My Husband and I recently treated ourselves to a romantic trip to the island of St. Lucia. We wanted to go somewhere tropical, and beautiful, and exotic, and boy did we ever get what we ordered! However, even though we did extensive research before booking our trip, there were still a few things that I wish I would have known before we went, and there are a few things I learned that would be helpful to pass along.
If you don't want to read the entire post, skip to the bottom where I have compiled a list of things you absolutely positively must be aware of before you go on your vacation.
The absolute first thing that you need to know, is that the bathrooms in the St. Lucia airport are NASTY. There are 3 stalls in the women's bathroom, the toilets didn't really flush so well. There were people on my flight who flat out refused to pee in there. It took us an hour to get through the customs line, and since I have a fear of airplane bathrooms, I had no choice but to use the airport bathroom. The moral of the story is, if you have to choose between the toilet on the plane, and the one in the airport, choose the one in the plane. Warning! Don't skip them both, because it is a 2 hour bus ride to the resort.
Our adventure began before we even left the airport. Sandals resort has its own lounge there, where you check in, and they put you on the correct shuttle to your hotel. It was here that we were told that our resort had been over booked, and that they didn't have a room for us. Imagine our glee! Fortunately for us, Sandals has incredible customer service. We were placed in a private car with a personal driver who took us to The Sandals La Toc, where they put us into a ocean view honeymoon suite. The La Toc resort was beautiful! The beach is lovely, the food was great! We have absolutely no complaints about our one night stay there. The next day another private car was arranged for us and we were taken over to The Sandals Grande.
The Grande was our favorite resort out of the 3 Sandals resorts on the island. The beach is white sand, and the water is so clear that You can see your toes when you are in over waist deep! I kept accidentally dunking my face when bending over to pick up shells because the water was so clear. The beach was so clean. There was really no trace of trash within the boundaries of the resort. I watched a guy rake the beach every morning cleaning up trash, shells, rocks, and erasing foot prints. The attention to detail at this place was amazing. They even had a guy on staff who walked around shooting birds with a super soaker to keep them from begging in the out door restaurants, and now that I think of it, for all the birds we saw, I don't recall seeing any poo. Huh.
We spent our days lying in the sun, walking in the surf, eating, relaxing, and drinking.
If you are a bit more adventurous that me, there are many many excursions that you can go on. (at extra cost)
We only went on one, the Carnival land and sea adventure tour, which is a tour given by a company separate from the resort, which you can book at a kiosk in the hotel lobby.
This tour takes you on a catamaran down the coast to Soufriere. You get to see the Piton Mountains. They take you by bus to the botanical gardens, and you get to see the Sulphur Springs “drive-in- volcano” *Note, its stinky. Its in Sulfur Springs. You do the math. They fed us a lunch buffet at a local restaurant And on the way home, you get to snorkel. It took the entire day, but it was totally worth it. It was a good way to see a lot of the island in one shot.
Of note, one of the other things we wanted to do was take a few hours to go read to school children to promote literacy through the Sandals foundation. They only offer this on Thursday mornings. If you don't learn of it until Thursday afternoons, you miss out. Also, they ask that you bring a book from home to donate to the school library. I didn't learn about that until it was to late too.
If you are to cheap to spend extra cash on additional excursions, *a hem....* The Grande has a lot to offer. You can rent out a little hobie cat sailboat, they will even teach you to sail it! There are snorkeling trips and wind surfing lessons too. If you don't want to hang in the water, and just want to soak up the sun, the resort has a free library where you can trade in your finished books for new ones. They also have a group of young people called the "play makers" who are there to make sure that you are having a good time. They organize beach games, pool games, dance parties, they even tie dyed shirts. There was always something going on. Live music, Live DJ, and even a movie on the beach one night.
All in all our vacation to St. Lucia was a wonderful experience that we are never going to forget.
As promised, here is a list of things you MUST know before visiting St. Lucia.
1. Don't bother converting your money to EC. (East Caribbean ) money. Everything is done using us currency, everything is priced accordingly, and it just annoys the locals to have to convert it back.
2. When you come back to America, customs will confiscate any plants you have, which includes anything made from plants, which includes any and all super cool hats woven from coconut leaves, (even if they aren't green any more). So, save your money.
3. The dress code was really confusing to us. We weren't really sure what we needed to bring. Bottom line,
resort causal = cover up your swimming suit with a dress or shirt and shorts
resort Evening = dresses for women, long pants and button shirt for men and CLOSED TOE SHOES. For the love of all that's good, don't forget the closed toe shoes boys. If you do, you will not be able to eat at some of the restaurants. You can buy shoes in the duty free shop, but it will cost you $100. Just bring them from home.
4. before attending any of the dance parties, it is imperative that you know how to do both the shuffle, and that butt shaking / wiggling thing. I think I was born with to many vertibre to do either, so I was a dance party spectator only.
5. They are crazy drivers over there, and the roads are very curvy, so if you get car sick, bring your sea bands and Dramamine if you plan on driving anywhere.
6. If you want to wear a bikini, then for petes sake just do it. Trust me. It will be ok. I guarantee you that there will be someone who looks worse than you on that beach.
7. When trying to decide which resort to stay on, it goes like this. The Grande, then La Toc, and if you have to stay at the Halcyon, maybe just go to Jamaica instead. Or stay at the Halcyon, but take the bus to the Grande and hang out there all day.
8. Be aware that if you aren't a 20 something newly wed. or a 50 something empty nester, you are going to be in the minority. Seems like everyone was there celebrating a milestone. We were just there celebrating being together.
