Villa "Orchidée" (Ciel et Mer) swimming pool, jacuzzi and sea view - Saint François

We stayed here with three families for 10 days in March '22 and had a fantastic time. This is a strong recommendation from a VRBO owner (Hamptons, NY) and power user. We were very comfortable as a party of 10 and you could easily fit four couples and four children here. This house is a little less than an hour from the airport and the owner picked us up at the airport. She's fluent in French and Spanish and is also the talented architect who designed the house. She was incredibly accommodating and took us grocery shopping and even drove us to the beach and made us dinner the first night! The house itself is exceptional and could probably win design awards. It's very unique and inviting for large groups. It is also brand new - we were the sixth set of guests - and everything is spotless. It's engineered for ocean and pool views from every room of the house. The centerpiece is the pool, which is designed like a moat around the back yard and connects to the hot tub through a waterway running under the middle of the house. Similarly the threshold at the front door of the house is over a koi pond (and you'll be asked to feed the koi once a day.) It's pretty special. Our kids were ecstatic. There's also a lanai where we spent a great deal of time and an outdoor BBQ. Passion fruit and bananas grow on the trees on the property. The house consists of sliding glass doors virtually everywhere so there's always a nice breeze and great views. I'd recommend it for large groups, families or even a corporate retreat. The only groups I would definitely not recommend this for are families with small children or babies. This is a house where you need to be confident that everyone is a strong swimmer, as there are myriad ways to enter the pool. The owner also connected us with Ruddy, who is the face of Guadeloupe tourism and took us on a bunch of tours. Ruddy is funny and warm and shuttled us around to the nearby islands, waterfalls, hot springs and national parks. He also got us into restaurants we enjoyed and other excursions. Ruddy would shuttle us to town, which is about 15 mins away. Very charming and great restaurants. We'd walk to the beach by day or explore neighboring beaches. For the nights we stayed in, the house is stocked with wine, rum punch and coffee you can purchase so we were never without. The value for this property would be very hard to surpass. You will have a great vacation renting it. Warmly, Donna