Hotel Roça Sundy - Principe Collection

Classic old building at heart of former plantation – the original Portuguese managers obviously did themselves very well and HBD have refurbished it well without losing its character. We had a big first floor bedroom with a view towards the sea. Excellent food, well served by staff who mostly have at least adequate English. The management arranges a range of good excursions around the island and were happy to adjust them when we were concerned that too much walking might be involved. We especially enjoyed boat trip from Bom-Bom to Bay of Needles. Only negative is that the path from Roca Sundy to the beach (with pool and bar) at Sundy Praia is not good – slippery in places and peters out towards the bottom. As paths elsewhere show, it could easily be improved without detracting from the surroundings.

Our adventure to Sao Tome and Principe had been fabulous and then we arrived at Sundy - the perfect end to our last few days in this idyllic country. Principe is an unspoilt tropical paradise offering virgin rain forest, abundant birdlife and enthusiastic people wanting to show it off. In Roca Sundy, a plantation still producing cocoa with progressive plans in place to treat workers well, provide education and farm sustainably using tourism contributions from each night spent at the hotel. The rooms overlook the gardens visited by fluting calls of starlings, overhead grey parrots, drongos, kingfishers are much more. Each day there was an organised guided walk into the rainforest with huge leaves, bird & frog song and beautiful flowers, or a chance to snorkel in the clear warm waters off pristine beaches, maintained and checked for turtle activity to keep nests safe. The rooms were first class with AC, large beds, plenty of space and a balcony. The restaurant served up an extensive breakfast buffet with a wide range of fresh fruit, cheese, home baked pastel de nata, home produced chocolate spread, patisseries and bread and eggs served to your wishes. Evening meals were beautifully presented and tasty using local sourced ingredients and the bar provided a huge range of drinks and wines. I just hope the money used in eco tourism preserves the magic we experienced and is not over developed.

We stayed at Roca in the Eclipse room for two nights jus before Christmas. The room itself was beautiful and very clean. It had a lovely balcony on on the back looking over the garden. Unfortunately, the rest was very average to poor. The staff speak barely, if any, English. This greatly limits the ability to ask for anything. It was a challenge to get more water or even explain the smallest food allergy to the wait staff. If you don't speak Spanish or Portugese then you will struggle. The breakfast, lunch and dinner were served as a three course menu, which meant you had no choice in what you ate for any meal. When we mentioned a gluten allergy they brought out overcooked steak and potatoes with no questions of what we liked or wanted instead. All in all the venue is very nice but the execution just doesn't cut it for these prices. Hopefully as tourism picks up the service and communications will follow.

Roca Sundy was perfectly nice. The food was great but the room was only okay (it was fine, just a bit basic). Most of the staff were okay but some do go above and beyond. The one day we were there we didn’t want to do the preplanned activity, we wanted to go to Banana Beach. Initially the front desk said “no way, can’t do it” but after much pleading one of the crew took us out and it was a really special day. That’s both a good and a bad experience - it was a great day, but we did have to be persistent.