St. Lucia: Coco Palm Resort
Source: By Joshua Ostroff, AOL Travel
Posted: 07/31/09 9:41AM
Filed Under: Travel
Coco Palm is the brainchild of Allen Chastanet, a member of one of the original French colonial families and St Lucia’s current tourism minister. Located in the tourist hub of Rodney Bay Village, this Creole-influenced boutique hotel built in 2005 was designed to offer more adventurous travelers an option other than the area’s many all-inclusives.
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This romantic French-Caribbean four-star resort is perfect for folks who want to explore the area. Considering Rodney Bay has the highest concentration of open-air bars, restaurants, cafes and nightclubs on the island, it would be shame not to take advantage of the village’s non-hotel hang-out spots (though Coco’s Ti Bananne bistro does make a mean Creole breakfast, which is included).
As well as being freer and more intimate (there are only 83 rooms in total) Coco is also a great budget option. “Coco Creole” rooms in the hotel’s original building are as low as US$125 and newer Coco Palm rooms don't cost that much more. The hotel even offers several “swim-up” rooms where your personal sun deck has stairs leading right into the swimming pool. It's a fantastic feature for privacy-prone adults that the kids will think is the absolute coolest.
But people come to the Caribbean to frollic in the sea, which is why Rodney Bay’s famed Reduit Beach is rammed with folks from the hotels and daytrippers from elsewhere on the island. But Coco is actually much closer to the practically empty end of the island’s longest beach.
While any visitor should try to travel around the island, Coco Palm is a great staging ground to explore the north, with the hotel offering treks to Pigeon Point, jeep rentals, scuba diving, catamaran cruises and jungle safaris.
It’s also a quick taxi ride away from the “Jump Up,” a weekly Friday night street party in the nearby fishing village Gros Islet that doesn’t even get really rocking until close to midnight.
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