Recently visited St. Lucia for the third<BR>time. Please post or e-mail any questions.<BR>will be happy to help. Last visited Ladera<BR>and Sandals St. Lucia Golf and Spa in March.<BR>We felt it was a perfect combination for a <BR>romantic getaway. St. Lucia is wonderful!<BR>It is like a fantasy island!

You don't travel often, do you? <BR>St.Lucia is like a fantasy island?<BR>Please<BR>It is a nice island but there are others more exotic, cleaner, and with much better beaches<BR>

too smelly!

To the two negative posts on St. Lucia...I agree with Betty-it is INDEED A FANTASY ISLAND AND IS NOT SMELLY!!! BT-your comment of someone not traveling enough simply because SL doesn't have beautiful beaches is so narrow-minded. Most of my trips have centered around both beach and natural attractions. No, the beaches weren't amazing, but they weren't the worst I've seen and I've traveled extensively to Hawaii, Mexico, Europe & various Caribbean Islands. Visiting St. Lucia's natural attractions in the South and Marigot Bay were amazing. Next to Hawaii, this ranked in my top 3 and it was NOT dirty (personally, I felt St. Maarten was the filthiest)<BR><BR>Betty--would like to hear your impressions of Sandals Golf Resort. <BR><BR>I can't wait to return to SL!

We also love St.Lucia and Sandals Golf resort was where we stayed and will return there again. It was super! and yes, we travel every year.

I love St. Lucia also. Was there last year Halcyon and leaving on FRIDAY Oct4th for 7nights at the new Sandals Grand St. Lucian. Our 25th anniversary. We love the lush vegetation, hills and the diving. I have never been to an island that is spotless. (opps, Bermuda is spotless)<BR>I believe North American's tend to be compulsive about dirt and smells. You are in a country that is alway hot and steamy, it's comes with the area. Get over it and enjoy the people, the food and each other.

Please, please Traveller, give us a trip report when you get back! I'm going to Sandals Grande St. Lucia in Nov, dying to hear how it is.. Thanks

I will try to remember, of course I would love to talk about it! I will be back at my computer on Oct 14th, look for it then or the 15th.<BR>

I'm holding my breath!!!

Are the beaches really that bad? We're thinking of St. Lucia for our honeymoon.

Betty, have to agree with Monica re: St. Lucia, and agree that St. Martin was DEFINITELY 'stinky' and dirtier on the Dutch side, mainly. French side is much better.<BR><BR>We're going back for our 3rd time, only we are crazy about LeSport. The beach isn't the most spectacular compared to others (i.e., Anguilla, St. John, BVI), but it's better than Jamaica and even the east side of Barbados.<BR><BR>Can't recommend Rendezvous; was very disappointed there. At LeSport we really get our money's worth, with the private beach and 3 pools + their amenities (it IS AI, tho). We like AI's and have yet to be disappointed.<BR><BR>My hubby was a traveler from age 13 on (did lots of European / mid-East / Mediterranean and Caribbean travel with his dad, since his mom passed away). My hubby LOVES LeSport (and St. Lucia), and he's a Ritz-Carlton kinda guy for business travel. He figures, when you find something good you stick with it (altho I would like to try another place, but he really just chills out on our vacations there; sans spa treatments, so I use his) so we're sticking with it.

Jenni & Jay: RE: Beaches--depends what you're comparing it to...if you're looking for long stretches of white sand, you will not see this. I stayed at St. James Club (formerly Wyndham Morgan Bay) and was prepared (through research) for a small, chocolate brown beach, but for swimming, it was great. Reduit Beach (north) was more to my liking, though much busier...stretch of beach was nicer to stroll on. Marigot Bay is picturesque. Although we did the jeep safari tour in the South, we were unable to spend time on some of the small beaches there.

