If a hotel operator would like to win my heart, absolutely give me a home that arrives with its personal cat.
Tommy the cat does not essentially belong to the Sand Castle on the Beach front resort in St. Croix: he’s genuinely a resident of the Cottages by the Sea lodge, subsequent door. But considering that he’s a cat he truly does not regard boundaries, so when we checked into our Sea Perspective Suite, Tommy was there to greet us, curled up on a chair on the semi-enclosed patio. Later, he would discover his way inside of and be sleeping on the mattress when we returned to the area. Awww, kitty!
I know cats are not everyone’s meow, but to me, Tommy was the great ambassador for Sand Castle: heat, acquainted, and just a touch sassy, much too. Owned and operated by Chris Richardson and Ted Bedwell, Sand Castle has designed a standing as one of the most LBGTQ-welcoming resorts in the Caribbean.
The optimistic vibe starts off with the omnipresent entrepreneurs. Despite the fact that Sand Castle is big sufficient to slip into impersonal company, with 25 rooms located both beachfront and across the street, that by no means looks to materialize. In reality, each individual time I’ve visited this Fredriksted lodge, I’ve been individually greeted by Chris and Ted, who not only get a keen fascination in their attendees but appear to have a second perception about when anyone new has dropped by.
The couple, a previous hairdresser and flight attendant, acquired the hotel alongside with partner Dan Metzger on New Year’s Eve four years in the past, but their baptism in hospitality has been just about anything but a occasion as St. Croix has been battered in latest years by Hurricane Maria and of system the pandemic. “We’ve never ever had a normal 12 months,” says Chris, “but we’re however living our desire.”
Sand Castle is the furthest point from a cookie-cutter vacation resort, with its two-dozen visitor rooms sorted into five space groups. Whitewashed properties and LED lights that glow to everyday living after dark give the lodge a thoroughly clean, modern really feel that carries more than into the brightly adorned gust room interiors, where by beds with waffled comforters and batik-motivated shams sit on great tiled floors and are surrounded by colourful, framed island artwork.
Most rooms are roughly laid out all over a courtyard swimming pool and adjacent to the hotel’s well-liked (and aptly named) restaurant, The Beach Facet Cafe, which serves a few foods day by day and is especially identified for brunch. In addition to normal rooms and suites on the ground and second ground of the major setting up, the hotel has several beachfront villas, including the major-conclude two bedroom, two-bathtub Dolphin Villa, which has twin sets of French doors opening onto a personal patio.
Sand Castle is a really compact resort, so the villas are much less personal than convenient, with immediate obtain to a pleasant strip of sandy seaside as perfectly as staying contiguous to the other vacation resort features. But that does not suggest the put lacks for surprises.
Throughout the avenue from the main complex is a second, more substantial swimming pool surrounded by supplemental visitor quarters, together with king and queen rooms and some outfitted with kitchens. If the sea side is for social butterflies, the courtyard rooms close to the pool are for amazing cats and kittens who want to keep additional to themselves (it is also a excellent preference for teams who want a little separation from the crowd). The pool right here also is clothes-optional, with high fences screening out inquisitive eyes.
The hotel’s oceanfront tiki bar is in which attendees gather for sunset cocktails, and there is also a fire pit for night gatherings. Other hotel features contain a compact exercise centre, a Buddha fountain that greets arriving attendees, and sufficient lounge chairs and umbrellas on the seaside.
A wander of a mile or so along the shoreline in front of the resort can take company to Frederiksted’s renowned pier, acknowledged to divers for its inhabitants of scarce seahorses, and the bars, eating places, stores, and historic fort downtown. Ted and Chris are relative newcomers to St. Croix but are key boosters of the biggest of the three major U.S. Virgin Islands, touting the island’s natural elegance, superb dining, and a rising checklist of attractions, which include a new zip-line.
“We see St. Croix as our residence and our neighborhood,” suggests Chris, and if guests at Sand Castle really don’t quite feel transplanted to St. Croix, you may well effectively conclude your journey sensation quickly adopted — just like Tommy.
For more, visit Sand Castle on the Beach front.