If you’re like me and you rely heavily on the Internet to find somewhere to stay during your trips, please do not be fooled by the pictures and information provided on the Roseau Valley Hotel website if you plan to visit Dominica. I just returned from Dominica with a friend, and to say that the website offers a skewed view of this facility would be a gross understatement.

My friend and I reserved a supposedly self-contatined studio for 2-4 people. What we found was a room with severely limited kitchen facilities and neither phone nor TV as promised on the website. The website was obviously designed with great lengths to exaggerate the size of the “Hotel” rooms and its location. Contrary to the impression conveyed on the website, the “Hotel” is located right next to a heavily-used mountain road, and hence takes in all of the street noises even at late hours of the night.

We would have been less annoyed by this had the kitchen facilities not been so glaringly lacking; while finding a room with a fully-stocked kitchenette was a priority for us, we were greeted with a 4-top stove and dishwasher combo, 1 miniscule kitchen sink and a mini-fridge. We were provided with next to nothing in terms of kitchen utensils.

On top of this, the owner, Patsy, managed to tack on some extra charges to the rates that she’d quoted us previously, even though in her email reply to my initial enquiry she gives me a figure that was the “all-in cost”. Additionally, we were forced to use the laundry service while at the “Hotel” and somehow Patsy construed a pr of pants, 2 shirts, 1 pr of socks and 1 undergarment to be a load of clothes; she also charged us extra for ironing, which we hadn’t asked for.

To be fair, apart from the street noises, the “Hotel” is in a nice enough area – relatively close to town without being in the centre, in a valley that maximises the coolness of the mountain air and the shimmering sounds of the vegetation by night. That said, I maintain that this “Hotel” is highly overpriced and that you can do better in terms of value for money in Dominica.