Sandals Grande St. Lucian

Good Mornin’ 😀

YAY for a new day!! Hope you are off to a great start….& enjoying a nice cup of coffee 😉

Yesterday I left you off when we had arrived at the St. Lucian airport. So I’ll pick up where I left off….we sat in the ‘Sandals waiting room’ until our shuttle was called for Sandals Grande St. Lucian. Once we got on the shuttle, which was really was just an oversized bus we were on our way! The first thing you will notice is that they drive on the opposite side of the road, like in England.


^yes, those are Craig’s legs 🙂

It was definitely strange…took a bit getting used to. The other SURPRISE that they throw at you is that it is an HOUR and a HALF drive to the Grande. (I think La Toc & Halcyon are closer to the airport..maybe a 45 minute drive- not 100% sure though) We knew it was a drive, but we didn’t know it was THAT long. It was really cool to see all of the sites though, so the drive went really fast.

We made a stop along the highway at a local restaurant/ hang out area. Look at the beautiful pictures..


Mr. & Mrs. 😀

But, it is a very poor country. The highways are only TWO lanes, and everywhere you look there are sites like the one below.

This is a bridge, well, this WAS a bridge, that was destroyed by a hurricane. It still has not been fixed. You will also see houses that are nothing like you see in the United States. It just really makes you appreciate home and all that we have in the USA. But, the cool thing is that the locals are VERY nice & really seem to be very content with their lives and how they live. It was really cool getting to meet some of the locals, they truly are some of the sweetest people!

^ I don’t know if you can tell in the picture above, but the roads are not only JUST two lanes, but they are also VERY narrow. We were in a big ol’ bus, but I was still terrified!

AND we had this CRAZY driver. I can’t tell you how many times I thought we were going to die. Seriously. DIE. There are NO speed limits in St. Lucia (well, there might be, but no one follows them) They get RIGHT behind the car in front of them (I mean RIGHT behind them) & them.

^don’t know if you can tell by this picture, but we are RIGHT on top of that guy. I was hoping he would drop some bananas so that I could grab them 😉

If they didn’t speed up, then they would honk non-stop & pass them over the middle of the road. OMG…talk about about to PEE IN YOUR PANTS out of fear. It was interesting to say the least.

I was BEYOND happy to arrive at the Sandals resort in one piece. Once we arrived, this is what we saw..

 ^That was the lobby of the resort, and we were greeted with some of the people that worked there. They offered us some more Rum Punch- lol! Craig & I got checked in & then walked to our room. Initially our room was not so great & we were REALLY disappointed…but I’ll tell ya about that in another post 😉

Once we got settled in- literally just meaning our suitcases were in our room- we headed out to check out the resort. A lot of people were asking if we just got there…obviously we were not in the correct attire. You will live in your bathing suit for the time that you are there. All you really need to pack is a bunch of bathing suits & bathing suit cover ups….and one nice outfit, if you plan on making reservations at one of the ‘fancier’ restaurants. Of course I packed WAY TOO MUCH. Honestly when I was packing I didn’t feel like deciding what I wanted to bring, so I just threw a TON of items into my luggage….I probably only used about 1/4 of the clothes I packed. Oh well, I guess you could say I was OVER prepared 😉

While we were checking out the resort, we happened to spot one of the beach bars. It looked and sounded too good to pass up. We decided to get a drink & soak up the sights.

^the ‘beach bar’


^the sites 🙂

And, if you go to Sandals, BE SURE to order a ‘Dirty Banana’…and if you are like me and love coffee, ask for extra coffee liqueur. SO GOOD!

SO SO SO good…and I don’t even really like sweet drinks. This was not too sweet, but rather perfect 🙂 I have found a drink recipe that is supposed to be the same as this…I’m going to have to try it this weekend & I’ll let you know if it compares 😉

It was quite an arrival! We decided to check out ‘Barefoot by the Sea’ for dinner. The cool thing is that EVERY restaurant offers a vegetarian dish! I was impressed. I decided to order the vegetarian special that night, which was stuffed peppers.

I have to say, I was impressed! This dish was really good! It came with a bread basket to start with, and of course whatever kind of drink you would like…the benefits of all-inclusive 😉 I tended to stick with wine for dinner; I preferred the Pinot Grigio that they had for their house wine.

Once we were done with dinner we headed back to our room to get some sleep…we were pretty tired after a day of traveling. On our way back to the room, we spotted this guy:

Some of the local widelife 😉 You can’t tell in the picture, but it was about the size of my hand…it was HUGE! Craig was freaked out & he kept asking me why in the world I was getting so close to it for a picture- lol! Frogs/ toads do NOT scare me one bit. Now, if it was a spider…then that would be another story!

Once we got back to our room, we watched a little tv- YES, there is TV on the island- they get the local channels from Miami. BUT, you do have to pay for internet…which is $14.99 a night, or there is a 3 day package that you can buy for $30. We just got internet for one night to email our families to let them know that we made it ok. Just an FYI, if you are planning to go to St. Lucia, there is NO cell phone reception- so let your families know beforehand! 🙂

Well, I’ll leave you with that! I have lots more, but I don’t want to make these posts ridiculously long. 🙂
Catch up with you tomorrow..and ENJOY your day! 😀

Posted by Holly at Holly on the Run on June 14, 2011

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