My Sandal's St. Lucia Grande HM Review!!!

I think I should first mention that our travel agent was Nick from Crossbay Travel in Howard Beach, NY. He was amazing to work with - never got annoyed when I would call to always ask what specials were running and how I could get discounts.

We really wanted to do a cruise to Tahiti but there were none leaving around the tine we wanted to go. To fly and stay at different islands was just too much money. We made teh decision that we would definitely want to stay at a Sandals, but didn't know which one. After speakin with Nick and discusses the pros and cons of all the different Sandals, we decided to stay at the St. Lucia Grande - we made an exccellent choice!!!

The FLIGHT....
Our flight left on Sunday morning. we decided to take the lay over flight instead of the direct because it was a two hour drive.
We got held up in Puerto Rico which pretty much ruined my first day. We were supposed to arrive in Sandals at 5 pm, we never got there until after 9 pm - not too bad but upsetting that our first day was missed. We took American Airlines then switched to an American Eagle Plane (i'm already scared to fly and when i saw how small it was i cried! lol)
I give them an F for delaying teh flight and then giving us no answers after the reboarded us on a plane 3x!

CHECK-IN....
We had an oceanview concierge penthouse room - awesome!!!! The conceirge service was great - they greeted us as we got off teh shuttle to the hotel and had champagne and some snacks waiting for us - they made a horrible day have a happy and relaxing ending!!

Our room was gorgeous!!! Anything we needed, conceirge had it for us ASAP. One night we wanted and extra bottle of champagne and by the time we got back to our room (not even 5 minutes) it was already there!

EXCURSIONS:
We did Horseback riding on teh beach.
I was a little disappointed that the hotel didn't tell us we were going on teh one that is just on land (still on teh beach but you don't actually go in the water). It was 1 hour and $60 each - we had a great time - the 1 hour ride was enough bc my butt was starting to get sore - plus it was REALLY hot on those horses - we had a great time though!

Rainforest Canopy -
this is a MUST-DO excursion!!!!
First of all the ride there and back was great - we had an island native as our 'tour guide' and he told us so much about the land - it made the 1 hour ride go really fast. Once we got there we got into the gear and got going pretty much right away - i have never had so much fun in my life. It goes really quick so make sure you soak it all in and enjoy every minute. Its hard to take pics (you have to hold on with two hands) but the people who work there gladly take them for you - we even had one guy videotape the last 800 ft. ride for us and us coming across.
On the way back our guide entertained us some more by giving us some local fruits to sample and we stopped at an amazing spot to take some pics - a true kodak moment! lol My camera broke that day - thank goodness we had DH's new hybrid videocam/digital but we still dont kno how to DL the pics lol - i will add them when i get them

Dinner on the Beach
Very romantic and we had a great waitress - it was definitely over priced - the menu was VERY limited and if you wnated steak or lobster it was an extra $60 per person! We had a good time that night so it was worth it for us. Dont think I owuld do it again though.

Red Lane Spa:
We did a special couples massage tehy had that week - amazing!!!!!!!
We were soooo relaxed and it was really the best massage i have ever had. We tipped them but they looked at us like we were crazy - dont know if we were supposed to but it was soooo worth it. They have really great products in teh spa too!

Snorkeling:
It was free through the hotel - they take you to a reef - its about a 45 min ride and you dive for 35 min. We saw alot of cool things and enjoyed teh trip. Take advantage of it!

Conceirge Hike:
On Fridays at 3 - you climb the Pigeon Mtn right next to the hotel - Great tour and AMAZING sighst at the top!!!!!!not a bad hike at all and there is a really nice 'surprise' at the end too- dont want to spoil it though!

FOOD:
Toscanini's : F
This place was DISGUSTING!
DH and i didnt even eat - we ordered room service that night!
Everyone down there kept raving about how good it was - I should have went with my gut (I NEVER eat italian food outside NY)
Well we waited almost 2 hours to sit. When we went inside finally over half the tables were EMPTY!!! Once we were seated teh waitress took our dinner order and that was it!!! She disappeared! I had to get up and go outside teh restaurant to get some drinks! Then when the food came it was the most disgusting food I have ever eaten in my life - we just left.

Great Eats:
At the Regency
Arizonas (our favorite)
Piton (great native food)
Japanese Place (forgot the name) but make sure you make reservations as soon as you get down there - we waited 9 days for ours!

At the Grande:
Bayside (great for all meals)
The London Pub (i was skeptical but it was really good)
Josephine's has YUMMY crepes too
I wasnt crazy about barefoot by the beach but DH loved it for lunch

One night we went to a Street Fair -
It was kind of scary at first but once the party started (around 10 PM) we had a great time - its a place for local and tourists to mingle - they had homemade rum and tons of delicious food
TIP: When you take a cab ask the same driver to pick you up at a set time/place also bring EC (the St Lucia currency) we got ripped off bc no one had US $$$ to give us change

Overall: the beach there was amazing and we loved the pool. We had great barteneders all week. At night we liked hanging out at the Regency. If you are looking for a big night life scene, this isnt the place for you. It is very low key - they have bands at night and stuff in teh club (but there was never anyone in there). We made our own fun hanging out on our balcony with a bottle of champagne.

The sunsets are BEAUTIFUL but VERY early - about 5 or 5:30 so give yourself enough time and take advanatge of teh photographers there!

Ok so i think i covered most of it. If you have any questions please feel free to FM me - again these are only some pics i got when my camera felt like working.

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Re: My Sandal's St. Lucia Grande HM Review!!!

More PIcs...


ETA: blocked from posting some of teh pics at work

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Re: My Sandal's St. Lucia Grande HM Review!!!

More pics...

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Re: My Sandal's St. Lucia Grande HM Review!!!

thanks for posting an amazing review of st.lucia!! im going in june to the regency and havent seen any reviews of it so im glad to see someone post on it!!

thanks again and CONGRATS!

Re: My Sandal's St. Lucia Grande HM Review!!!

thank you SO much for that amazing review!!!!

i'm glad u had such a great time. i cant wait to go!