Petite Anse – the hotel we ended up finding after our first hotel was a disaster!
The music blasting from the party outside our room literally made our floor shake. Reggaeton beats shattered the ambience of our romantic island lodge. The day before, we’d been lounging on our balcony overlooking the rolling Caribbean Sea, but now, we had to shout to hear one another.
We knew things were going to be bad during breakfast that morning, when the manager uttered the words “beach party, DJ and 10:00 PM” in with some French words. Our fears were confirmed when we arrived back at our room that afternoon to discover that half the island of Grenada was in the throes of a two-day beach party less a stone’s throw from our once-peaceful room.
Cabier Ocean Lodge – Our first night. Before the party set in
There’s a time and a place for partying it up with the locals, but this was our babymoon – one last getaway before our first kiddo comes, and we were in search of tranquility. We had reserved our stay at the Cabier Ocean Lodge through Booking.com – and it lived up to its billing – a nice looking property surrounded on three sides by ocean with a little swimming beach in front of our room. What we didn’t know was that we had reserved the ONE weekend of the year when the adjacent beach is transformed into a massive local gathering–Easter weekend.
But we were locked into our reservation because we had broken one of our cardinal rules for travel: never book ahead.
OK, so it’s not a hard and fast rule. But in our journeys, more often than not, we’ve discovered that the best overnight stays come when we’ve just turned up at a place and fallen in love with it. And it gives you the freedom to bail if things go wrong.
Needless to say, we checked out of Cabier a day early – we weren’t going to endure another 24 hours of feeling our teeth rattle. But because we’d made the reservation through a 3rd party site, the manager was sympathetic, but also wanted to charge us for our unused night (she said Booking.com had already charged her, so there was nothing she could do). Over the next hour of intense negotiation, we talked her down to 80% then 50% and finally cut our losses when she hit 20% of the room price (the fee that booking.com collects).
Here’s where we turned lemons into lemonade.
In our research we’d come across this place called Petite Anse on the north tip of the island, but at $210 per night it was a little out of our price range.
The first thing you see when you arrive at Petite Anse. All of the rooms have ocean views, and the property has a small semi-private beach
But after our frustrating experience that morning, we thought we’d splurge for a single night. When we caught our first glimpse of the place, we instantly fell in love – it had huge dining area overlooking the sea, a swimming pool, fresh seafood, a nearly private beach, and best of all: no parties in sight.
To our surprise the walk-up rate including a huge breakfast was only $130 (a full $60 cheaper than the lowest online rate!). Our cottage had a view of the ocean, hardwood floors, big open bathroom and giant double doors that let the sea breeze flow into our room day and night. In fact we liked it so well we changed our plans around so we could stay four nights instead of just one.
I was sitting on the bed when I took this photo. It’s easy to see why we stayed 4 nights instead of just 1.
I could tell you dozens of stories like this one. The place you booked online looks shabby compared to the pictures you saw online. You turn up in a town and find the perfect family run place, but you didn’t know about it because it wasn’t big enough to have an online presence or it’s so new it hasn’t found its way into the guidebooks.
I’ve had plenty of conversations with people who want to “shop local” yet in a digital age we tend to gravitate to the big multinational chain hotels. That’s a mistake.
Some of our best travel experiences have been when we’ve just knocked on a door of a family run place (a rental house overlooking the Italian Riviera, in a treehouse where we could see an orangutan building a nest across the river). Or in Grenada, it was Petite Anse.
There are some exceptions to this rule, of course. We usually like to have our first night booked, especially if we’re flying overseas. That way if your flight is delayed, or you just need a night to get your bearings, it’s one less thing to worry about.
You’ll also want to book ahead if you’re traveling during peak season, over major holidays or if you’re going somewhere remote where accommodations are scarce.
But even then, when you find yourself in those situations without a room, you can always buy your way out of trouble if you need to.
For example, when we were backpacking through Ecuador, we turned up in the small city of Cuenca only to discover there was a local festival that weekend. All of the budget places were booked. After checking in at 20+ hotels and guesthouses I finally found an overpriced suite in a rundown hotel, which cost way more than we wanted to pay – but at least we had a roof over our heads for the night.
So the lesson learned (well, relearned). Don’t book ahead, keep your ear to the ground, and keep yourself open to something magical. As Yoda says, “Let go your fear.”
Sheesh, why does most of my wisdom come from a tiny green Muppet…
Here’s one last photo as a parting shot. Thanks for reading!
