leavingsoon

You all were so helpful that I have had extra time leftover from booking Barbados to fantasize about "hopping" over to another island.

I have found the flights, and a few hotels that look really appealing on St. Lucia, but do they get more rain in June?

Is it easy to visit the volcano and the rainforest with a car? (I know the roads are not great, but not worried about that).

Favorite dinner place?

Thank you again. This is shaping up to be quite a Caribbean adventure and I appreciate everyone's great help!

leavingsoon

Does nobody go to St. Lucia? It looks so lovely...

keepitreal

You should not have a problem getting to the drive in volcano with a car if you stay in the South near Soufriere (sp.?). However, I was not too impressed w/ the volcano as a tourist attraction.


The rain forests however are quite impressive. We did a rain forest tour with a guide so I can't tell you how easy or hard it would be to get to the rain forest with a vehicle. I rememeber that during our tour it was quite a lengthy drive in the tour company's vehicle to the rain forest trail, but there are lots of trails so you may be able to find one that you can drive to easily.

The best calm beach on St. Lucia in my opinion is the Jalousie beach between the Pitons and directly in front of the Jalousie Plantation. I think this is the Jalousie's private beach but I am not sure of that. It has pretty good snorkeling and cobalt blue water. Not nearly the best in the Caribbean, but very good for St. Lucia, which is not known for its snorkeling.

My favorite place to eat is Dasheene, the Ladera restaurant. Expensive, but the food is very good and the atmosphere overlooking the Pitons is breathtaking

leavingsoon

Thank you for that. I just found that hotel today.

I didn't know if Reduit/ Rodney Bay? was better for swimming, but honestly, we'll just sit and stare at those Pitons now that I've seen the photos. Looks great.

brenandg

The answer to some of your questions depends on what part of the island you decide to stay on. It takes a while to get to each end of the island due to the terrain. If you stay on the northern part of the island, I would consider hiring a taxi for the day to take you to the high points or doing a land and sea type excursion. If you strictly want to see/hike the rainforest, you might also look into a guided tour. sunlinktours.com should give you some ideas about what you could do while on STL. If you really want to drive yourself, enjoy! It's not so much that the roads are bad, but they are steep and winding with little guard rail on the way to the Piton's from the north part of the island. If you stay near Soufriere, you would have much less driving to worry about. The Rodney Bay area has the most to do. Reduit Beach in Rodney Bay is said to be calm. Haven't been to Jalousie, but surely, the views can't be beat. We loved The Coal Pot restaurant in Castrie's. How long do you plan on staying? I'm thinking your flight might land in Castries SLU airport since you are coming from Barbados. We haven't been since 2004, so I'm not totally up to date. Have fun planning.

kellybeaches

Hi leavingsoon,
Check out the below message board-it has some links and interesting info on St. Lucia. I took down my ofoto picture album that you'll see the link for, but if you're interested let me know and I can repost.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34966693

Regarding the rain in June, we stayed there Memorial Day week a couple years ago, and we knew June started the rainy season. Maybe it was just because we were aware of that, but I swear, each night the rain got progressively heavier and heavier. Good news is, it rained heavily-very heavily-pretty much only at night. It really didn't effect us.

Regarding the volcano and rainforest tours - the volcano wasn't anything too great, but I guess worth checking out for something to do. We liked the botanical gardens, rainforest hike, and hiking Petit Piton much better. We didn't rent a car while there-the roads are pretty bad, and I'm comparing them to the road to Hana in Maui. The taxi's worked out well for us.

Favorite dinner place - if you're looking for something fancy, I have to agree with keepitreal- check out Dasheene at Ladera. The view is really pretty looking down through the valley between the pitons. For culture and fun, I highly recommend Friday night fish fry in Anse la Raye-we took a water taxi there and it was the most memorable dinner we had. Lots of locals, music, great food. Of course, the best place was dinner (wine, cheese, local fruit) from our villa Frangipani at Stonefield. The sun set right in front of us every night -it was spectacular!

Jalousie Plantation has an excellent beach-very unique too as it's smack in between the pitons. We went there pretty much everyday for the beach and great beach bar/restaurant. Snorkeling wasn't bad either-they have an area sectioned off for it. However, we couldn't see the sunset from there as the pitet piton was in the way. Stonefield, right on the other side of the pitet piton, had full sunset views, and they were some of the best we've ever seen. Stonefield offers free transportation to and from Jalousie anytime. It's about a 3-5 minute drive. Stonefield doesn't have a beach as the villas are in the hills. Anse Chastenet had a really nice black sand beach, but man, did it get hot! I really burnt my feet on it!

Enjoy your trip! I'm sure you'll have a great time no matter where you stay!

leavingsoon

Thank you all so much!

I am leaning toward staying at Jalouise.

It seems Daschene is not too far from there? Could we safely drive between the two after dark?

I also wondered, are Castries or Rodney Bay places that we would want to stroll around for the afernoon and stay for dinner? If so, would it be unsafe to drive back in darkness because it is too far or not advised for non-islanders?

We are determined to rent a car. Thank you all so much!

keepitreal

Dasheene is not far from the Jalousie and I think you would be fine driving between these two points even at night.

I would not try to drive between the Jalousie and Rodney Bay at night.

