If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD700.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Sun, sea and sand seekers need look no further: allow us to introduce Calabash Hotel, an all-about-healing hideaway on the southern Caribbean coast of Grenada. Owners Leo and Lilian Garbutt, who hand-renovated this secluded space back in 1987, raised their three daughters (who now run the hotel) among the palm trees and scintillating sands, making familial service their first priority – and they’ve more than hit the mark with over 130 staff to serve your every whim. Add in 30 delightfully designed rooms, a sleepy spa and award-winning food, and you’ll quite quickly forget there’s a world outside of calming Calabash.
Smith Extra
Get this when you book through us:
A $100 credit (or if already included in your offer, a bottle of rum and a jar of cookies)
Noon; check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £672.65 ($840), including tax at 20 per cent.
More details
Rates include an à la carte breakfast (which can be set up on your suite's balcony daily), a cocktail and snacks on arrival, afternoon tea, in-suite canapés every evening, and all non-motorised watersports.
Also
The hotel’s common areas all have step-free access (including the restaurants), and two of the Pool Suites have been adapted with widened door frames and accessible bathrooms for wheelchair users.
Hotel closed
The hotel closes annually from the beginning of August until the end of September.
At the hotel
Public beach onsite, concierge team, two tennis courts, bocce-ball court, 24-hour fitness center, free-to-use kayaks and snorkeling equipment, yoga pavilion, and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: smart TV, Amazon Echo speakers, air-conditioning and ceiling fans, minibar, tea-making kit, Nespresso coffee machine, free bottled water, and Elemis bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Rooms have modern interiors, with neutral palettes and flowy, draped furnishings that seamlessly blend with the hotel’s cosseting serenity. For your own private pool and a little extra space, we’d suggest the Penthouse Suite. The two- or five-bedroom villas are primed for groups and set a little further back from the hotel, with meditative views of Prickly Bay.
Poolside
Gazing over the hotel’s botanical gardens, the outdoor infinity pool (open from 6am to 6pm) is flanked with sun-soaked loungers and set a few steps from the spa.
Spa
Treatments at the spa focus on holistic healing methods that seek to realign the mind, body and soul. Masseurs use oils made from the island’s harvested cocoa beans for hydrating therapies, and all-natural honey and moringa masks for refreshing facials. Just beyond the spa, the fitness center is decked out with Cyber equipment and there are two tennis courts, a bocce-ball court and yoga pavilion.
Packing tips
Leave the fins and snorkeling masks at home, the hotel has it all.
Children
The hotel is over-12s only between 15 January and 15 March, otherwise little Smiths are welcome to tag along. There aren’t any dedicated facilities, but staff can arrange babysitting for US$20 an hour, with 48 hours’ notice.
Sustainability efforts
Calabash is committed to keeping its impact on the island low. In this eco-friendly haven, harvested rainwater is used for garden irrigation, and bees are kept to encourage pollination and biodiversity. Grenada’s glut of annual sunshine is put to good use, too, with solar panels producing a third of the hotel’s operating electricity. Food waste is composted in the vegetable garden, and excess seaweed is cleared from the beach and turned into fertilizer on the family farm. In the restaurant, chef Ramces seeks to encourage and normalize sustainable attitudes to food with his ever-changing menu of seasonal, zero-kilometer dishes. Plus, Calabash helps neighboring hotels on the island through educational and recycling initiatives.
If you’re seeking something secluded, ask staff to set up a private dinner under the pavilion, or on the beach.
Dress Code
Colorful kaftans and loose linens blend best at the Beach Club; formal threads (we’re talking collared shirts and floor-draping dresses) are required for those heading to Rhodes after dark.
Hotel restaurant
Calabash is all about the food, and once you’ve sampled the fare at its trio of refined restaurants, you’ll quickly agree. Scenic settings await at the Beach Club, where light tapas-style bites and sandwiches are served by the sand throughout the day – Tuesday nights are dedicated to classic Caribbean dishes, and on Thursdays dinners are barbecued beachside. Poolside Izakaya brings together Latin American and Japanese cuisine, filling menus with crispy rice cakes, tenderloin tataki, Peruvian tempura and citrusy ceviches. Under idyllic vines and gently lit pergolas, Rhodes ends evenings strong with an Italian twist and perfectly paired wines.
