Gay Friendly Hotels Nicaragua: Yemaya Island Hideaway and Spa      

After spending 5 nights on Big Corn Island, we were already in love. Crystal clear blue water, powdery white sands. It was your stereotypical Caribbean island paradise. We really weren’t sure how it was going to get better than this as we boarded the boat to Little Corn Island. Then we arrived at Yemaya Island Hideaway and Spa, a gay friendly paradise. And it suddenly got a whole lot better.

Here is exactly why we loved this property and how it was gay friendly. Once you have read this post, you will definitely want to check it out Little Corn Island for yourselves!

About Yemaya Island Hideaway and Spa – Little Corn Island

Little Corn Island itself is a tropical paradise. In fact, it is one of the last “undeveloped” islands in the Caribbean. Just 2.9 square kilometres, it takes less than an hour to walk around.

Yemaya is one of just a few accommodation options on Little Corn Island. But following a recent $2million renovation (with another in the pipeline!) it is by far the most luxurious property. In fact, it didn’t take us long to decide this was possibly the most luxurious place we have ever stayed!

The entire property is situated above the best white sandy beach on the entire island, overlooking the Caribbean Sea. This includes the suites themselves, all of which are oceanfront, with direct access to the stunning beach.

The open-air restaurant has a spacious terrace area, again perched just above the ocean. Here you can enjoy fine dining options from breakfast through to dinner, all whist taking in one of the most breathtakingly gorgeous views, or whilst trying to count the number of different blues in the ocean!

We have to mention the beach bar. This is perfect if you want a more relaxed lunch option straight after spending the morning swimming, or if you just don’t want to move from the beach to put a shirt on! We enjoyed having lunch directly on the beach itself, followed by numerous watermelon mojitos and spiced rum punch!

Tucked away amongst the jungle gardens you will find the spa. This offers a wide range of massages, treatments, and therapies, delivered by a very experienced team of staff who are refreshed on new techniques every year.

What Makes Yemaya, Little Corn, Gay Friendly?

We had already been pleasantly surprised with what we had found out about gay Nicaragua. We were also surprised that Nicaragua offered hotels that classed themselves as gay friendly, such as Casa Lucia in Granada. Not knowing if Yemaya would be the same, we were interested to find out!

It didn’t take long at all to realise that yes, Yemaya is absolutely a gay friendly hotel!

In fact, we immediately noticed that on our boat transfer there were two other LGBT couples as well as ourselves. Later, we found that the General Manager of the hotel and the General Manager of the restaurant were both gay. We could not have felt more comfortable.

We spoke with Federico (General Hotel Manager) to learn more about how gay friendly Yemaya is. He explained that while Yemaya is welcoming of all guests including LGBT travellers, it is not solely about being gay friendly; it’s about making sure that all guests have the same, perfect experience.

Whether you are a straight couple on your honeymoon, a gay couple on holiday, or just celebrating a milestone in your friendship, it does not matter. Every guest will be treated equally.

Federico explained that the staff are trained to be very professional in the questions they ask to understand what kind of relationship two people have. They are not invasive but equally won’t just assume we are brothers (effectively forcing us to explain we are a gay couple). We never felt the need to ‘come out’ once to any member of staff at Yemaya as our relationship was accepted without the need to question.

We truly felt that we could be “romantically” at ease with each other as a couple, and act like we were on our honeymoon all over again!

What did we love about our stay?

In short, everything. But if we have to make a shortlist, here are our top reasons why we love Yemaya:

Our Room:

• We stayed in an Oceanfront Suite with Plunge Pool. This was the most beautiful hotel room we have ever stayed in. The room is spacious, immaculately decorated and stylishly designed with handcrafted, Nicaraguan furnishings.
• As the name says, the room and the infinity pool are both ocean facing. Upon waking up and opening the curtains, the first thing you see is a stretch of white beach, blue sea and palm trees. We couldn’t have asked for a better view!
• All rooms have their own expansive, private terrace with a swinging day bed (our favourite spot outside of the pool to admire the views!). If it wasn’t for the food in the restaurant and the beach being so pristine, we wouldn’t have left our terrace!
• The bathroom! This was stunning. It had a rainfall shower within an “indoor garden”, and the provided shampoo, conditioner and bodywash were spa worthy!

The Food..and Drink

• Each morning we were excited to get to breakfast. This is no ordinary hotel breakfast. The options are more akin to fine-dining. There are plenty of choices and each one is presented beautifully. We would quite happily spend an hour eating breakfast, drinking tea and having fresh juice from their own gardens. Our favourite option was the Coconut french toast with citrus compote, fermented hibiscus syrup, fennel basil cream and fresh fruit!
• Lunch could either be taken at the main open-air restaurant or beach bar. We loved the option of small tapas style plates to share but our favourite had to be the Suckling pig sandwich with tamarind gastric and root vegetable fries.
• Each dinner was a new fine dining experience. The menu changed each day depending on what fresh local produce was available. We looked forward to seeing what was on offer and being able to try new things we had never come across before. The meal that really stood out for us was the Vigoron, this is a classic Nicaraguan ‘fast food’ option which the chef has turned into a 5 star meal with the inclusion of suckling pig.
• The cocktails have been designed with the help of Jasper Soffer whose cocktail menu was heralded by Time Out Magazine five times. As a result, you won’t get these cocktails anywhere else and they are quite incredible. Make sure you try the Spicy Watermelon one!

Special touches:

• Yemaya has their own private boat. No need to get the public slow boat, get yourself booked on and fly across the water from Big Corn to Little Corn Island in 30 minutes.
• When we arrived, we received a refresher towel, a welcome drink and were greeted by management. The immediately felt much more personal that what you may expect from a larger hotel.
• What we were not expecting at the restaurant was entertainment. During our stay we got to experience a Garifuna night. This was a local band from Bluefields on the mainland that played live music, sang and danced. They even had Sion up to dance and twerk!
• Yemaya runs a sunset cruise and daytime snorkelling cruises. However what makes this special is that they use 40-foot-long traditional, handcrafted sailboat, operated by local Miskito sailors. This was quite an experience and it was great to learn about part of the local culture.

For us, this was the definition of paradise. You can forget about the rest of the world and completely lose yourself in the luxury of Yemaya. From the minute we stepped foot off the boat, we were in awe of the resort and its surroundings. Yemaya truly is your own little, gay friendly oasis.

Take a look online to book Yemaya!

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Check our our other articles about gay friendly hotels in Granada, Nicaragua.

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