Ocean Air - Review Page 2
Accommodation
Ocean Air’s two en suite bedrooms and open-plan lounge/dining area with kitchen area and bathroom occupy a generous 1,700 square feet (157 sq.m) of floor space.
The Ocean Air condominium is not simply a holiday rental apartment. It is a home. UK-based owner Sally Miller visits as often as she can. The property is actually a three-bedroom, four bathroom apartment across two floors, but Sally’s stays in the private third floor section, which forms a separate self-contained studio apartment. This, like the main bedrooms, has its own external entry and access. Lockable internal doors enable the entire apartment to be configured into four separate entities, each room having its own private access.
Sally has decorated the entire condo as a single entity. Her choice of colour and furnishing is pleasing to the eye and blends brilliantly with the architectural style and colours of the building. The apartment certainly has the cosy feel of a home rather than that of a holiday rental. The pristine appearance and clean and fresh ambience of the apartment are undoubtedly helped by Sally's anti-smoking policy and the fact that she does not allow children under ten years of age.
The main living area measures a generous 7x5½ metres, excluding the kitchen, bathroom and balcony. It is furnished with an attractive collection of wickerwork cane furniture that not only looks good, but is also highly comfortable and practical in the climate. Cable TV and a decent music centre are provided for entertainment. It is only the collection of CD compilation albums that makes one suspect that the apartment might actually have been furnished for different people of disparate age and interest.
As pleasant as the living room is, you are unlikely to spend much time in it during the day. This is no reflection on the room. It is just that it seems almost impossible not to wander out onto the wide balcony along the front of the building. Beautifully furnished with cane furniture, a hanging chair and an assortment of potted plants that soften the lines of the stark white balustrade, the balcony provides lovely views across the swimming pool, the golf course and out to the Atlantic Ocean.
The kitchen offers every facility – an electric oven big enough to roast a Christmas turkey, huge fridge and freezer, plus enough crockery, cutlery, pot, pans and cooking utensils to satisfy the most fervent cordon bleu chef – and all of high quality and in excellent condition. There is even a huge American washing machine and dryer, tucked away neatly in a special cupboard. In fact, Ocean Air is so well equipped that I was somewhat surprised to note the omission of a dishwasher, but I guess that’s me just struggling to find criticism and write a balanced review.
The two en suite bedrooms are located on each side of the main living area, with French windows giving direct access onto the front balcony. The bedrooms are a generous 5½x4 metres, not counting the bathroom and wardrobe area. No wonder then that our room had space for the widest king-size-plus bed I’ve ever seen. We almost needed a map to find each other. The other bedroom has two double beds but still didn’t look crowded. This appeared to be the only material difference between the two rooms. Each bedroom featured a neat wall-bolted security safe large enough to take passports, tickets, cards, surplus money and other valuables. Another nice touch was the hairdryer tucked neatly away in a drawer in each of the bedrooms. The apartment is serviced daily with linen being changed twice a week, or as needed.
Needless to say, both bedrooms are furnished to the same high standard as everywhere else in the condo. The cane furniture is cool and comfortable, so highly appropriate for the tropics. Having a little more floor space than the other bedroom, our room also had an attractive chaise longue and I can testify that this was highly comfortable, having availed myself of it for a nap one afternoon during a break from writing.
The bathrooms are spacious and furnished to the same high standard as elsewhere. Having had the benefit of large walk-in showers with huge traditional shower heads for the previous two weeks, I was a trifle disappointed to find that we had a bath/shower with a small modern shower head, but it worked well enough, so mentioning it just me being ‘picky’ again. In fact it can be a pleasant change to have a long soak in a hot bath at the end of the day and tubs are relatively rare on the island. In addition to the two en suite bathrooms, there is also a very useful third bathroom off the main living room. This features a walk-in shower, but despite my faint criticism above, it is only fair to mention that I could never be bothered to walk the few extra paces to the walk-in shower.
Opposite the bathroom is an extensive built-in wardrobe. Wardrobe space is something that Jill and I tend to forget while doing reviews. When moving on every four or five days, we have a tendency to leave most things in our suitcases. Perhaps we should devise a method of measuring wardrobe/drawer space. It does vary significantly from property to property of course. Let us just say that at Ocean Air we took advantage of the generous space to empty all three of our large suitcases (don’t look shocked - we are here for six weeks and shall be attending a number of formal meetings and functions) and let everything hang and ‘breathe’ for a few days.
As you would expect in a modern luxury condominium apartment such as this, all rooms offer highly efficient quiet split-unit air-conditioners. Every room has louvered wooden window shutters either side of the French windows. A constant cool breeze blows in from the Atlantic, so supplementary cooling will rarely, if ever, be needed. Having said that, we did use the air-conditioning one night, but not because we were too warm. A bit of a storm blew up and the sound of the wind whistling through the louvers was not exactly conducive to sleep. We simply closed the louvers and used the air-con. I can confirm that the a/c units are as quiet as any I’ve come across and worked well.
NEXT PAGE: Swimming Pool, Beaches & Excursions, Catering & Dining, Conclusion
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