accommodation however they declined. A further temporary fix of the air-con unit was carried out which lasted until the end of the guests stay. As soon as the apartment was empty the air-con unit was replaced with new and has function correctly without fail since. In summary the guest had 2 days without air-conditioning in one room, throughout this period the 2 bedroom units were un-affected. Kim - Another thing they advertise is good internet access. Well, once we got here, we got informed that internet access is a problem. The only place we get access is in the upstairs bedroom. For me, as a business owner, it’s important to have e-mail access all day. Now I am confined to the bedroom to do my business. Me - We ourselves are business owners and rely on internet access when staying in our apartment. The wireless internet is provided by the Marina Village and is usually acceptable but can be variable particularly in bad weather. There are parts of the apartment where the signal is better than others and the upstairs areas i.e. bedrooms and balcony seem to have the strongest signal. If there are any issues then the coffee shop downstairs always seems to have good signal strength as does the neighbouring hotel where you have use of the facilities. Mobile phone coverage is good so tethering is always an option. Kim - The beds in the apartment are very hard. This is more a matter of preference so I will not call this a flaw. But the beds are very rickety and noisy. One of them looks like it may break down any day now. Me - The mattresses for the beds were chosen to be mid-firmness which we were advised was most preferable when a mix of clients are using the apartment. Ourselves and our children have slept on all the beds and find them perfectly comfortable. With regards to the beds being rickety and noisy, one is a four poster bed and the others are 2 double divans, quite different. All beds were new 5 years ago and have had significantly less use than a normal household bed. Kim - Another big nuisance is the lighting. Powers saving bulbs are used throughout the apartment and because the light has a really cold color temperature the owner decided to have some red bulbs in certain fittings. There is one above our dinner table, so every night our entire dinner looks red. Ugh! Me - This has nothing to do with power saving bulbs. There are 3 apartment blocks down each side of the marina village and the outside of each is painted in a different shade of Caribbean colour, yellow, pink and blue. Our building is pink and as a decorative feature and to enhance the look of the apartment at night, 3 pink bulbs were installed in the first floor room. All other lighting is the normal white. Replacement white bulbs are available in the apartment if the guest wished to change them. Kim - We eventually had 4 day's without aircon, we made complaints to the owner, but we didn't get any response. Very bad service!! Me - This is incorrect. The lady who manages our apartment, Nina, lives on-site in Marigot Bay and had almost daily conversations and several visits with this guest. Allowing for the time difference of 6 hours, Nina liased between ourselves and the guest on a daily basis with regard to his requests. We also had direct email communication with him over certain points.