Mango Villa was wonderful for our group of 2 couples in our 60's! The house is located on a dirt road off the road between Salt Pond Bay and Little Lameshur Bay, two absolutely gorgeous beaches which are not at all crowded. We went to St. John to snorkel and bird watch and to enjoy lovely weather, and our stay at Mango Villa surpassed our expectations!
The kitchen is wonderful for people who like to cook--it is equipped with everything you need, including nice knives and a teapot! We cooked 4 fairly complicated dinners there, and didn't need to improvise with the pots and pans. A hint about the kitchen lighting: the lights above the counter are on a switch with a teeny sliding dimmer switch. If the light seems too low, you probably inadvertently slid the dimmer down!
The bar seating at the island and the dining table seemed nice, but we never, ever ate at them. We enjoyed every single meal on the beautiful deck, with the views of the salt pond and Grootspan Bay! We enjoyed watching the bananakeets, grasskeets, hummingbirds, doves, ducks, and frigate birds from the deck. The deck has both sun and shade, and was so nice that we had trouble motivating ourselves to leave each day!
The living room is comfortable with a nice-sized TV. The WiFi was good enough to stream Netflix movies from my KindleFire(you would need to bring the proper HDMI cable to plug your device into the TV). We also looked at the underwater photos from my camera each night, using the same cable. It was wonderful seeing them on the big screen!
The bedrooms, beds, and pillows were all very comfortable, with adequate closet and drawer space. I like to sleep in a room that is 70 degrees at night, and the air conditioning was fine for that. Others preferred the effective and quiet ceiling fans.
The house is truly "between the beaches" of Grootspan Bay and Kiddle Bay--each is a leisurely 10 minute stroll. While Grootspan and Kiddle are rocky beaches, the snorkeling is wonderful at both! We saw a spotted eagle ray, a turtle, barracudas, a spotted moray, a porcupinefish, hoardes of parrotfish, grunts, wrasses, jacks, tangs, damselfish, squirrelfish, snappers, and occasional angelfish, butterflyfish, hamlets, goatfish, filefish, hinds and more. There are some nice sections of hard and soft corals on the extreme left and right sides of Kiddle, and in the middle of Grootspan. And you might have either bay all to yourself!
Mango Villa is the best deal on St. John!