My wife and I visited LaSource in Grenada from February 3 to February 10, 1995. We chose this property because of positive experiences with the sister resort, LeSport in St. Lucia. We traveled in the company of two other couples. This is an all-inclusive resort where you really do not need to bring money.
Property overview
LaSource is located about two minutes from the airport in Grenada. The resort is located on a very long beach, has a large pool area as the center of activity, has a spa area for "treatments" and approximately 100 rooms that are upscale Caribbean. The property attracts a group of mainly US, Canadian and British visitors in the 40 to 60 age group. There are exceptions to this, but the property is not for young children or teenagers.
Detail of Property
The resort has a small store to buy outdated newspapers, suntan lotion, bathing suits and typical sundry items. The prices were fair; for instance you could buy the expensive suntan lotion in the large cardboard display with the pretty girl for $16.00 to $20.00 or the generic brand on the glass shelf for $6.00. The LaSource tee shirts, which were of good quality, were $20.00.
Bars
There were two bars, the piano bar and the pool bar. The piano bar is open only in the evening and is tastefully done in large consuming lounge chairs with a piano and on selected nights, entertainment. They serve typical Caribbean drinks as well as a fully stocked bar. Examples of brands are Johnnie Walker Black (my Scotch), Beefeater Gin, Absolute Vodka and etc. The quality is very nice. The Carib beer is good. The dress is usually long pants for men and similar dress for women. I forgot my long pants for the trip and my shorts were perfectly OK (or at least so I think, I did not get thrown out!). The pool bar is very casual and it seems is always open. You walk to the pool bar and request drinks or you could put up your flag on the beach and hope that someone comes by to take a drink order. The general rule was that you walked to the bar.
Restaurants
There are two restaurants to eat (you could also order room service, but I do not think many people do). Breakfast, lunch and Tuesday and Friday evening meals are buffet at the pool restaurant that is adjacent to the pool bar. This are is casual, open air and has entertainment on Tuesday and Friday night. Breakfast consists of buffet style with the typical cereals, fresh fruit, eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, baked tomatoes, juices, fish, potatoes, toast and muffins and the like. This is served from 7:30 am to 10:00 am. We all wished that they had a omelet station for fixing eggs like they did at LeSport because the breakfasts were getting kind of boring. Lunch is a real treat in that the buffet can cause stress in deciding what to eat. It was very good. You could make a salad, have fish (always have fish), deserts and the like. The lunch was always changing and we all commented how they do such a good job of using leftovers from the previous meals. The lunch I think tended to be the bigger meal of the day for most guests. Lunch was served fro 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM. Dinner is served in the Main dinning room which was very nice with ocean views of St. George lit up at night, table cloths, lots of silverware (like three knives, three forks and two or three spoons), wine glasses and water glasses. Cloth napkins were there--you get the picture that it was a very nice facility for the evening meal. The menu constantly changed with four or five entrees, soup (the soup was great--not heavy, but very flavorful) and wonderful deserts. Typical meals consisted of veal, chicken, fish (remember always fish) and some vegetarian dish. The presentation was excellent. The wine served with dinner was different most every night with always a red or white. On Italian night they had Soave and Valipollica, other night Cabernet and Chardonay. Dinner was served by a team of two, a waiter and a busperson. They were very attentive to you. The portions were smaller but of a high quality. Dinner was served from 7:30 PM to 10:00 PM. Afternoon tea was served from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM and consisted of lite finger sandwiches and scones and the like. Some people actually drank tea too! This was a nice little snack to tide us Americans over since the evening meal was typically later. I should also mention that the manager had a cocktail reception for new guests on Friday night which is a great way to get to know people. I think they should do this more often as we met a really nice couple from the UK whom we will probably visit. The really nice thing about the meals and drinks is that this is not a resort where quantity is king; quality seems to be first and you do not have to pay. It is great to order champagne for 8 when something special happened (we had a lot of special things happen, now that I think of it!) or when people came and went you did not have to hassle with who owes what. They do not even want you to tip the staff and no one did.
Rooms
The rooms were in a separate area from the main activity hub; were about 100 of them I think, three floors and were nice. Each room had marble floors, a king poster sized bed, two chairs for reading and ample storage. The bath was very large with lots of marble and a big marble enclosed tub. The rooms were air conditioned or you leave the doors and windows open for the sound of the ocean, or of the band on entertainment nights. Nightly turn down service was around 8:00 or so (sorry but no mint). All rooms had a little balcony that you could sit on and see the water. Phones in the rooms, but no TV which was great. I do not know when you would watch it.The buildings on the property were all painted a off white or yellow with a distinctive mahogany wood that was the railings, doors and windows. This gave the property a real classy look. There are ocean view deluxe rooms and a building to the rear with a limited view of the ocean. Make sure you know what your purchased so you are assigned the correct room.