Jenni and Jay:<BR>If beaches are important to you, don't go to St. Lucia! Your honeymoon is so important. There are so many other islands that don't have that angry sea. It rained so much in St. Lucia that I couldn't even sit by the pool and read more than a few pages without being rained on. Many other islands have beautiful gardens and a number of them have private cove beaches. GC offers great beaches and great food. Antigua offers 365 beaches, a great place for total seclusion, heavenly when you're honeymooners, perfect even for those who aren't.

I agree with Barbara. If beaches are really important to you, choose something other than St. Lucia. While they are nice, they are not impressive. The water, in the majority of the areas, is a deep dark blue. Not many areas have those turquoise colors. Much of it reminded me of the Lake Michigan shoreline (only cleaner and clearer).

Not many places have beaches AND a rainforest, volcano, mountain ranges... St. Lucia is not the place to go if you're looking for JUST beach, but for a nice beach, and lots more, it's great!

BT,<BR><BR>You ever been to Hawaii??? Lot of dirty smelly places there and rude hawaiians to boot. Go to the Bahamas, which is in essence Miami lite where you have beaches and resorts and nothing else. Keep up the negative posts of St. Lucia so it will keep all the tourists out and leave it to us who truly love it.

Others have made this point before, but I will state it again. There are some very nice beaches in St. Lucia such as Reduit Beach in the north and the beach in front of the Jalousie Hotel in the south. I think people get way too obsessed on going to an island that has the absolute ultimate beach, forgetting that you can't see the beach and water at night and you aren't going to spend every waking momement during the day burning to a crisp on the beach. Why not go to an island that has other attractions and includes a nice beach besides? As another poster noted above, St. Lucia has rain forests, the Pitons, and waterfalls-- such stunning natural scenery it cannot be described in words and pictures don't do it justice . These are the kind of things that make an island vacation memorable. By the way, will somebody please explain what a previous poster meant when she said St. Lucia has an "angry sea"? At best, this is a gross exaggeration. Having stayed st the Jalousie three months ago, I can assure you there was nothing but calm, placid waters the whole time.

My husband and I stayed at the Sandals Spa and Golf Resort in St. Lucia this summer for our 25th anniversary. We had a marvelous time! The island is absolutely beautiful, the food at the many restaurants at the resort was out of this world, and the native employees were very friendly. The beach sand was not as white as at other beaches, but the accommodations were wonderful. He thoroughly enjoyed the 9-hole golf course while I read by the pool. To us: every single moment was absolutely perfect.

We just returned from Sandals Grand St. Lucian. It is wonderful! The best beach in St. Lucia, it is very nice. Small waves, pretty shells, no seaweed. We had the basic pool view room, go for the ocean view, I missed it. The resort is on Rodney Bay and it is so pretty to look out at the sunsets.<BR>The resort is beautiful, quite as far as Sandals. No loud entertainment, nice and romantic. The food was all very good. All the rooms have in room breakfast if you want and each room also has a stocked fridge, water, sodas, juices. <BR>We dive and the watersports team is right on top of things. They just got in 7 new HOBI CATS and the bay is great for sailing, waterskiing, wind surfing. Very active resort but not in your face. The pool is to die for, large swim up pool bar and there is a mist coming up from under the ledge at the bar so you never get hot. Lots of different levels to lay in and keep cool. Bring lots of sun screen, very hot sun, people were runing out and had to pay very high prices for the sunscreen in the little store. <BR>There are cabs to shop, seemed like anywhere we went it was $10.00. The free shuttle to Halycon is about 10 minutes and about 25 minutes to Sandals Golf and Beach Resort. We sent to the Golf and Beach twice for dinner and wish we hadn't, food was not good. <BR>All and all, a very lovely, romantic resort.

Keeping it Real-<BR>Maybe it's just at a certain time of year,but when we were there(in January), not once in seven days, were we able to get into the water. We had met people on other islands that had told us the same thing, but we decided that we wanted to see the island anyway and figured there were other things it had to offer. And there were! It rained several times a day - not sprinkled, RAINED, I was so bit up that I spent every night itching, the food was not good, etc. Other guests that were there at the hotel were complaining about the sea, also.