I'm leaving for St. Lucia w/ my wife on Sun. night 4/25/04 for the Sandals Regency for a 6 day stay. we will be renewing our vow's and just wondering what things we should to do such as activities on the island and what to avoid. we will be trying scuba for sure, and thought about the 4wheeler trip/tour and rain forest.

The botanical gardens were great, the ATV tour was a blast and gave you some views of the island that you otherwise would not be able to see. The drive-in volcano was great also. Dinner at Dasheen's at Ladera is a must for a romantic evening. If you are adventureous at all, we had a great time renting a car and driving ourselves around. The roads are very curvy and rutted up but we had fun with that. Have a great time!

I agree that the botanical gardens are quite lovely and a great way to spend a morning or afternoon. Dinner at Dasheene at the Ladera resort has the most remarkable view, but you need to get there before sunset to full appreciate it. Remember that these places will be quite a hike from your Sandals property--probably 90-120 minutes away. That means you either must pay a hefty roundtrip taxi fare or be VERY adventurous driving in St. Lucia after dark (assuming you do dinner at Dasheene).

I could've skipped the drive-in volcano. Conceptually it was very interesting, but in reality all we did was take a five minute walk with other groups of tourists over a landscape that was very alien looking. My clothes still smelled at the end of the day from the sulfur fumes.

You might want to check into doing a full or half day catamaran sail. They'll take you to a great snorkeling location, provide lunch, equipment, and an open bar for the entire time you're on board. I've done it on other islands for $50-85 per person, depending on length of trip. If you have the funds, you might also want to consider a helicopter tour of the island, especially over the Pitons. It's breathtaking! St. Lucia also has a high speed catamaran that runs to Martinique, which might be a fun day trip for you. You can also take a day trip to the Grenadines--fly there and then sail the Grenadines and snorkel in a few different locations and fly back the same day to St. Lucia. The last time I inquired about it it cost around $350 pp, which includes the flight, the sailing, the departure taxes, lunch, and drinks aboard the sailboat.

thanks for the info. We will prob. stay on the Island seeing how all meals are already paid for but the atv sounds cool how long is it and what kind of quads are they name brand and size? the Catamaran ride sounds awsome should I pre-book anything before we go? What is the name of the Cat. rental company? Any Ideas on best scuba areas since it will be included in the sandals pkg. Thanks again

I had forgotten about the helicopter ride! It was not too be missed. I don't know specifics about the ATV's themselves but the tour was a four hour tour and at the southern end of the island. There are some beautiful cliffs that we drove to the top of. We arranged it through our hotel, the hilton, and the ATV company picked us up there and took us down to where the ATV's were. We had a blast! One of our daughter's got her's stuck in the mud and proceeded to crank the handle as hard as she could to make it go. Her sister was right behind her so she got covered. Of course any time they could after that they were trying to splatter mud on everyone.
I really wish we had done the catarmaran but just ran out of time.
We did not book anything ahead of time and had now problems doing what we wanted. However, we went the second week in December and that is a very quiet time for travel (which is why we go then!)
Have fun.