It is telling when the owner -- who admitted he is trying to sell the place -- has his retirement home on the neighboring island of Nevis. We popped over to Nevis for the day at one point, and it's absolutely gorgeous.
St. Kitts, however...
To start with, security is a real problem at the Golden Lemon Inn. They have a night watchman who virtually chased us inside as we were enjoying drinks on our second-story porch at 9pm., saying it wasn't safe. As a result, my wife did not sleep more than an hour at a stretch at night because of her anxiety about getting robbed. Further, we heard from other guests and some staff that there had been thefts in the middle of the night on several occasions.
Second, the resort is in serious need of capital investment. Everything had been adequately maintained, but not replaced when necessary. One example is the threadbare towels -- they were clean, but very thin. Concrete had been awkwardly patched rather replaced, etc. Also, don't count on the resort to provide any activities: the snorkeling gear had largely disintegrated through use and needed to be replaced.
St. Kitts itself was also quite disappointing. There was garbage everywhere -- the locals really didn't seem to care; they threw garbage in their own front yards, etc. The worst example was when we went for a swim near a small family right by the Golden Lemon, and as we returned to shore (after the family had left), we discovered a soiled plastic diaper floating in the water -- absolutely certainly left by the family. Needless to say, we were disgusted. Oh, and when we did go snorkeling, we saw all of two fish on their much-vaunted offshore reef, but at least a dozen truck tires.
The only reason I'm not giving this the lowest possible rating is that the food was truly incredible, and the staff (perhaps realizing the other drawbacks) was heavy-handed on the drinks. Their porridge is truly good at breakfast, and we never ate a meal we didn't thoroughly enjoy.
