We stayed at the Crimson Orchid Guesthouse over Christmas 2013.

We were a large group of four families, so we basically filled most of the guesthouse rooms.

Overall, I can summarize our stay as a good and enjoyable one, but I feel I have to portray the good and the bad aspects of the guesthouse for future vacationers.

The guesthouse: The rooms and bathrooms are very nice and comfortable, and the common living spaces are very nice and pleasant. There are plenty of DVDs to watch on a big screen TV. There are very convenient washers and dryers that can be used. The distance to the pool and beach is very short. Stephen, the guesthouse owner/manager, let us use the kitchen facilities.

One major item that put a big damper on our stay was that Stephen has a dog and the guesthouse is his home. If you are a dog lover this is not a problem as the dog is very friendly and cute, but if you have members in your group who are allergic or are repelled by the odor, or have small children who are afraid, this is a problem as the dog takes preference to the guests.

Unfortunately Stephen does not take any actions to lessen the mosquito situation (which is very bad). It would be easy to put plug-in repellants in each room, or provide coils for outdoors, but nothing is provided so consider bringing it from home. Even if you try very hard not to let mosquitos into your room, they are bound to get in so you need something.

I would also recommend that you set the days that you rooms will be cleaned at the beginning of your stay. We were promised the rooms will be cleaned twice during our weeks stay, but they were only cleaned once. The second one occurred on the evening before our last night.

Another item worth mentioning is the internet connection. For some members in our group wi-fi was very important but when we arrived it turned out that it was not working properly. Stephen did work with us to find an acceptable solution, but you may want to inquire beforehand if this is important for you.

To Stephens credit I must say he was very helpful in providing us with information regarding car rental, driving routs, places to visit, etc.

To summarize, the guesthouse has lots of potential, as long as you are aware of and address the items listed above.

The location: The location is beautiful and the resort is well planned and very comfortable. Very bad access roads that make day trip a big hassle. Many many biting bugs. Bring long sleeved clothes as repellants do not help.