Sapphire Beach Condominium Resort — Hotel in Saint Thomas

I rented a condo in building A through Vrbo. Overall it's a lovely destination. The view from my unit was stunning. The white sand beach and turquoise water are just gorgeous. The unit itself was ok- the furniture and appliances were all dated. ||||The facility has a beach bar, with drinks and food offerings and a fancy restaurant upstairs on a deck with $50 entrees. My only gripe with the bar area was they play the music way too loud, right next to my unit. They blasted sub-par music during the day and there was a wedding one night with terrible music blaring. Luckily, I brought a sound machine to drown in out. Also the furniture at the bar was very dated, the cushions were dirty and torn, just felt dirty to sit on with stains and tears. Same goes for the beach chairs they have the old plastic ones from the 80's that have rusty metal and old plastic binding. In the morning visitors have the cabana boys put out their beach chairs for the day so the whole beach gets filled with unsightly empty chairs unfortunately. ||||The pool is in a really pretty location, very well designed. Wish they had a hot tub. There was a Bar by the pool, but it was run down and not maintained, didn't seem to be operating any of the days I went down there. ||||There is a lovely little coin-operated laundry room next to the marina. I enjoyed doing laundry there for a couple of hours. A great view of the boats and friendly people to meet. You get tokens from the dock master office a few doors down. There is a little bathroom with a shower stall for boaters. ||||My biggest issue was with transportation. Nothing was convenient. I like to walk when I'm on vacation. You cannot walk anywhere. The streets are narrow, winding, no sidewalks, steep hills, dangerous drivers. It's just not walker-friendly at all. If you do not rent a car you have to rely on taxi's which I found to be super frustrating. They charge per person, and change the pricing based on how much they think they can get from you if you don't know, or declare the price straight up. They don't use meters or have set pricing on a sign. A simple drive from the resort to red hook should cost $6 per person. I had drivers trying to charge $10 or $12. Which adds up there and back and multiple runs. Or a ride one mile up the street they tried to charge $15. When I needed a ride to the airport it's supposed to be $23 but my driver insisted $35 since I was one person. Just a pain in the ass and made the transportation anywhere annoying and not relaxed. The way the resort is nuzzled into the bay it's blocked on both sides by a wall retainer and then the marina so you are locked in and have to use the taxi service which I really disliked. I don't mind being fair, it's just a bad feeling being swindled repeatedly. ||||My second biggest issue was the sand fleas- they were so bad at dusk and dawn, which are my favorite times to enjoy the beach. I was not alone, many bare legs I saw were covered to the point of looking like an infectious disease. Not sure why they were so bad. I've never experienced anything like it on other beaches. Made me want to avoid the beach, which is supposed to be the main attraction. There was bug spray in my unit but it was not coral reef friendly. ||||I would say don't drink the tap water. My Vrbo owner said it was fine to drink but it kinda made me sick to my stomach and tasted like dirty bleach water. The little convenient store by the bar sold small bottles of water for $4 per bottle. I love to drink water so that made me feel bad to consume so much unnecessary plastic. They also sold coffee and bagels and other little overpriced things. ||||There was a food mart grocery up the road, I think it was $22 drive there and back. Groceries were very expensive. Almost everything is imported. Probably cheaper to eat out honestly. But I like making most of my meals healthy. The area was a little sketchy for a solo female traveler. If you do go somewhere to run a quick errand, ask your taxi to wait for you to bring you back. The incentive to get double is enough to...

