Anguilla Overflowing with Luxury Accommodations

One of the many things that I always loved about Anguilla is it's small size. Anguilla is only 16 miles long and 3 miles wide. It takes about 20 minutes to get from one end of the island to another, say from Shoal Bay West to Shoal Bay East. It may be even faster now with all the road work and re-paving that's been going on.

I always loved to explore the island. Years ago I was there for a week and put over 400 miles on the rental jeep - I believe it was actually 462. I went down every dirt road I could find, some of them twice. I followed dirt roads as far as I could to the west end of the island and then parked the jeep and walked the path to the very end and actually stood on the end of the island itself.

Anguilla is growing and changing and isn't the same sleepy little island it once was. It's changed in many ways. Thanks to Jen and Brad and their pre-splitsville stay on Anguilla it got an inordinate amount of publicity. I remember the first time I was on Anguilla in '94 we had just missed Al Pacino at Smitty's. I'll bet there was no mention of him on the island in any US papers or on TV.

Ah, for the good old days. There is so much building going on now it's hard to find anywhere to stay on the island where you don't hear the sound of a jackhammer breaking through coral. And most of what's being built on Anguilla now is for the uber-weathly.

I just read that Rendezvous Bay Hotel will be closing in 2007 for demolition and they will be building luxury villas on that site. A shame as RBH has always been known for their reasonable accommodations. I guess that they want to be able to compete with all the big-boys like the new Temenos golf course homes and the new Viceroy development that's going up. Blue Waters on Shoal Bay West has apparently been sold to the Altamer owner. I haven't heard of any definite plans for it yet, but I'll be that another moderately priced accommodation will bite-the-dust.

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