We just got back late last night from a wonderful week-long stay at Ti Kaye. Overall, we enjoyed our stay very much. I'll try and write a detailed review of all we experienced, in the hopes that it is helpful. Some of it is positive, some of it is negative, but it's all just my first impressions and meant to be just that. Overall, we really did love Ti Kaye and it was exactly the type of resort we were looking for. However, there is room for improvement. Arrival: stood in line for about an hour to get through customs. The airline attendants will tell you to fill out one form per family. Not true- you need forms for each person. Not an issue, but the lady working the immigration desk was not very friendly about it. The Ti Kaye driver was waiting for us as promised and we found him quickly. Gave him our bags, exchanged some money to EC, and got in the van. FYI we took about $250 dollars with us and exchanged $150 into EC. Came home with 5 bucks left, so guess we picked the right amount of cash to take! Transport to hotel: Wow- they are NOT kidding when they say it is winding! We went up via the East coast and then cut across and went down to Ti Kaye. Breathtaking views, but by 15 minutes into the trip, I was very nauseous...We just got back late last night from a wonderful week-long stay at Ti Kaye. Overall, we enjoyed our stay very much. I'll try and write a detailed review of all we experienced, in the hopes that it is helpful. Some of it is positive, some of it is negative, but it's all just my first impressions and meant to be just that. Overall, we really did love Ti Kaye and it was exactly the type of resort we were looking for. However, there is room for improvement.

Arrival: stood in line for about an hour to get through customs. The airline attendants will tell you to fill out one form per family. Not true- you need forms for each person. Not an issue, but the lady working the immigration desk was not very friendly about it. The Ti Kaye driver was waiting for us as promised and we found him quickly. Gave him our bags, exchanged some money to EC, and got in the van. FYI we took about $250 dollars with us and exchanged $150 into EC. Came home with 5 bucks left, so guess we picked the right amount of cash to take!

Transport to hotel: Wow- they are NOT kidding when they say it is winding! We went up via the East coast and then cut across and went down to Ti Kaye. Breathtaking views, but by 15 minutes into the trip, I was very nauseous from the road. I normally don't get car sick but this ride was like one of those roller coasters with tight tracks that lurches around every corner quickly. I kept looking at the views and turning around to chat to Atlanta couple behind us that had arrived on the same flight (hi, Tom and Elaine!), and that did me in. On the ride back to the airport, I took a dramamine before we left and was perfectly fine. So be prepared! The trip back to the airport was via the West coast. It was nice to see both sides of the island.

Arrival at hotel: We were greeted with coconut palm leaf leis and a handshake from the new owner, Katie. I agree with the other reviewer that said she wasn't that friendly. More on that later. We were escorted to the bar and told to have a drink on the house while our bags would be taken to our rooms. That was a nice touch. We sat down and my husband ordered a Piton beer. Pilgrim told him that wasn't included as an option and he would have to charge him, so he suggested he have a coconut water instead. We all opted for that, but I don't think any of us finished our drink. It was okay, but I think my stomach was still a little tumbled from the ride in. After a short while, our keys were brought to us and we were escorted to our room and shown around.

Our cottage, Roro: The man who took us there was very nice and soft spoken. I liked him. I'm afraid I didn't catch his name though- he was really soft spoken! The place was extremely clean and exactly as pictured all over Trip Advisor. It was not as private as we had hoped, and the ocean view was a bit obstructred, but hey it's paradise and we weren't complaining! I liked the construction of the place and enjoyed everything about it. I found the bed spread to be well-worn and it was stained in places. It could afford to be replaced, along with the matching curtains. Otherwise, all was good.

Wildlife: There were two resident geckos in the closet behind the safe, a dove's nest with two eggs in the shower, and a little frog on the porch. The birds did not bother us much, but we didn't eat out there, either. Once we had a styrofoam container inside and a bird got in and pecked it to pieces, trying to get at the crackers within. Keep everything in the fridge or cabinet. So, none of the resident critters bothered us a bit. I did manage to get about 7 mosquito bites- not sure where or when. My husband didn't get any. They do provide some bug spray and a citronella candle.

