Picard Beach Cottages

Beach front, simple and humble cottages. We loved it! The staff is kind and helpful. The cottage had a small kitchen, at our arrival was clean and cozy. Short walks to grocery stores and restaurants. Beautiful black sand beach. I recommend this place!

We absolutely loved our time at Picard Beach Cottages! To begin with, the location cannot be beat. Our cottage was right on the water, and waking up and looking out at the ocean was unforgettable. The cottages themselves were wonderful as well. Our cottage was clean and spacious, with a full kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. The bedroom had an air conditioner that worked great. The bathroom was also clean, and the shower always had hot water and great water pressure. Picard also has a wonderful restaurant on the property called Caribbean Arena's Club. We had local seafoo dishes that were absolutely delicious. We were frequently the only people eating there, and the meal was generally pretty slow to come out, but once it did it was delicious. And since the restaurant is overlooking the water, it didn't really matter to us if it was slow! We also had delicious breakfasts at the restaurant. Overall, we highly recommend Picard Cottages. The staff was able to help us arrange any outings that we wanted, and the property is absolutely beautiful. We hope to come back!

I’ll start with the positive: location is convenient and proximity to the beach was a plus. They had daily housekeeping which was appreciated. Now onto the bad: The price point of $220 USD per night is absolute robbery for the quality of these accommodations. This should be no more than $80 per night based on what we experienced. The cabins are poorly constructed with actual cracks in the exterior where you can see through to the outside. Plumbing and electrical work was installed in a very shoddy manner (cracked tiles, discolored grout, an actual panel was cut into the wall to fit the toilet, etc.) The fixtures and linens all look like they were from 1970. Poor quality of bedding and towels. The staff were completely unprofessional and generally unhelpful - upon check in, they misled us into checking into a smaller sized room claiming to “save us money” since it was basically “the same” as the regular beachfront room. It turned out to be cramped, infested with mosquitoes, and directly next to the restaurant. After we complained and pryed further, they came clean and admitted that they gave our original room away to someone else who extended their stay. They eventually moved us to our original room, copping an attitude with us. Other red flags: 1) the on site restaurant is terrible, don’t even bother, just walk to some of the other restaurants nearby. 2) They charged us for our stay in full upon checking in - this is not standard practice, they should only charge for your stay AFTER you check out. Bottom line: stay elsewhere in Portsmouth… I wish we had stayed at Hotel The Champs instead.

I highly recommend the Picard Beach Cottages, Portsmouth, and Dominica in general. When (not if) we go back to Dominica, we will stay here again. We visited in August 2022. First of all, please do yourself a favor and take a trip to Dominica. It is a naturally gorgeous, safe, friendly place that is especially great for active travelers. It has mountains, beaches, boiling lakes, more accessible hikes...anything an outdoors-loving person wants. If you want to just relax, you can do that in Dominica, too. Portsmouth is a great location because it is centrally located on the West coast. It's very easy to get to any of the trail segments from Portsmouth, as well as other cities. Portsmouth is not a party locale–if you are envisioning drunk bachelorette parties, that is not it. However, whatever you want or need, other than bachelorettes, they will make sure you can get. If you like to travel somewhere that doesn’t have a ton of other people, this is for you. Our positive experience with Picard Cottages began when we booked our reservation, and Miss Robinson emailed us to learn more about our trip and what we wanted to do on the island. She arranged for our driver, Andy, to pick us up from the airport, and advised us about which hikes we should take, based on our experience and preferences. We wanted something pretty challenging–we would have summitted Morne Diablotins if it didn’t have reviews for being so muddy and foggy–and she recommended segment 12 or 13. The flight and immigration were smooth. Don’t forget to bring a black pen in your purse or carry on–they don’t have them easily available in customs. Their airport staff are professional and the process is straightforward, as well as pretty quick (quicker if you have a pen). There was a scheduling conflict with our scheduled ride from the airport, and he wasn’t there. On many trips I’ve taken, this could have been a scary or miserable experience–not in Dominica. We told airport staff the name of our driver, and they knew exactly who he was. They spoke to another driver, who called Andy on his personal cell phone, and the other driver offered to take us instead. Dominica is the type of country where every person you encounter is willing to help you solve your problem. It seems like just about everyone in the tourism industry in Dominica knows each other and works together to make sure visitors have a positive experience. Take Dramamine if you are prone to motion sickness: the drive to Portsmouth is a windy mountain journey. It’s a beautiful and breathtaking drive of about an hour. We arrived at Picard and were checked in by Miss Robinson, who was just as lovely in person. She helped us get oriented and told us where we could find their restaurant, other restaurants, and other needs that we would have. She wasn’t pushy at all–to the point of not even mentioning some of the add-on activities that we could do–so if you want to make sure you have a full schedule (catamaran rides, whale watch

Cottage au bord de la plage, avec un très bon confort, une cuisine équipée et un personnel très sympathique. Par contre, pas de chance, mais les personnes logeant dans le cottage juste derrière nous étaient très bruyants.