Dawning of a New Day for Hotel On The Cay St Croix?
Some places in the Caribbean look too good to be true. Hotel On The Cay St Croix is one of them. By all outward appearances, this place should rank among the premiere dream hotel destinations in all of the West Indies.
The 55-room property is located on Protestant Cay, a tiny (total area: seven acres) islet with a schismatic past that informs its name. Access to the private islet, nestled in the heart of Christiansted Harbor, is restricted to ferry service. (Round-trip cost: free for hotel guests; $5 for everyone else.) If you can swim the 200 or so yards from shore or have a kayak or paddleboard, though, that will work too.
The Hotel On The Cay Beach Bar and the beach itself are worth the trip, for the most part. As for Hotel On The Cay itself, though…yeah, not so much.
Unrealized Potential
Marketed as a three-star value-priced hotel, the property hasn’t ever really lived up to those moderate standards. At least not according to anyone I’ve ever known that ever stayed there in all of its 55+ years in operation.
(Hotel On The Cay St Croix was originally built in 1965.)
All of that, though, is about to change…Maybe.
Big Changes, Bright Future?
According to recent news reports back home in the USVI, Hotel On The Cay St Croix is about to undergo a major transformation. Major, as in a US$25 million renovation.
Among the changes to come: an expansion in guest accommodations to 115 rooms, expanded docking, and upgrades to the pool and restaurants.
In short, an all-new Hotel On The Cay. Will it actually, finally be worthy of its surroundings?
Honestly, sadly, I’m not holding my breath.
St Croix, you see, has a long history of ill-fated tourism development projects that never got off the ground. Williams & Punch and Golden Resort at Great Pond are two of the more famously failed projects in recent years.
Here’s hoping that a reimagined Hotel On The Cay doesn’t join the list.