I have always booked Caneel through my travel agent. For our October trip we are staying 3 nights. I called my travel agent and she said there was only one room left for the category we wanted so I jumped right on it. Usually the resort will allot several rooms for travel agents/operators before booking them all up. I just prefer going through my travel agent so I can pay for the room/taxes ahead of time vs. when I get there.
just one word of advice on that, know what the price is direct from Caneel before you talk to a travel agent. I was working in this business part time, for a while, and the booking engines that agents use price hotel reservations by person(where as on the Caneel site the price is for the room). So make sure that the per person price, when you total it, is not substantially more than the direct rate.
FYI, if you book directly with Caneel, you can pay everything ahead of time. Our stay is already fully paid. I think they charged us 48 hours after we made the reservation.
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.