Best Western for pmv?

stayed there one night. wouldn't do it again. ther is limited parking fro jsut a few cars, otherwise you are on the street. not the best neighborhood. heard a bit of screaming in the street during the night. maybe my one time experience was unusual.

Hi Candy, I think the Best Western is right on the boardwalk. If it is -- I've known several people who stayed there and have said the same thing about the parking. Also its on a weird street with a strange entrance... We stay next door at the Caravelle. Simple place but the people are great... Good Luck

I have friends who always stay at the Best Western (Holger Dansk) because it is inexpensive and they don't plan to actually spend much time in the room. I, on the other hand, always stay next door at the Caravelle because I love the staff there.

Are you limited to a couple of hotels in your choices? If so, what are they? Of course, you could always call the Holger Dansk and ask about parking arrangements.

Theres a large free parking lot right across the street from the best western. So there's normally plenty of parking although it does fill up around 9am or 10am with the people who work downtown and then starts to empty around 3 or 4. Dont know about the inside of the hotel but it is right in downtown so you might experience some noise but you would at any hotel downtown.

I stayed there the first time i went to STX. We left after one night and found Mount Victory. Now we stay there it is more are stile. Carambola would be my second choice. You have a car I would not stay in town.

I have not talked with anyone that liked the place. It looks kind of run down to me.

Most of the hotels on the island are in varying degrees of shabby. Come for the fun in the sun not the hotel room or you will be disappointed. If you're coming for a pmv best western will probably be fine if you're coming for a vacation I would book otherwise.

Carambola has been renovated and the rooms are quite nice. The beach and the snorkeling are great as well. We had absolutely no complaints during our stay. In my opinion it is one of the more beautiful parts of the island.
Another option is staying @ Mount Victory. They have bungalows in the rain forest. Very relaxing. I am not sure how close you would like to get to nature but that is our favorite place to stay. The owners are very friendly and very informative. Their website is www.mtvictorycamp.com

For a nice seafood dinner I would recommend the Sunset Grill. It is always the first resturant we dine at when we get to the island.

There is always Pelican Heights, a B&B. I don't know how expensive it is.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that staying in a fairly central location while on a PMV is a good idea. When we first came down we stayed at Southgate Villas. These are nice one bedroom condos just east of Green Cay, near Cheeseburgers.

When we moved 6 months later we stayed at the Waves of Cane Bay for a week until we found an apartment.

Both of these places have cooking facilities. Southgate has a nice pool, the Waves is right on the north shore. Both are fairly affordable, the Waves more so.

"Most of the hotels on the island are in varying degrees of shabby. "

Betty,

With a broad brush and in a fairly condescending manner, you have just trashed the entire hotel industry on STX. The hotels on-island play host to thousands of guests every year, most of whom find them eclectic, comfortable, clean and anything but "shabby".

Disclaimer - I work at one of these businesses.

Linda J I started out in hotels and have about a decades worth of experience in them in major cities in Texas and Southern CA. I found your statement to be overly dramatic and argumentative (I'm on the relocation board not the vacation board!). You interpreted my statement in that manner. I was just stated what my own eyes have seen here over the years. It is what it is. The hotels on stx are in varying degrees of shabby, BUT it is hard for it to be otherwise unless you are constantly renovating when your properties are mostly beach located. The level of salt and humidity in the air and the the water wet guests bring into the rooms make it extremely expensive to maintain. Then you have a huge range of varying degrees of excellence that owners demand from their employees with Buccaneer being at the top and say like a Best Western being at the bottom.

STX is in a unique position where none of the hotels except for Divi are owned by a corporation that specializes in hotel/casinos. Alot of these owners have NEVER run a hotel before buying one on stx and have varying degrees of knowing what they are doing, and IMO most do not try to wow there guests or keep up with industry standards. They're doing there own thing.

Let me put it another way. By likening the local hotels to the local restaurants. VERY few restaurants here know the meaning of customer service or have any good wait staff. The food is usually still very good and the wait staff can be very nice, just are slow and have no idea how to wait more then one table and your dinner is more likely going to take 2 hours instead of 1 hour.

To sum up even the rooms at Buccaneer (like the main house) are a little shabby by my standards. But is Buccaneer worth the $200 to $400 per night price. Yes, because the service there is excellent and they have a ton of amenities. STX does not have any 5 star hotels like a Ritz-Carlton. So when you come to STX you come for the sun, and the incredible amount of deserted beaches, and the great snorkeling/diving, not the hotel rooms.

Now if you want to talk vacation houses there are some beautiful ones much cheaper then the other islands, but I don't think thats fair to compare with hotels.

When you read some of these posts you get the impression that at least some of our posters are from NY where 5 star hotels and excellent restaurants are the norm. But even in NY there is a place for the Howard Johnson and the Marriott Courtyard. On STX some people can't afford the the Carambola and Bucaneer. But they can afford the Caravelle and Best Western and the King Christian. We find the staff at the Caravelle more than makes up for the lack of gold plated bathroom fixtures. To each his/her own. As long as you have a good time, thats all that matters.

My husband and I went to STX for a job interview in August 2005 and we stayed at the Best Western. It can be a little tricky to find; the room we reserved was supposed to have a king size bed, but instead had 2 full size. The rooms are not plush, but if you are on a budget, it is a good deal. Shabby would be fairly accurate in my opinion, but the A/C and the cable TV worked.

We rented a car and most of the time we were able to park in their small lot. If you can't park there, then there is parking on the street. We rented a Jeep that had no windows and we never had anything taken. They have a pool, too. We walked around the boardwalk at night and never had a problem.