The pool
The pool was definitely the center of activity. Never had a problem with towels or chairs, never! The large pool is for general swimming, water aerobics, volley ball and just general hanging around. The smaller diving pool is connected with a small waterfall effect is for jumping into and for scuba training. The hot tub (which was cold--a part was on order--remember this is the Caribbean!) was a good hang out also. At the pool most people would talk or read either in the sun or under the shade of provided umbrellas. The pool is naturally connected to the bar. Naturally!
The beach
The beach was very long, deep and had lots of places to find your spot either in the full sun or under a tree or under an umbrella. People tended to have their spot. You could cluster in a private little area and be by yourself or out in the full sun. The beach area had lots of chaise lounges and most people kept the area clean. The beach was close to the bar, naturally. A good portion of the women went topless on the beach. There was also a nude beach somewhere, but we did not look for it. There were vendors that would try and sell you things on the beach. It is entirely legal for them to do so and the staff at LaSource could not do anything about it. They were not intrusive however.
Water sports
The water sports shack was at the far end of the beach and had sunfish sailing, water skiing, snorkeling and scuba diving. Actually scuba diving was subcontracted I think, because the staff were very professional and one of the guys in our group said that the equipment was good and worked (remember we are in the Caribbean). The week we were there Grenada was having their annual sailing festival and LaSource rented a 45 foot sailboat and somehow the owners or Tim, the water sports guy, finagled berths for us on 65 foot Swan sailboat called the Kings Legend which was in the Whitbread round the world race. If you are a sailor, you would say, whoa! This
was really neat, and we won the race. We were the biggest boat and had a Norwegian crew. Us from the hotel made great rail meat (that's when you hang your feet over the side of the boat when it leans or heels in an attempt to keep the boat upright). This experience did not cost us anything. When they said all inclusive, they really mean it.
The spa stuff
The people in our group did the spa stuff, but they are not writing this so I will not say alot about it because I don't do spa stuff. Actually I had a massage because I pulled a muscle in my back from the sailing trip. The spa begins with a visit with the nurse whose job is to check your blood pressure and get you to sign the release forms. After that you get a schedule which includes a treatment each day. Treatments consist of foot massage, full body massage, aroma therapy?, facial and salt lofa?. They tell me that the staff was better trained here at LaSource then at LeSport. You can trade your treatments (or sell them to the highest bidder for drinks) with no problem. There were lots of optional treatments that did cost money, but I do not know of anyone who took them. They also have mediation and relaxation sessions which one of our group members attended religiously. We could not figure out if she really liked the session or if it was Jean-Pierre that she really liked. Her husband fell asleep and was reported to be snoring in the session. He was not invited back.
Other activities
I attended all of the exercise classes, which consisted of step aerobics. Chris and Bertrand did a good job. I do this alot in the states and tell you that this was not a hotel deal for the fatties--they really did a good job on the step. Every day they had water aerobics at the pool which varied in intensity as to who did the leading. The walks consisted of a power walk at 8:00 am and it was truly a power walk. There were walks at 11:00 and 5:00 that were less strenuous. Archery, tennis, golf, fencing and other lessons were given. The golf is a par three, three hole deal I think. There were plenty of time available at the tennis courts. The staff really tried hard to make sure the people had fun. This is always a difficult thing to do because you do not want to herd people or bug them, but the staff was upbeat and wanted to play volley ball on the beach or in the water and this helped to get things going. You could also be very content to do absolutely nothing.
Tours and excursion
There was a little storefront on the property that LaSource rented out to Anne who ran the tour shop to help arrange trips. She was very nice and helpful--I think she truly cared. I had a problem with a hike I had scheduled in that I was taken on the wrong one (I hiked up to Mt. St. Catherine which is 2,700 feet above sea level). Well the actual guide got it goofed up and Anne really wanted to know so she could fix it.Some of our group rented a Jeep for a day and had a real nice time. My wife and I took a half day tour of the island, which we thought was plenty. We both seemed to end up at the same places. Tours and excursions are extra cost items.
The Island
The Island is poor by US standards but the people were friendly and nice. The downtown area is very un tourist orientated. No shops that we would want to buy anything from. There was no real shopping on the island to speak of. I personally like to explore islands that is why I took the 6 hour hike in the rain forest, but I would not plan on more than a half day or a day at the most out of the resort. Some our group that had the Jeep visited the school in St. Patrick's parish and talked to the principal. This was a nice experience since one is a teacher and the other is in public health education.
Miscellaneous stuff
Guests were very friendly. We met some real nice people that we will correspond with. One couple from Ireland came over by themselves and got married on the beach. Well then one hell of wedding reception and party with all of their new friends that they met. Being from the States, one week was enough for us. Dress is casual. Bathing suits during the day and shorts or long pants at night. It did not get cold. Some people dressed up in nice dresses and even saw a sport coat now and then
