Sharon and Jacques’ Excellent Blog

Sharon and I took two weeks off from May 16-30 and went to St. Lucia and stayed at the Grand, one of 3 Sandals properties on the island. We had a relaxing time with a few hiccups and it was great to get away.

I have posted a gallery of the pictures from the trip. I’ve added a few high dynamic range images to the gallery. What’s that you may ask? Compared to the human eye, digital cameras don’t capture as much tonal detail. If a scene contains very dark areas and very bright images, you have to make a choice between exposing so that you can see into the dark areas (and over exposing the whites) or exposing for the light areas (and seeing nothing in the dark areas). Sunsets are a typical example of this problem. You can fix this problem by taking a series of pictures with different exposures and combining them together to form an image. The first 3 pictures in the gallery are examples:

Current Album: 2009 0516 Sandals in St Lucia
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Getting to Sandals from Toronto was a bit of a chore. We could not get a direct flight and so had to go via Atlanta. We were up at 3 AM to catch the flight that left at 6 AM. We had a 1.5h stop over in Atlanta were you have to pick up your bags and clear US customs. Sharon has a Nexus card which lets you bypass the line and do a rectal scan instead of talking to a customs agent. Since she was with me, we had to stand in line for about 20 minutes and she took every single minute to remind me that I should have a Nexus card. When we finally made to a customs agent who was a female, she spend another 10 minutes going at me for not having a Nexus card which Sharon enjoyed immensely.

We arrived in St. Lucia at around 3 PM and then boarded a bus. We got scammed by the airport porters who claimed to be with Sandals but weren’t. St. Lucia is a mountainous tropical island and the roads wind up, down and around. While they are doing this, the drivers are trying out for Nascar speed trials. A few people were quite green by the time we arrived at around 5PM. The bus drive is about 2h. On the way back, I was decidedly green and very glad to get off the bus.

Back to the overall experience at Sandals. The Sandals resorts are all-inclusive and generally they are. They are also typically quite expensive as all-inclusives go even with a good discount. I would not consider staying at a Sandals without a discount based on our experience. Included are booze and food, scuba diving,and water-sports. What isn’t included are little things like WiFi, eating at the waterfront restaurant (Gordon’s) unless you have butler service. You don’t get booze in your rooms (if its free why not?), and can’t order room service until you get to a certain room level. While these are minor items, they add up and when compared to say the Secrets resorts, they fall short. On the ridiculous side, you can get a shirt dry cleaned for a mere $35 USD and underwear laundered for $4 USD.

The food was poor to mediocre but this is pretty normal at an all-inclusive. Their food was leaning more on the poor side however.  To be fair, they had just installed a new chef and when we complained about the quality of the food, he invited us to Gordon’s and we had one of the best meals we have had while on vacation. The rest of the time, the food was overcooked and bland. Service was generally good but slow on some occasions. We waited 20 minutes in a restaurant with 3 other tables before we were served for example. We went off property to the Japanese restaurant which you need to reserve at least 1-2 weeks in advance. It was nice to get off the property (another 45 min bus ride) but the food wasn’t worth the trip. The views from the other resort are excellent so its worth it just for that.

We talked with a fair number of people at the resort and they fall into 3 basic categories. People who are just married (3 weddings a day is typical) and are honeymooners, people who have been married >10 years and are celebrating a special anniversary and people who love going to Sandals resorts, the Sandals groupies. We met a very pleasant English couple who had stayed more than 200 nights at Sandals resorts. There were also people who had been coming to the same resort for 17 years…

We both found it generally difficult to meet people. People were very couple focused. The sports bar had no atmosphere and for a place designed for honeymooners, I didn’t find any place (except Gordon’s) that was intimate. In watching the people, I came to conclusion that American “barbie doll” girls felt that Sandals was the perfect honeymoon resort as they were extremely well represented.

The scuba diving was pretty good but we showed up after a week of rain so the visibility was compromised. We used their equipment which was serviceable but clearly in need of a refresh. Their BCs were totally frayed at the bottom. The major dive sites are all about 40 mins away by boat and the boat is basic but goes well. Its very calm for the most part, Sharon didn’t feel the urge to throw up once. We were diving in and around a marine park and the impact of overfishing was very evident. There were few big fish. We did see lots of lobsters unfortunately none of them made it onto our plates. The coral is in reasonable shape and we saw a turtle. I found the diving in Barbados much better for example. I wouldn’t pick St. Lucia if you just wanted to go on a dive vacation. If you have any type of medical condition, you need to declare and provide a letter from a doctor. In my case, I had to get a friend in Dubai fax a letter since it would be next to impossible to get a Canadian doctor to do that on a long weekend when we first started diving.

The weather was good. There was always a breeze blowing and the hills and mountains caused lots of clouds to form then blow over. What little rain we did have was over in 5 minutes or less. Temperatures were comfortable during both the day and night. At night there were a few bugs around but nothing serious.

The beach is small but nice. They have covered bathing spots and totally shaded beds. You had to be up at 6:30 AM to reserve one of those. The water was crisp and refreshing. There was very little to see snorkeling in the water. I went to the watersports office to get a pair of fins and was told that they were not available for snorkeling on the beach. That pissed me off. Security on the beach was good and they “encouraged” hawkers to keep away. The beach is public property and so a few did make it through but they were not pushy.

There are lots of pools on the property. The main pool comes with a poolside bar and tower and is pretty busy. It has a hot tub (which is really, really, really hot) next to it and appears to be open through most of the night. There are several other quieter pools. A set of rooms in the middle of the complex have swim up rooms (extra money) and there is a pool called the lovers pool which is small and far from the crowds.

The grounds were well kept and covered with beautiful flowers. Bird watching was pretty good and an American kestrel was teaching its young to fly outside our window and hummingbirds frequently came and sat in a bush outside our window.

They offer a number of tours including whale watching. The whales appear to migrate in early May and perhaps later in the year so check before you book. They don’t breed in the area. The volcano is inactive so I think its more of a hill tour. Tours are in the $100 USD per person range. We didn’t try any as we were mostly diving and got to see a fair bit of the island going back and forth to the dive sites.

All in all, it was good vacation. It confirmed that I’m about done with all inclusives and unlikely to go back to Sandals again unless we have no other choice. For the money, I found it expensive and there are better choices for the same or less money. St. Lucia is a green gem island and I would like to go back and try other areas of the island.