Not an Idyllic Island vacation
Review Submitted: January 27, 2012
Date of Stay: December 2011
We stayed at Etoile de Mer the week between Christmas and New Years and it will surely go down as a very memorable vacation. I would return to TCI in a heartbeat however I would not return to Etoile de Mer.The house is lovely with a nice outdoor pool if you don't want to walk to beautiful Taylor Bay just 100 yds away. The weather was magnificent and we enjoyed the time together with the family, 6 adults and 2 children.Unfortunately we experienced some issues that were downplayed by the owners as if we were whiners and complainers.
My two main reasons for not returning are: 1) there was an attempted break in during our stay and I think it was related to tampering with the home security system. We returned from dinner one evening to find the alarm sounding and a slice in a screen in the window on the lower level. 2) there was a nocturnal animal(probably a rat) trapped in the walls and in scratched and clawed all night long for the entire week. The property manager did everything possible to bait and trap the creature but they were unsuccessful during our stay.
Needless to say both events were quite unnerving and prevented us from having the idyllic island vacation we anticipated. When I emailed my concerns to the owner while we were on the property I was literally chastised as a complainer with no expression of concern, understanding or compassion for our predicament.
The island is lovely, the water is beautiful. I would find somewhere else to stay if I were to return.
Owner's Response: Some people have heard stories about the Caribbean and arrive with negative expectations, which makes you wonder why they came. This renter arrived armed with the expectation that the environment is unsafe, that locals can't be trusted, and that there would be rats. No matter what happened, he would not give up these prejudices.
The "attempted break in" did not happen. The alarm went off because a sensor on a window was loose but the renter had refused to allow a repairman on the property to fix it. When one of my service crew was alerted about the alarm and went to the house to make sure everyone was safe, he was barred from the house and accused of being involved in the breakin. The "slice" in the screen, which is not wired, is an old tear made by winds during Irene. At 1", it is far too small for a hand to reach through to push up a window and cause an alarm to go off.
When a worker arrived with a bottle of water for the cooler the next day, he had trimming shears in his back pocket to clip some stray branches of bougainvillea by the pool. The renter called my management agent and said that the worker had a knife and that no workers were allowed on the property for any reason from that point forward, Additionally, because he did not know who has keys to the renters' lockable closet (only the management agent - but he wouldn't believe her), he did not trust that his valuables would be safe in it and therefore preferred to keep them in his rental car.
The "rat in the walls" was a palm frond which scraped against the roof rain gutter when the wind blew a certain way. Because the renter would not let anyone in the house to go to the master deck to cut the frond, the noise continued. Not surprisingly, a rat was never caught.
There has never been a break in or an attempted break in at Etoile. I have had my management crewed for 3.5 years and nothing has ever been missing from the house.
My management agent and I love nothing more than hearing how much people have enjoyed their vacation at Etoile, but there was nothing we could do to persuade this renter that his expecations were not reality.
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