Blue Haven Hotel - Review Page 2
Accommodations
The Blue Haven Hotel offers 55 rooms in three distinct categories – Superior, Deluxe and Junior Suite.
Superior rooms are located in the original building. Room sizes vary slightly, but all offer around 30 square metres internally. The Deluxe rooms are about 10% larger and located in the new wings. The only difference between the two is that Superior rooms have smaller bathrooms. Both categories are decorated and furnished to the same high standard.
Junior Suites are located in both the old and new buildings and are about 25% larger than the Deluxe rooms, enabling provision of a separate seating area. There is also a 1,300 sq.ft. Villa Suite located in the hotel grounds.
We stayed in a Junior Suite, in one of the new wings. Previously we had stayed in a Deluxe room. The extra space of the suite was welcome, given the astonishing amount of equipment and clothing we seem to require during our review tours, but in every other respect the rooms were virtually identical.
Our room provided a total floor area of 42m2, including the additional 11m2 lounge area of the suites. The room was in excellent decorative order. The décor retained hints of 'Old Colonial' without being dated. The dark mahogany furniture does make the room feel smaller than is actually the case, but on the whole, we were impressed. During our stay, we inspected half a dozen rooms of various grades, in both the old and new wings. All were of similar standard and we would have been happy to stay in any.
Our room had twin double beds. We could have preferred one of the suites with a king-size four-poster bed, but I had forgotten to mention it and the hotel played safe. My mistake! It wasn’t a big enough issue to ask if a transfer would be possible, so we stayed put. At least Jill didn’t keep me awake kicking me throughout the night.
The beds were really comfortable and we loved the snugly tropical-weight thin duvets that the hotel uses. So many establishments fail to take into account that people who dispense with the air-conditioning at night can be subject to quite dramatic overnight temperature drops. A single bed sheet is inadequate. Equally, a bedspread can be too heavy. The Blue Haven got it just right – for us.
Between the beds was a single bedside table furnished with a large lamp and a telephone. This latter item provided both internal calls and direct-dial external calls, including international. The only other furnishing in that area of the bedroom was a quaint bow-fronted side table and chair which immediately became my office.
If the Blue Haven Hotel has a signature theme, it must be the large glass picture window that separates the bathroom from the bedroom in each room. These make the bathrooms lighter and roomier and we loved being able to see the sea while showering. Curtains can be lowered to hide the feature and the shower curtain provides privacy when using the toilet. The bathroom was in excellent maintenance order and there was never any shortage of hot water. The combined bathtub-shower was large enough to ensure that slippery sides and corners were not a problem and a wall-mounted hairdryer and electric shaver socket were provided.
Facing the bathroom was a wardrobe and area to store suitcases. The wardrobe offered 0.9m of full-length hanging space with lots of hangers, plus a similar area with shelving. Much of this latter cupboard was taken by a large security safe, severely limiting the storage space for clothing. In this respect the room fell a little short of what might be expected. In fairness, few visitors are likely to have our amount of luggage. Having said that, those staying at this level of accommodation are likely to wear something different every night and therefore will need and expect adequate storage space.
Being a suite, our room was 2.8m longer than Deluxe rooms and this extra 11m2 was given over to a small, but very attractive, lounge area attractively set on a slightly lower level than the main room. The lounge area was furnished with a three-seat settee and armchair, arranged around a glass-topped coffee table and facing a cabinet that was home to both a cable TV set and a mini-bar.
All rooms have either a private balcony or patio. Our second-floor room had a very pleasant balcony, 1.6m wide and running the full 4m width of the room. In the newer annexes, the balconies are separated from neighbours by canvas awnings. This offered total privacy. In fact despite both neighbouring rooms being occupied throughout our stay, we were never aware of our neighbours despite our room having a connecting door to one.
All bedrooms are fully air-conditioned. I must confess that ours was a little noisier than I would have liked. To be honest, we’ve found that systems in all the ‘big’ hotels tend to be noisier than the very best modern units that we find in the smaller properties. Anyway, we far prefer fresh air and so did not use the air-conditioning at night. It is so much nicer to throw open the balcony doors and to fall asleep listening to the sound of the ocean and being fanned by the sea breezes. I can only say that we slept as well as anywhere. Mosquitoes? What are they? We never saw any sign of insects.
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