Village Bungalows Chez Honore

“Quiet location at the end of the island”

We have been to many other Caribbean islands, but this was our first trip to Guadeloupe and we were happy to start our vacation at Chez Honore because the location, at the far eastern end of the island, was very nice, quiet and easy to get around. Chez Honore is down a quiet street and surrounded … more

We have been to many other Caribbean islands, but this was our first trip to Guadeloupe and we were happy to start our vacation at Chez Honore because the location, at the far eastern end of the island, was very nice, quiet and easy to get around. Chez Honore is down a quiet street and surrounded by fields and forest. The hotel itself is a collection of variously sized cottages around a small, but nice swimming pool. Our cottage (Villa 2) was sparsely furnished, but very clean, functional and complete. Beds were quite firm (hard) and bathrooms mostly modern and up to date. Imagine you were borrowing your uncle's Adirondack camp or Cape Cod cottage. And imagine that your uncle isn't married and doesn't sweat the details too much, but still you are in a great spot very afford-ably. We were two families of 5 getting the cousins together for bonding. It was nice to have everyone together in one cottage rather than splitting up like at a regular hotel. Our villa, Villa 2, has 3 downstairs bedrooms and an upstairs loft so a variety of extended family groups would be accommodated very nicely. I believe they have one villa that is even larger. On awkward thing for us was that the three downstairs bedrooms had A/C, the upstairs loft room did not. A/C wasn't needed for the heat, we actually would have preferred to open the window and listen to the ocean breezes, but Guadeloupe doesn't believe in window screens so the teenagers in the loft were unhappy with the mosquitoes. This same problem was everywhere on the island...buildings open to the outdoors in big and small ways, and just enough mosquitoes to be annoying. The large and beautiful beach is 200 meters away across a dirt road, so you can hear it, but not see it unless you walk on over. The three times we visited the beach, we found it, in late December to be too rough for swimming, but we understand that is weather dependent and day-by-day. The one day we didn't visit the beach at Chez Honore, we heard later that 30 people were all happily swimming and snorkeling. Many people come to this beach from other parts of the island. Chez Honore hosts a large restaurant that had plenty of beach-goers each lunchtime. Many of us walked along the government sponsored beach trail that goes for miles in this area. We didn't do the whole thing, but like the part we did do. As far as we could tell the restaurant wasn't open at breakfast. The first morning several loaves of bread were dropped off at our cottage, but no more was heard about that. The cottage had a little kitchen area that was useful and supplying our own breakfast from a grocery store was straightforward. We enjoyed sitting out on our outdoor porch table mornings and evenings. We found that although there was bedding for up to 14 (we were 10) there was only seating in the living room for 6. WiFi was free, but weak at the villa and we never did get it to work. It would connect but wouldn't communicate. We found out later some of our internet settings may not be ideal for French oriented systems. So in summary, Chez Honore is a nice simple setup next to a beautiful Caribbean beach. Think clean and useful, not luxury and extravagant, and you'll be quite satisfied.

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