(Fair)
We stayed at Calypso Cove for nine days in June. Leslie, Destination St John, was very easy to book through. We were picked up in Cruz Bay, taken to get our rental car and off to Fish Bay.
Calypso Cove is a very laid back, older home right on Fish Bay. The upstairs has a wonderful family room and new kitchen, with master bedroom off of the family room. Nice size, great bathroom. The downstairs is accessed down the flight of stairs from the entrance. It has a laundry room, when you first walk in, a sitting area, and a twin bedroom off of the sitting area. The second bedroom and bath are to the right of the first bedroom.
I want to be kind about this villa. There were many good things, but more that weren't so good. It is an older villa. The pool is very small, right on the bay and very old. When we arrived, our villa greeter took us to the pool area and said, it is ready for you. It was full of trash, leaves, flowers, a lot of black silt on the bottom. I said, really? She said because you are on the bay it tends to get a lot of windblown debree. The bottom of the house around the pool is covered by lattice work. Much of the lattice work is broken, some missing and the basement of the house is not attractive from the pool. Three days in, we realized that the pool pump was not working. We went out very early each morning and tried to scoop the trash from the pool. On the third day as two in our party stayed home and called the maintenance man because of the pump. He came out, said it was on timer, restarted it and poured a quart of chlorine into the pool to disinfect it. The party that stayed at home got into the pool in the afternoon as we were coming in from the beach. The chlorine was so strong that it caused the white caulking on the side of the pool to sluff off when you rubbed against it. It was so strong that it stung your eyes and made you itch when you got out. A big pool problem, no pump the nine days we were there. Twice a day we were trying to skim it out just so we could relax in it at the end of the day.
One couple had the upstairs master bedroom. The other couple and two teens had the two downstairs bedroom. The downstairs is accessed through a separate door which leads directly into a foyer/laundry room. The first day we were there, a whole wet dryer full of huge, heavy quilts (which I proceeded to dry and put away). Everything downstairs is louvered doors, the laundry doors, the door leading into the sitting area, the bathroom and bedroom door. The louvered door to the dryer was broken and would never close. We have to remove it and sit it next the wall in the foyer. The screens on the laundry room windows were not tight, guess what...a huge amount of mosquitos that came into the downstairs day and night. My teens in the twin room (off of the sitting area and a pass through to bedroom, so only a half wall) were eaten up by mosquitos at night. They sprayed, used deet wipes, moved the small fan from the dresser to pulling out the night stand in the middle of twin beds to get some air. One teen did ok, not that bad with bites, the other teen had a million bites every morning. I felt really bad for her, as this was their HS grad trip. Our bedroom, via louvered door had a small rolling air conditiion connected to the wall by what looked like a dryer hose. It would only move so far before the hose came out of the wall. When were gone during the day, we shut off our bedroom with the air on so it would get cold, when we can back we opened it up and put our fan toward the air so it would push out into the teens room. It was very hot downstairs and filled with mosquitos.
About five days into our stay, we started cooking dinner, cleaned up and during our clean up, our upstairs guest slipped and fell in the kitchen. Turns out the t trap under the kitchen sink had come undone, causing the kitchen floor to be filled with a small layer of water, she fell and landed on her elbow. We thought she had broken it, but bruised badly and much ice needed. We called the maintenance man since after hours. He came over around 7:30 pm. and said, I hope this doesn't take too long because I have a reservation for dinner and don't want to be late. I told him of the fall and he said he would report it to management. We never heard anything from Destination St. John about the fall, if she was ok, etc.
I learned that renting a villa on a bay next to water is not a good idea. The no-see-ums were horrible in the morning and late afternoon. This was our sixth year on STJ and first time on the bay. I would recommend not doing it, no breeze, mosquitos and no-see-ums miserable.
All in all, we had a good, budget trip, The pool, downstairs and maintenance were a big disappointment. I am sure Destination St. John is a fine rental agency but this particular villa needed a lot of TLC. The pics of the villa portrayed on their website show a sandy beach area out from the pool with chairs on it. There is no sandy area, when were were there, a lot of overgrown grass in bad need of cutting, and lots of piles of dead brush piled up. Also, the kayaks that are advertised...there are two, only one has two paddles and one of those paddles only had one end on it.
I would say to Leslie and the good people at Destination St. John, please advertise the reality of a villa. Your maintenance person needs a lesson in p/r. Not reporting a fall by a guest, dumping a whole bottle of concentrated chlorine into a pool and saying, its on a timer, didn't you know that??? We've been coming for six years and have never been to such a nice "upstairs" villa with so many issues.
Calypso Cove is in serious need of some TLC and it shows.
This review was originally submitted by Greyhoundmom.