I'm sure the other places people recommended are nicer, but for what we paid for the room, we were quite happy.

For a PMV, it is perhaps the best idea NOT to stay at the best hotels on the island, as that is not the everyday experience that most people will be in if they move here. Carambola, Buccaneer and Divi are nice hotels and also more expensive. Most hotels on the island have some rooms that are newly refurbished and others that really could use some attention. The environment here means that you need to stay on top of upkeep or else accept that now and then you will need to get in and do a major refurbishment.

Downtown Christiansted has multiple hotel options that work well as a base of operations for a PMV. Keep in mind that you won't spend a whole lot of time in the hotel room during your time here if you are out exploring the island. Caravelle, King Christian and King's Alley hotels usually get better reviews than the Best Western, but you may also be restricted by what hotel has rooms available. They are all experiencing nearly 100% occupancy right now with the Hovensa project underway. Hotel on the Quay is another option downtown. Most of the downtown hotels will have limited parking. Best Western actually has the most nearby since it is across the street from the Government Parking Lot.

East of town you might try the Tamarind Reef Hotel or Chenay Bay Beach Resort. Chenay has just been taken over by a hotel management conglomerate that is working hard to turn the resort around and make it a signature property on the island. Tamarind is at Green Cay Marina and has a nice beach along the jetty plus a great beach bar/restaurant to make your time at the hotel pleasant.

West of Christiansted, you can also try Villa Margarita guest house at Salt River. The owners provide great service to PMV'ers as well as vacationers. You would have a kitchenette in your room so you could eat in sometimes.

Another option is to stay in a condo for the week. Best Western might be your cheapest option as far as putting a roof over your head, but if you get a place with a kitchen you might stay cheaper in the long run at a condo or Villa Margarita.

On the topic of hotels being run by people who don't know the industry... Divi is obviously part of a chain. Chenay Bay now has that type of ownership, also. Carambola is in the process of being converted to a Marriott Renaissance property and the current manager has extensive experience internationally in turning around hotels and making them shine. Buccaneer has been owned by the Armstrongs for generations and they aren't a fly-by-night wannabe hotel owner such as Norman Paperman in Don't Stop the Carnival. Tamarind is owned by some extremely experienced and successful businessmen and has really been upgraded since they took over ownership. King's Alley is now owned by the USVI Government... but the renovations are nearing completion and the new rooms are very nice. I saw a few of them just last night when checking in some guests.

Coincidence - check out the article in the VI Daily News - Kings Alley project has had its PFA funding yanked and now needs 'bail out' by additional public funding - oh, what a surprise!
http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/index.pl/article_home?id=17609515

I am shocked that a Government project has gone awry!!!!!!!!

Betty, you make a very good point about the difficulty in maintaining a hotel due to the salt air, etc. but many hotels do a decent job. If I'm looking at the bottom of the barrel in Christiansted it's NOT the Holger Dansk, it's the Comanche, the Danish Manor, a little place whose name escapes me on King Cross Street, etc.

I'm sure we all know that if the owners of the smaller hotels invested more money in their properties in terms of decoration, upkeep the cost would be passed along to visitors. My friends who stay at the Holger Dansk also have a time share at the Divi. I'm know they don't consider the properties comparable, but they like to spend part of their vacation in town and the HD serves them just fine for basic accommodation at a budget price.

OT - Given that tourism is such a huge business throughout the Caribbean basin, how is it that a two-year hospitality degree or school has never been established anywhere? I live in upstate NY and we have at least two community colleges that offer a two year degree in the industry and, of course, Cornell and its world famous hotel school. Students at these schools participate in ALL aspects of the industry (housekeeping, waiting tables, front desk, managing, cooking, bartending, etc.) just to get the wide and varied background necessary for good positions in the industry.

Joanne, you make a great point. Why don't we have this type of education on STX. Its usually a 2 year degree and I think it would really help the tourism on STX and all of the USVI. We do have tourist from most of the US and more than a few Danes as well as a few other europeans. Each of these groups seem to have different ideals. Maybe someday.. Good Post

Friends here on STT in the hospitality industry have wanted that for years. It's never flown with the powers that be.

I couldn't let this thread go by without adding my 2 cents worth about the Buccaneer and "shabby." Last summer my family and I visited Stx for the first time. To be honest, we were a little apprehensive about the visit, due to misconceptions we held about the island, compared to Stt and Stj (those old stereotypes). Our worries quickly disappeared when we arrived at the Buccaneer. From the very first person to greet us when we got out of the taxi, everyone made us feel very much at ease and comfortable--that we were truly welcomed there.

We have stayed at Ritz-Carlton and Four Season resorts. We have never stayed anywhere that has better service than the Buccaneer. We felt so comfortable, we were able to immediately relax and enjoy our stay. I later described the Buccaneer to friends as the place where they "never say no." The facilities at the Buccaneer are not "glitz glamorous," but what a view from the Terrace dining room, as the sun sets and the lights of Christianstad come on. When our time to leave arrived, we truly did not want to go.

No, the Buccaneer is most definitely not shabby. It is simply the best place we've ever stayed.

"To sum up even the rooms at Buccaneer (like the main house) are a little shabby by my standards. But is Buccaneer worth the $200 to $400 per night price. Yes, because the service there is excellent and they have a ton of amenities"

During the summer, the Buccaneer room rates range from $265 - $650. We are sold out until the first full week of June.

The Buccaneer is my favorite hotel of all time in the world....and what a history!