Plunge pool: I would not get one again. If I were to return, I would get an ocean-front instead of an ocean view (those seemed to be more private), and would skip the plunge pool. It was VERY COLD and the sun never hit it, so it never warmed up. We literally plunged in once and jumped right back out! We used it to rinse out our swimming suits and snorkeling gear, and that was pretty much it. Also, a small note but I think an important one: our pool light never worked. The man showing us our room noticed it, so I assumed he would report it. The next afternoon, a pool man showed up and I assumed he was there to fix the light. No, he was there to clean it and fill it. I told him about the light and he looked at it. I assumed he would fix it. He did not. The third day, I called the front desk and asked for the light to be fixed. Someone literally showed up within 1 minute, so that was very prompt. He checked it out and determined just the light bulb needed to be replaced. He left and we never saw him again. I gave up on asking for the pool light to be replaced! Overall, no biggie, we lived just fine without it. But it's a small thing easily corrected, so it's odd that it wasn't.

The new manager: Katie greeted us upon arrival and then was barely seen the rest of our stay. Only spoke to us twice on passing. You would think that a new manager (started just before Christmas, she said) would want to talk to the guests and learn how their stay is going. I only saw her pay attention to one man that arrived on his own and was joined the next day by another woman, and a couple that showed up the day before we left and was in the wine room having a tasting. Otherwise, she could only be seen showing people that looked like inspectors around, or speaking to the staff and then quickly disappearing. We did find her to be distant and not very warm.

The staff: BIG STARS to Kim, Eldon, and Cleus. They really took the effort to get to know us by name and greet us with smiles and special touches. Terry was next on the list- he was also friendly to us. A young woman training was also warm and friendly. I found one man (Francis?) and one woman (can't recall her name, but she was mostly working the beach front restaurant) to be not as friendly. No smiles, no chatting, etc. No one else stood out one way or another. Oh, Gus is the one that took us to the fish fry and he was great, too.

The restaurants: We really liked the main restaurant. We ate dinner there most nights. The service was excellent and all the meals we had were excellent. I usually had the catch of the day. I had pepper pot the last night and it was amazing. I did not sample any of the desserts. I had heard bad things about the Wednesday night buffet dinner, but we really enjoyed it. It gave us an opportunity to try a lot of new regional dishes. I did not eat the beans or mushrooms, so can't comment on them as a previous reviewer did. I liked everything I tried that night except for the local dish of salt fish and figs, but at least I can say I've tried it! One suggestion for dinners: ask Cleus to recommend a wine with each course. We didn't meet him until late in our stay, when we asked for a bottle of wine to go with our meal. The next night, I went one step better and asked him to bring us a different glass of wine to pair with each course. He brought us some amazing pairings. He was so informative- even brought us out some of the native vegetables to show us what they looked like when we were asking about which vegetables were in the dinner.

Lunch and breakfast: The breakfast buffett was a basic buffett. Good service, and I thought it was a good variety. Fresh fruit, pastries, breads, biscuits, eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, potatoes, cereal, and juices. The lunch menu was standard and small but didn't rotate like the dinner menu did. We got quite bored with the lunch menu after about 3 days. The lunch menu was the same at the main restaurant or the beach one. You can have either fries or local chips with your lunch. Each time I asked for local chips. For the first three days, they brought fries instead, and when I reminded them I had asked for chips, they took the plate away without a word or even looking at me, like I had insulted them. Only Eldon got it right on the last day we had lunch at the beach restaurant!

Housekeeping: amazing- really well done. Our room would be spotless every day and they cleaned it very quickly upon our leaving in the morning. She was so thoughtful and considerate- even coming back when she saw we had returned to point things out to us or bring us things. For example, she came back one afternoon to tell me that a bird had gotten in and tried to eat our crackers and that she cleaned it up and hid the food. She came back another day to tell me that she noticed our matches for the candles were getting low so she brought another box. She would even arrange my husband's shoes in the closet!

Beach vendors: I had expected to be approached and really wasn't. There was one man (can't recall his name) that stood in the back under a shade tree and sold jewelry. He never approached me. One day I decided to see what he had so I went up to him. He told me "I see you every day here and you are always snorkeling or reading and I didn't want to disturb you." He did appear to me to be very respectful of people's space. I picked out two bracelets and he told me they were $40 EC each. I only had $20 EC total on me and told him I didn't have enough. He said to pay him 20 that day and bring back 30 the next. I said I would prefer to just pay him all at once another day. He dropped it to 20 that day and 20 the next. I told him I wasn't trying to barter- I would just prefer to wait. So then he said the $20 EC total would be fine for both, so I bought them. There were several other beach vendors around, mostly on kayaks that would go out to the party boats. They never approached us except for one crazy day when every cruise ship in the world was in port. One guy was very aggressive and accosted us as we were backing into the sea with our snorkel gear on. We told him we weren't interested and he didn't let up, so we just left and went swimming. He was the only one that "bothered" us, and I think he was only there that one day.

