A la Colthard/Spice Island Beach Hotel
The first couple of days on any vacation can be testing: the long haul flight, time adjustment, mosquito bites, sunburn, settling in can all contribute to this. It’s testament to this fine award-winning hotel that we are after one full day all fully acclimatised and content.
Whilst the resort has excellent amenities and location its trump card is the fusion of Grenadian culture into the the type of smooth operation you require of a 5 star hotel.
The most obvious manifestation of this is the cuisine where the head chef Jesson Church uses local ingredients and recipes to create original dishes. Another is the service – always respectful and helpful – (I’m called Mrs Colhard at all times) but inevitably a warm gleaming Caribbean smile emerges not before long.
I agree with previous comments on BA. As a woman I can say this without being slaughtered that many of the stewardesses were overweight.
The plane was narrow and you need to be more nimble. In the old days they would patrol the aisles, now you have to use the phone which at first I could not dislodge from its cradle in the wall.
Yes they have slipped behind the more luxurious Gulf airlines. They have too many classes of fare, and are no longer the flag-waving carrier of the 70s that led the world. They did not respond to the competition of Virgin for Translatlatic nor the budget airlines in Europe.
When I learned the hotel was owned by a Sir Royston Hopkin, I imagined him as some sort of rich English baronet in a Rupert Bear waistcoat descended from a rich family with plantations and slaves.
Not at all.
Sir Royston is a beaming Grenadian probably in his 70s who has delegated the running to his sons. It must be due to him that this vision of local culture and 5 star luxury was implemented and achieved. I say 5 stars but the hotel has won a coveted 6 star award.
We have had 3 lunches and dinners to date, all excellent.
The soups – a seafood chowder, pea and bloggoe – all delicious. If you don’t know what a bloggoe is nor did I. It’s a local banana. It was also used for a delicious sorbet last night.
The local fish is very tasty too. I have tried a Mahi and lobster Thermidor.
You are offered 5 courses too with complimentary cocktails and wine. I’m more than partial to a rum punch. Rum is definitely the best ingredient for a cocktail and what better place than here for that sundowner to admire the sunset.
Conscious that with 3 meals a day the Daffers’ tummy might expand after all that hard work I put on my abs in the gym, I donned my Dolce and Gabbana bikini and walked the Gran Anse beach which is public one.
OK, I will never match Polly or Graine’s figures but they are elite triathletes and 20 years younger, but I noticed the ebony youths with sculptured torsos on the beach gave more than one glance!!!!
I might take one home although I could not eat a whole one!!!
