Our holiday to St Lucia began on an inaugural flight out of Manchester. The flight was delayed due to weather conditions in Cancun, but the pilot made up most of the time in the air so we only arrived an hour late.
As we arrived in St Lucia airport we went through to a luxury lounge courtesy of Sandals where we received a refreshing towel and some drinks. We jumped straight on a transfer mini bus up to our hotel in the north west of the island (1 hour transfer) where we were greeted with champagne and checked in. After a quick dinner and wander around the resort we took an early night in our giant super-comfortable four poster bed!
In the morning the sun was shining and the setting for breakfast was looking over the pool and beach – the most welcoming view on our first day in resort!
Over the course of the week most of our time was spent relaxing on the beach, enjoying the sound of the sea and swimming in the ocean. Most of the guests preferred to be by the pool with the entertainment and music on. We preferred to enjoy the views, play beach volley ball and relax this way. One thing which we did not realise about St. Lucia was that all beaches are public beaches, not privately owned, so we enjoyed hanging out with the locals on the beach and learning more about St Lucia, their lives and what it is like living there.
From the information we picked up on the beach, we took a fantastic trip one day which was a licensed trip from one of the beach lads and seemed like the most cost effective way to experience the island. The trip set off from the beach. We took a speed boat down the coast to the Pitons, where we stopped at a few points along the way and were informed about interesting facts about the island. We then stopped and got off the beach between the islands and did some amazing snorkelling in the most stunning location. We carried on to Castries town and had a wander around before jumping on a bus to the volcano where we have a mud scrub in the boiling hot water springs! After a delicious local lunch at one of their family homes, we went on to the waterfalls and tropical gardens which were stunning with amazing views.
We headed back to the boat for more swimming, stopped off and a few more points of interest and refreshed with Pitons Beer and some strong local Rum Punch!
It was a fantastic trip and I would recommend it to anyone visiting the island. We spent another day over at a different Sandals resort in the top of the island. We drove through the town centre and main port to experience more of the island. This resort had wake-boarding on offer, so we spent the day wake-boarding, paddle-boarding and chilling on a different beach.
Friday nights in St Lucia are party nights. The hotel put on a fantastic spread of food and entertainment. This all finishes at 9:00 pm when the main island part for the local begins further North on the island. This was not recommended by some people to go to, but the local guys on the beach took us up there and we had a great evening dancing and drinking with them all and experienced some local street food before heading back to the resort. We did not experience any trouble and had a great time so would definitely recommend it.
My boyfriend and I have never been on a resort holiday before and never stayed all-inclusive, but we got a great deal so went for it. We did find some of the entertainment a little ‘cheesy’ for our taste, however there were plenty of places to go to escape this and amazing things to see on the island. The all-inclusive option was actually a really nice way to spend a week with no major decisions to make on where to go, what budget we are spending and looking at the cost of things. On the menu were king prawns, sushi, steak, Japanese and Caribbean to name a few, so there was plenty to choose from an enough variety for a week. The locals and staff were fantastic and we met some great people in resort to hang out with in the evenings for a few drinks. We have both travelled around the world and would certainly recommend St Lucia to anyone – it was stunning, had a perfect climate (in November) and was simple to get to even from Manchester.