Anse la Raye fish fry: sorry, it wasn't our cup of tea. I appreciate trying to support the local community, but 2-3 hours is really too long to be there. An hour is just about right. We signed up at the last minute because we appeared to be the only couple that hadn't. The street is very short with pretty much the same food being served at each stall. Fried crabs, lobster, steamed fish, rice, cassava cakes, beer, and drinks. We had steamed tuna with rice. It wasn't very good- very bland, actually. The people we met there were very friendly and we did enjoy seeing the street up close. The different house fronts were interesting to look at. There were a couple of craft booths but nothing was made local (at least the people we asked said they didn't make them). The same crafts were sold at the different booths, and some were wrapped in plastic and were from China or Taiwan. I was really hoping for some local crafts instead. Oh- if you use the rest room, you have to buy the TP!! Be warned!

Diving shop: my husband did the introductory scuba and liked it. We also took a snorkeling trip with a group of divers heading out from there one morning ($35 each). It was a good deal, although I believe we were overcharged (we had been quoted $30 each if we had our own gear). We went to Anse Chastanet and then were dropped off on the cove just north of Anse Cochon to snorkel back (the dive boat stayed with us and followed us back).

Other tours: we did not book any other tours through Ti Kaye. I had them quote a zip line for us and their price was $50 more than what Serenity quoted me. We ended up not doing the zip line at all because we wanted to spend more time snorkeling. The only tour we did was the Grenadines tour. I highly recommend this adventure! It was the highlight of our trip for me. We booked it through Serenity and I was blown away by their attention and service. We were picked up at our hotel at 7 AM. Our host, John, had called Ti Kaye the day before and told them when he would pick us up, and asked them to prepare a breakfast to go for us, which they did. He drove us to the airport and stopped on the way to buy me some bananas when I said I hadn't had one yet on our stay. He escorted us up to the Inter-Caribbean check-in desk and handed us over. We then boarded a 10-seater airplane and were whisked down to Union Island. It was a 48 minute flight and beautiful all the way. Going through immigration was a breeze as our little plane of 8 people were the only ones there. We were met by a shuttle that took us directly to the dock, where we boarded our ship. 7 of us were on the Scaramouche- a great looking schooner. We had the whole ship to ourselves! It was amazing. We went to three different islands, swam with sea turtles, saw where "Pirates of the Caribbean" had been filmed, ate a fabulous lunch prepared on the ship, jumped into the ocean from the side of the ship, snorkeled to our heart's content, and overall had a fabulous day. When we got back to the airport on St. Lucia, John was waiting for us and had his wife and daughter along for the ride. They gave us a tour of the northern part of the island, then drove us back to Ti Kaye. John's wife Caroline made us a bottle of rum punch to take with us. They were very generous and warm people. When they took us back to the resort, one odd thing happened. John said he wanted to talk with some people there, so I said I would sit with his wife and keep her company while he did that. We walked into the bar area and sat at a table off to the side. Dan and I were clearly in beach gear and needed to shower and change before dinner, so I called a waitress over and told her we just wanted a quick drink and then we would return for dinner after cleaning up. She was not friendly to us at all- actually was a bit rude. She said "8:00 is what I'll put you down for" and I said "It's just now 7:45 and we still need to shower first and change, can't you do 8:30?" and she said "Fine, 8:30" and that was all she said. I don't know if it's because they were busy, because of how we were dressed, or because we had guests with us. I asked for a drink menu and my husband asked for a glass of water. She gave him a glass of water, handed us the drink menu, and never returned. It got quite uncomfortable sitting there, being ignored. John and Caroline were gracious and said their goodbyes and told us to go ahead and go to our rooms and get ready for dinner. It was weird, and like I said, I'm not sure why were treated in the way we were.

Overall, we really loved our week in St. Lucia. This was a second honeymoon for us to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. The weather was wonderful (rained some every day but nothing to ruin any planned activities). The resort was beautiful. The cottages were charming and exactly as I thought they would be. The surroundings were very peaceful and it was lovely to fall asleep and wake up to the sounds of nature all around us. The mosquito netting was really neat to sleep in- make me feel like a kid in a clubhouse! We really enjoyed the food at the restaurant and the beach. The snorkeling at Anse Cochon was one of the best we had all week, tied with perhaps Tobago Cays.

Oh- forgot one review: the Rainforest Hideway. We opted to take the special Sunday night shuttle with some other couples ($50 water taxi ride). We thought our meal was excellent, the service was superb, the view was outstanding, and the courses were well planned and well-spaced. A truly excellent dining experience.

I'm sure there is more I am forgetting but there are the highlights. Hope this helps some of you looking for information.More