The Insiders' Guide to St. Barths: Villa Shell Beach?

We spent about a week at Villa Shell Beach in mid January. Loic Aomraoui was a very nice, friendly man and I have no doubt if there was even a small problem at the villa, he would arrive and fix it quickly.

The villa is very private, you don't see it from shell beach and there's only one neighbour, which I believe is the owner's cousin or something. One could occasionally hear his TV or radio but it's very quiet location considering it's still a walking distance from Gustavia. You can see the boats that are mooring front of Shell Beach.

Access is easy by car, a steep small road right after Carl Gustav hotel, a minute or two drive. It might be a bit troublesome after rain, though. You can walk to Gustavia if you don't mind going up and down the hill ;-) During the evening you may want to carry flash light to see where you're walking.

The furnishing has a sea theme, plenty of sea-related items around. Overall in good conditions but don't expect everything to be new and spotless. If you look at the pictures on the web, they're quite realistic. We didn't spend much time in the living room, if we were at the villa, we were at the pool or on the patio with the big table. They have french Canal digital and you can play CD/DVD's on the DVD player -- if you really want to.

We only used the bedroom on the main floor, which was quite fine. The bed is a bit too large for the room so there's not much space around it. Plenty of space for your clothes. There are two windows with shutters, no glass, so you need to be creative with the curtains to keep the mosquitoes out and get light in ;-)

The bathroom is quite big. The bathtub / shower is a bit funny, perhaps due the owners origins from Algeria. You don't really fit in the bath and you cannot shower under the shower, what you can do is that you can sit in the bathtub (there's a place for it) and shower there. Works ok, though.

The kitchen is well equipped although we didn't cook that much. The restaurants on the island are too good ;-)

Would I stay again at Villa Shell Beach? Most likely, but it wouldn't stop us from looking other villas as well. We come to the Caribbean for sun and light so the lighter and brighter the better, and this villa was a bit on the darker side - I'm not really sure why considering it had white ceiling and walls in the living room. The other issue was small creatures, cockroaches and the like. Back at home we don't have any of them, and nothing that's bigger than your fingernail. We saw a few creatures while there, mostly on the first day, and used our fair share of Raid. I guess the villa has plenty of hiding places for them and with plush vegetation around, there's little you can do about it. But this is really about what you're used to and we're not used to anything that is longer than 1 cm ;-)

Anyway, for the price Villa Shell Beach has plenty of room and space. The pool area is relatively large, separate jazucci downstairs, the patio with it's big table, big bathroom, etc. Your average villa for the same money is most likely smaller. The location is also excellent, not to mention the friendly owner.

We like to separate villas and hotels to "place to stay at" and "place to live at" categories. Villa Shell Beach, like most of other places where we've been around the world, is in the "place to stay at" category. We were sleeping there and having breakfast, but for most days we went to the beaches or elsewhere and dined out in the evenings. A place like La Baleine is in the "place to live at" category, when the villa is so nice that you really have to work hard to leave the villa and go to the beach. There you feel like you're at home. Unfortunately it's very difficult to find gems like this.