The Anchorage was our mid-holiday Roseau stay, in between 3 Rivers eco-lodge and Crescent Moon Cabins. Our thinking was find a non-too expensive hotel from where we could go to the Creole Festival as well as see some of the southern part of the island.

The 'superior' rooms were spacious, but pretty ugly. dark brown floor tiles, a crude bathroom and only half a fawcet in the sink. TV reception was poor but there was internet access.

I contacted the hotel directly to reserve the room, had my reservation confirmed, then unconfirmed because I was only staying two nights, not the minimum three I was told I needed. I sent an email to say I had since made other arrangements, at which they relented and honoured my booking. However, on the day of my arrival, I received an email saying that they had problems with my credit card, so my rooms were no longer confirmed.... I managed to sort that out over the phone, but the whole thing was a little unprofessional.

The highlight of the stay was a snorkelling trip down to Scott's Head when we made three stops and saw lots of marine life.

Overall I was pretty impressed with my stay at Anchorage. I went with a group of divers, and the accommadations were more or less perfect for divers. All of us had ocean front views from our balconies. Anchorage had some very nice dive boats, especially The Passion, a huge sailing catamaran where we enjoyed the ride to the dive site just as much as the dive. I was completely satisfied with the food. The menu choice wasn't extensive, but varied enough to enjoy something different every night. I have many great memories of lounging in the open air bar drinking bottles of Kubuli. The nightlife was no way incredible. There were not massive amounts of twenty somethings getting wild and crazy. It was simply relaxing. If you come with the expectations that the staff is going to wait on you hand and foot, you're going to be disappointed. If you come expecting to get your food served to you in less than ten minutes, you're going to be disappointed. The staff is accomodating, but not in your typical mainland cookie cutter hotel chain way. Dominica is an extremely beautiful place. The locals were unbelievably friendly. Come here to relax. Come here to explore. Come here to discover. However, go to Cancun if you want to party. Oh yeah, and if you come back to the hotel late at night and the gate is closed, there is a doorbell. You might want to ring that versus trying to hop over the wall. They get a little cranky if you do that.

Okay, I live in St. Croix and I truly understand the mentality of West Indian "service", its beyond island time. But Anchorage Dive Center was an extremely frustrating place to stay. We should have realized it at the beginning of our travel plans. We wanted to stay five days in Roseau and then four in Calibishie. My fiance loves to dive and so we chose Anchorage dive as an obvious choice. The hotel website reservations and subsequently thier email address do not work! We had to call direct to make reservation and that was not too bad until we tried to confirm the airport shuttle--that we still believe only exists on the website. The front desk staff was incredibly unhelpful or unknowledgeable.
So we arrived in Dominica and received the ground level room near the pool. We had been quoted originally 90 dollars a night. With its near Spartan accomodations, old blankets and hard as a rock beds we quickly fought that price. The room should have been 40 US hands down regardless of the closeness to the Caribbean water, we had it brought down to 50 US a night. The worst was we both got some nasty contaminated food induced bug from Perkys Pizza downtown and of course the hotel ran out of water the day we were both hurting. It took them several hours to get it back on and when we asked at the front desk what was going on we got absolutly nothing, not a nod or a confirmation that we had just spoken to the woman.
The restaurant was okay, I loved the homemade pumpkin soup, but the service was again...beyond island time. Breakfast was much better, loved the fresh made bread. Finding the waitstaff if anything should be wrong was like finding a needle in the haystack!
My fiance really enjoyed the diving, their were only two other people and the dive master-- he likes the smaller group. We both were absolutly thrilled by the Anchorage Dive Whale Watching trip. We saw a bunch of Sperm Whales.. Just amazing. they have this really cool whale skeleton hanging in thier downstairs bar area. But you don't have to stay at Anchorage in order to go on the whale watching trip, truth be told.
I don't like sounding like my fiance and I were so pessimistic about service and what not because we really do understand that the West indian mentality usually lacks in customer service. Thats not being mean, its really true. All the Dominican we met were soooo nice and would go out of thier way to make you feel welcome...except the staff at this hotel. Well not all the staff. The dive masters and Leronne behind the bar were wonderful!
Next time we go to Dominica we're not going to bother with Anchorage, we will just stay in Calabishie.

The staff at hotel Anchorage really should look up the word "service" in the dictionary. I stayed in this hotel for 5 nights and had numerous bad experiences with people working in the restaurant and especially at the front desk. Employees can look at you as if you are a pain, as if you are disturbing them. That is, when they can muster the politeness to even look at you when you adress them.

To give an example. My bill (401 dollars) I paid in euros. So, I will lose some money right? Well, I did, but I actually lost 91 dollars in this transaction. After 4 different debates with different staffmembers at the front desk and ultimately with the manager, who finally called the bank for the exchange rate, I got 67 dollars back. I was really on the verge of reporting this scam to the local police. When I paid for an extra night (yes, stupid) I had to ask 3 times during the day to get my receipt. The woman had "no time".

I travelled in about 70 countries and cannot recall to have had such a bad service in this hotel, and alas, generally speaking on the island too. Dominicans are genereally speaking really friendly people, but with offering service they really have a hard time. I even heard about a Dominican waitress who was fired after one day because she refused to serve Dominican customers...