Hotel bar
During the day, the Beach Club is primed for post-dip mojitos and beers on the beach. Once the sun sets, Rhodes takes over cocktail shaking with local twists on classic concoctions.
Last orders
Breakfast at the Beach Club is 8am–10am, lunch is 12pm–3pm, and dinner (Tuesdays and Thursdays, only) is 7pm–10pm. Izakaya opens 5pm–10pm (closed Tuesday and Thursday); and Rhodes (closed Tuesday and Thursday) serves tea 3.30pm–4.30pm and dinner 7pm–11pm.
Room service
Available from a separate menu between 11.30am and 9pm.
Calabash Hotel is on the southern tip of Grenada island, in the east of the Caribbean Sea.
Planes
Flights to the island land into Maurice Bishop International Airport, 10 minutes west of the hotel. There are a few direct flights from London Gatwick to Grenada, but most international flights will require a layover in the US. Free private transfers are arranged for guests.
Automobiles
If you want to visit other parts of the island, there are a few car-rental booths at the airport and the hotel has free parking onsite.
Worth getting out of bed for
The natural splendor of the quieter Antilles archipelago gives Grenada its edge, so start off by exploring its bucolic beauty with a guided hike up Mount St Catherine (the island’s highest peak) or make a beeline for the rainforest and spend the day trekking through the Grand Etang National Park with its monkeys, mongooses and armadillos for company, and diving among its storied shipwrecks. Stick with undersea adventures and admire aquatic artwork at the Underwater Sculpture Park, which impresses with over 75 carved statues that are set between five- and eight-meters underwater (snorkeling, scuba diving, or glass-bottomed boats are your best bet for spotting them). Shoppers should head for Market Square in St George, where Technicolor handicrafts and artisanal stalls line the streets.
Grenada’s nickname is Spice Island, so it’s only right to dedicate some time to learning more about the food-themed folklore: take a guided tour through Laura’s Herb & Spice Garden, explore the cocoa plantations at the L’Esterre Estate and the Belmont Estate, or sample locally made rums at the River Antonine Estate Distillery. For those who want to get stuck in rather than watch from afar, there are chocolate-making classes at the Tri-Island Chocolate Factory, and the nearby home of the Roberts’ family often host guests for traditional cooking classes. After all that wandering, settle yourself into the spa for meditative massages and soothe the soul with a spot of yoga in the palm-fringed pavilion.
Local restaurants
Award-winning Carib Sushi has been rolling some of the freshest maki on the island since 2005. Lengthy menus are filled with sushi every which way, and there’s a teppanyaki lounge alongside the main restaurant, where you’re welcome to sit and watch the chef work his magic. Local flavors and sandy scenes take center stage at Grenadian Grill, which you’ll find in Silversands hotel. Choose from grilled catch of the day (infused with fresh lemon), lobster fritters, and garlic prawns – or push the boat out with a private barbecue on the beach.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this beachfront boltole in the Caribbean and unpacked their cocoa beans and spices, a full account of their sun-soaked stay will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Calabash Hotel in Grenada…
The Caribbean has plenty going for it: cerulean-cast waters, sun-bleached beaches, rich culture (and even richer rums) have long sold us on its idyllic islands. Now, Calabash Hotel is here to give us another reason to rave about this A-list-approved archipelago. It was bought in 1987 by Leo and Lilian Garbutt, after a delayed flight landed them in an unassuming space on the edge of Grenada’s southern coast, and the young couple began renovating with little experience of the hotel industry. Three children and more than 30 years later, the Garbutts still roam the palm-lined walkways and their daughters are now at the helm. Inside, rooms bear little resemblance to how Leo and Lilian once found them, now boasting reposeful palettes, contemporary furnishings and soul-soothing panoramas. Once the sun’s been saluted from the yoga pavilion, muscles have been unknotted by magic masseurs, and delightful dishes consumed, you’ll find yourself thanking the stars that that flight was grounded all those moons ago.