The Jalousie is fabulous. You can read some of my comments on this property by entering "jalousie" in the search box. I was there five years ago on my honeymoon. It has changed hands since then but I understand it still a great place.

leavingsoon

Getting excited!

Do you think we could drive "home" from the Friday fish fry, too (assuming we're going on the early side, because it sounds like a nice place to visit at sunset)?

This is so exciting!

billyb68

hi, i dont want to be negative but would like to tell our feelings of st lucia..we were there in december and felt threatened every time we left the resort...we are very adventurous and will do anythin/go anywhere, but we were frightened everytime we went out..we stayed south by the airport but went to the volcano , soufries and the zip line...soufries at night ?? no !! driving at night ? no..it was scarey...we did rent a sailboat out of soufries...that was the highlight of the trip...i actually declined the fishfry out of dennery because of the other bad experiences.it was too risky at night.i think there is one up north with more tourists which might be ok , but we did not feel safe the whole 4 days...sorry, but its our feelings,,,the island is beautiful from the water,,,,

leavingsoon

So sorry to hear you didn't like it! I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful...but we're determined to go!

Has anyone else been to the fish fry?

Any idea if it starts on the early side?

Thank you all so much for your detailed responses. I bought a small guidebook that is outdated (sorry it is not Fodor's!) but it does have pretty pictures and a few maps.

It looks like there is a crafts village south of Soufrieres, so I am heading there, too.

And while I did check Stonefield Estates, they were out of our price range for availability on dates. We may eat there, though. Actually, we're not "big eaters," so I don't know when I'll be doing all this eating!

Does anyone have must-see stops between the airport and Soufrieres on the drive from town?

Thank you again. If it's too many questions I apologize. Normally I have more time to plan.

billyb68

oh no, please dont misunderstand me...it is a beautiful island...i would never recommend not to go anywhere, just wanted to let you know to be safe and take precautions...i went there expecting to be able to travel freely and with out worry, kinda like hawaii ....and was just not mentally prepared.....have fun

keepitreal

Leaving Soon:

You might want to stop off at Margiot Bay if you are en route from Soufriere to Castries. It is a very pretty protected bay-- quite scenic. I want to say that a famous movie like Dr. Doolittle filmed some scenes at this spot. Also, I have heard that a scene from one of the Superman movies was filmed at the Diamond Falls.

Enjoy St. Lucia. It is a beautiful island and as long as you follow commmon sense measures for personal safety as you would in any large American city you travel in, your chances of something bad happening are extremely small.

doug_stallings

I don't share the huge concerns regarding safety in St. Lucia. I've been on the public buses in the Rodney Bay area as well as to the Jump Up in Gros Islet and have never felt any threat by day or night. I can't speak to the area around the airport, though. And I've never been to the fish fry in Anse La Raye.

Like all Caribbean islands with extensive poverty, there is some crime on the island, but if you use reasonable precautions, you should be fine.

Having said that, I'm not nearly as enthusiastic to recommend driving from Jalousie to Castries, Rodney Bay, or even Marigot at night. The island roads aren't well lit, and they are very winding. It's also a very long drive (well over an hour from Soufriere, and it might be closer to 2 hours at night). Dasheene isn't terribly far away (maybe ten minutes), so I'd feel less concerned about driving there are night, but you have to go up a very steep road to get out of Jalousie and then drive higher up into the mountains to reach the Ladera resort. If it were me, I'd do taxis, but you can certainly rent a car.

Jalousie Bay is very calm, but the white-sand beach there is man-made, though nice.

leavingsoon

Thank you again for the advice.

We'll be cautious about driving.

kellybeaches

Hi leavingsoon,

We took a water taxi to fish fry-in my opinion, this is the best way to get there as it’s a very enjoyable ride there. We left Jalousie beach around 5 I believe and it started around 6 or 7-it was still light out. We got there before it was really starting so we could walk around the town. It’s really just one street they close off and they have vendors selling crafts and set up music and food stations. There are a lot of locals as well as some tourists. It was really a great time. We took a regular taxi home from there, but the ride was very dark, windy and a bit scary. We felt completely safe the whole time at fish fry-even going off to the main street to find a store to use a bathroom. Everyone was very friendly to us and didn’t haggle us at all. In fact, one day while we were walking around Soufrierre, a man came up to us and started singing to us-it was actually rather enjoyable-he was quite a character. Of course he then asked us for a donation for his singing-but as soon as he did, the local women came out of their houses and started yelling at him and shooing him away! I’ve never seen this happen before that or since. I felt bad for the man since everyone there seemed to give him a hard time. It was like the women were protecting the tourists. Anyway, I’m sure anywhere you travel you’ll need to keep your wits about you, but I didn’t feel like I was harassed or unsafe at any point on that trip (although just a heads up- Sourfierre is a very poor town-it broke my heart to see the small children literally playing in the mud with the pigs/chickens). The people were very friendly to us though.

It’s worth doing dinner at Stonefield one night to see the sunset and magnificent views, but know ahead of time that the service is VERY slow, even for island time. But the food and staff are very friendly. We ate there almost every night and really enjoyed it. Just don’t wait til your starving to go

Here’s a link to our pictures from our trip-you’ll see some of Jalousie, the tours you can do, and fish fry. Can’t wait to hear your trip report!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLan...share&Ux=0