My experience staying at this property was not a good one.||||There were some positives: property is right on the beach front, the cafe is good, casual bars/restaurants are fun with great drinks and vibe (although the fish tacos are terrible). For casual dining, the food is better at the smaller bar with mojitos. The pizza and caesar salad are both solid options. Also, the fine dining restaurant, Sea Salt, is excellent. Also, the small shop on the property sells quality items and souvenirs and not a bunch of cheap kitsch. I bought multiple items to bring home as gifts.||||But the unit I was given, D208, listed as a Standard Beachfront Condo, was awful. The air condition was too cold and there is no way to adjust the temperature. The AC vent pushes air right on to the bed, and I had to pull an extra flimsy blanket out of the closet to try to keep myself warm when sleeping. It got so bad that the last night I stayed there, I actually took the blankets to the couch and slept there. Second, my sink clogged up. Third, neither of the two security safes in the closet were functional. Both were in states of disrepair.||||Fourth, and this might be the worst thing about the property, is that it is not prepared for tropical storms or hurricanes. There was a flashlight in the kitchen shelf but it was a low quality one and the battery was dead. Our power went out during hurricane Erin. With no working flashlight on hand, I hadto rely on light from my mobile devices to not bump into things in the middle of the night. Very troublig was the absence of any structured property-wide communication on how to prepare for the storm and what to do or where to go if conditions got really bad. The property is after all on the beach front, and swelling waves during a hurricane should be a prime concern.||||The property does have its own generator, but the generator only acts as a backup for the shared spaces like the cafe and restaurants. Rolling blackouts appear to be the norm on St. Thomas when major storm systems pass through, so if the power in your unit goes out during a weather event, it is an issue with the grid and the people (government? power company? someone else?) responsible for getting that back up and running on the island. There is no backup generator on site for the condos.||||Nobody expected hurricane Erin to turn into the monster category 5 storm it was or for it to take the trajectory it did, but even with a lesser storm, the unit and property were not hurricane ready.||||In sum, my unit D208 was not well attended to (it was obvious regular maintenance was not a priority of the owner) with multiple things in disrepair, and there is a glaring lack of disaster preparedness, which is shocking for an island that is in the danger zone for tropical storm systems.||||This place is definitely overpriced for what it offers and was a huge...

We had a great time at this place but there were a few issues. FIrst off the beach is absolutely beautiful and by far the biggest draw. The bar and pool are also nice. Although hurricane damage was evident in various places especially the cabana and tennis courts, I give them a pass on that because obviously it's not their fault. They are still renovating post hurricane.

I do take issue with a couple things. First off the bathroom does not reflect the photos which show a pristine, really high quality bathroom that was recently renovated. That is not what we got. We got a stained, old looking bathroom with a substandard shower and old tile. Not pleasant. Not a huge deal, but not good either. As I said the beach is the main draw. But misleading photos do not inspire confidence.

Another issue I had could be called a culture clash. l had never been anywhere in the Caribbean so I'm totally unfamiliar with the fact that there are wild chickens everywhere. Flocks of them. Not a problem except when you have 2 roosters making a horrible racket every morning starting at 3 AM!!! This is awful when you are on vacation trying to rest. The islanders are all used to this and think nothing of it, they sleep right through it. Newcomers on the other hand are not used to this at all and it the lower 48 it is totally unacceptable to have this kind of thing happening.

When I complained to the manager about this he totally blew it off, just shrugged and said "nothing can be done" about it. That was a very annoying reaction to get. And I find it hard to believe that nothing can be done about roosters. There are after all various things that can be done -- rooster repellent? Fences? A shotgun? Something! Just in general it's a bad idea to tell any customer in a hotel that "nothing can be done" about anything, no matter what it is. That's doubly true when it's something waking them up at 3 AM!! Again though, like I said, culture clash -- all the locals are totally cool with this.

I thought about chasing these things around atj 3 AM with a broomstick or something, but how ridiculous would that be. A wild rooster chase is not something I really want to deal with when I'm on vacation trying to relax. I"m sure they won't have wild roosters on the grounds of the local Ritz when that place reopens after renovation. THat's what separates this resort from the really good ones -- for the price I'm not really complaining, because I got what I paid for, but if these guys want to take it to the next level and get 5-star reviews, fixing things like the bathrooms and the roosters would go a LONG way. ...