Summerville Beach Resort Hotel

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Having just returned from our first visit to Goa, I find myself already looking at the prices for next year. Wow! What a country! It's beautiful scenery mixed with the nicest people I've met for a long time - add to that, food that needs to be tasted to be believed and you have the ingredients for a wonderful fortnight.
We chatted to many holidaymakers over there - many of who were on their 6th/7th/8th consecutive year. They all said the same thing. Marvellous.
We stayed at Summerville Beach Resort in Candolim, which is just nicely tucked off the main Calangute Road.
The staff were lovely and nothing was too much trouble.
The food they serve there comes from a variety of nations (English/Chinese/Indian and of course Goan). It's freshly prepared and is bursting with flavour. The portion sizes were a touch too much for me, and I felt a bit bad leaving any, especially as it tasted SO good. They are genuinely concerned that you didn't like it if you leave anything.
There are a few regular taxi drivers on hand at the hotel front who will gladly take you anywhere in Goa, sit in their cab all day waiting for you and then bring you home again, making visiting different beaches and areas a piece of cake. On one trip, it was a 2hour drive there, 4 hours playing with monkeys and swimming in the waterfalls and the same journey back. The price for the guys services all day? £12.00 including a healthy tip!
The hotel itself consists of 2 blocks of apartments around the pool. One is a block of standard apartments and the others are described as suites. We stayed in the standard accom as we didn't know about the suites until we arrived. However, the room was cleaned every day, fresh linen and towels provided each day and had ample room to store your bits and bobs whilst you're there. The sheets looked dirty when we first arrived and my heart sank, but the reason was soon discovered! (Candolim beach is rich in Iron ore and EVERYTHING comes back red. Don't wear anything to that beach that you don't mind getting iron on - and no, it doesn't come out. There are scores of other beaches in the area though, so get out and explore.) The cost of AC in these rooms is about £2 per day and is well worth it! Theses rooms don't have a TV or fridge, but you can rent them by the day (Yeah, we're going 10000 miles and we're worried about missing Corrie??? I think not :-) Both blocks have twin beds. The suites are larger than the standard rooms and come with AC/fridge and TV included in the price. I would happily stay in the standard rooms again, but will try the suites next time :-)
The pool is quite deep throughout, so not great for unsupervised kids (YIPPEE!!), but its wonderfully refreshing after baking on the sunloungers for anything more than 5 minutes :-)
The hotel restaurant/cafe/bar type place which is right by the pool serves great food from morning til late evening. Gokan, our chef worked his magic every day for us and I'm sure we've come home at least one size larger than when we arrived ;-)
All in all, we had an amazing time in Goa and at Summerville. We are looking forward to getting back there next year. Roll on November :-)
Lisa n Mark - If you're out there, get in touch :-) xx