Guanahani had the best and the worse of anywhere we have ever stayed.
The room was basic but charming and the shower dated from the 70s but the view beat any view we ever got including Maldives. Amazing though for 1050euro per night to not even get a bath but that was not a major issue.
The major issue was that the food in the whole hotel was truly awful and when I mean awful I don't only mean in comparison to the rest of the island's restaurants which are amazing (we tested most of them given we truly could not eat at Guanahani); the meals we had there it would not even compare favorably to a motorway restaurant in France.
The first night we had dinner at Bar' to "fine dining" it was some sort of creative dining with no flavour whatsoever; like a kind of minimalistic restaurant where you get 4 1/2 asparagus for 40 euros as a starter and 4 prawns as a main with a mayonnaise in a plastic sachet. It was all eatable but did not get close to anywhere we dined later in the week (Eden Rock; Isola; Maya's) although it was even more expensive.
The 2nd day we tried Indigo (the other restaurant of the hotel) as we really wanted to relax and not take the car every night to have dinner. What a mistake that was awful; we ordered a artichoke salad as a starter and the artichoke came whole in a bowl with mayonnaise on the side. Actually we woudl have enjoyed it more if we had known what was coming after as my husband could not even eat more than a piece of his Dover Sole "breaded by mushrooms" as the fish tasted like it had been frozen 10 years ago and then microwaved. I took what I thought would be a safe option as I am pregnant so I had the Gnocchi and even that was worse than I would expect I can get on a motorway ... a few Gnocchi floated in a bath of dubious sauce. Needless to say we did not try desert.
However we had little choice but to try Breakfast as it was served at this same place. This is well worth mentionning as for 1050 euros a night anyone can maybe deal with going out for dinners but noone can avoid breakfast; well breakfast there was pretty much what you would expect from a 2 star hotel on the motorway (again...so there is consistency there). Service was awful and rude (you have to make and get your own coffee). And it consisted of bread and packs of Kellogs corn flakes as well as some dubious pastries and fruits that looked like they had been imported from UK after a bad winter. We had the pancakes and crepes as the rest was so bad and it came freshly microwaved (they probably make those once a week otherwise I dont see how it could possibly taste that bad) with a pot of Maple Syrup -- That's IT!.
Food for us is super important especially breakfast so we would not recommend this hotel to anyone; which is a shame as for the rest the gardens and views were amazing (the beach as I expected though was the only one in St Barts where you can't really swim as it is covered in algues (which is why noone ever is in the water) so we also had to take the car everyday to visit other beaches; which were truly amazing).
Overall it was less than ideal for us to have to take the car everyday to go to the beach and for dinners but we absolutely loved St Barts and spent a lot of time at Eden Rock where we hope to return. Guanahani and Eden Rock are in no way comparable (lunches and dinners at Eden Rock are cheaper and exquisite and service amazing) .
- Resort All Inclusive Guanahani
- Hotel Guanahani
