On our first trip to St Lucia, we stayed at a hotel and spent most of our time by the pool. We often had to wait for the best poolside seats to come available, and ended up eating the tasty but not very healthy poolside bar food every day for lunch.
On our second trip, we decided to try a Homeaway stay, and we are so glad we did. We got the poolside relaxation we wanted along with so much more. Privacy, space, a wonderful view, the ability to cook for ourselves when we wanted to, and of course the friendly hosting of Hector and Gale.
Some specifics for anyone considering booking:
-It's about a 10 minute walk in to town or to a supermarket; a fine excursion
-Being up in the hills means you get a breeze when it is very hot down on the flats - this was an unexpected bonus
-There are a few different deck/poolside seating options meaning you can vary your mix of sun and shade as you like
-The hammock was especially comfortable!
Only concerns to note, to give the full picture-
-Many in the neighborhood (and across the island) have dogs, and you will hear some barking from time to time
-The walk in to town is not especially gorgeous/resort-like - at some point you are walking alongside the road. We did this most days, weren't quite sure the first day whether we were going the best way, but did not think about it much after that
Other than that - go to Duke's and the jump-up on Friday, go to Spinnaker's and Delirius for beachside food and for cocktails, go to the Massy Gourmet grocery store for hometown needs - and buy some sunscreen, even if you are in the shade the sun reflecting off the pool can creep up on you!
The last thing to say is that Hector and Gale and the rest of their team are wonderful hosts - we had the chance to check in with someone every day if needed, and they also gave us a local cell phone to use throughout our visit so we could reach them 24/7. We never had any issue that made us need to call, but it was a great above and beyond touch.
Hope this review is helpful to others in deciding to have as good of a visit as we did.