Sandals Grande St. Lucian – Resort Review

Hey babes, and significant others of babes if you are reading this post to get ideas for your anniversary celebration, honeymoon, somewhere to get married or even just to get the heck out of town for a long weekend! The latter is what we did…haha. I have received a lot of questions about the resort so I wanted to share as much info with you guys as I could -so, lets start with why we chose St. Lucia, shall we?

Now, I have to be honest – our reasons are not that meaningful other than the fact that neither of us had ever been to St. Lucia. We wanted to go to the Caribbean because this is their dry season (less rain) as well as it is a much easier travel day for us. Opposed to somewhere in the Pacific or another time zone. St. Lucia is only one hour difference from us. We also picked the Sandals Grande St. Lucian over other resorts on the island because they have the new over water bungalows and have recently done a lot of renovations to the property.

Arriving at the resort:

We flew in on Friday morning. Our flight was at an awfully horrible hour – but I am so glad that we took it because we still had the afternoon and evening to spend at the resort! We arrived into the St. Lucia airport on the Southside of the island. There is a smaller airport at the north side which would be super convenient, but unfortunately, Ryan and I haven’t been able to decide on what personal jet we want to buy yet. Only kidding. But yeah – if you do have your own personal plane! Fly into the north airport for sure!

When you land you will go through the St. Lucia customs, which other than them asking me about my bamboo ark bag, it was a breeze going through the process. We then were directed to the Sandals airport suite where they provided drinks, snacks and as soon as we told them our name they were so gracious and knew exactly who we were and had a cab waiting on us!! Score!

We grabbed a few drinks and snacks for the road and took the hour and 20 minute ride to the north Caribbean side of the mountain. We got really lucky with our driver and he was extremely friendly, spoke amazing English and had so much information to share with us about their country. I did get a little carsick on the way there, he was a fast driver and there were a LOT of hills and curves. But we got there fast! HA!

When we arrived to the resort – they took our bags for us and escorted us to the Sandals Club lounge where we were greeted with signature cocktails and a GORGEOUS view of the resort. We made our dinner reservations and had a little tour to see where everything was. Next stop was bathing suits, bar and pool while we waited on our friends to get into town and meet us.

  

Food and drinks:

Oh! The food and drinks. Ya’ll. I gained 15 pounds I am not even kidding! I didn’t stop eating the entire trip! They had crepes, salads, fresh fish, sushi, hibachi, steak, Indian, pizza, I mean really – I could keep going! And, there was ALWAYS something open and serving! Two of the nights there – we all had two dinners. Embarrassing I know! But, we really wanted to try everything – and when it is all so easily accessible – it’s hard not to just keep eating it! As far as dinners – I think the Soy Sushi was my favorite – mostly, because sushi is my favorite in general. But they had every type of soup I love, all the fresh fish you can imagine, and hot saké – My favorite!!!! Between the three Sandals resorts on the St. Lucia Island, there are 27 restaurants for you to choose from. They provide transportation to each resort so you can hope around if you would like to. We were not there long enough to be able to do that but if we had been there one or two extra nights, we absolutely would have gone to check out the other properties!

At the bars, the 4 of us actually fell in love with their local beer. Piton Beer. It was light – refreshing and so good. Other than that, my go to drink were the mojito and a banana and daiquiri mix. Not only was it pretty, it was also so tasty!

Amenities:

Our resort had so much to offer! From our swim up room, to over water bungalows, to private homes with private pools. There was something to fit every type of couple. They also had all the water sports you could think of. Including snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking and paddle boarding. They even had water skiing and sailboats! Every night was a different themed party or event for everyone to attend and they had entertainment at the pool throughout the day. Depending if you wanted to have a sit down lunch, lunch in your room, or lunch by the pool – they would make it happen!

  

 

The Rooms:

To say our room felt like a dream would be an understatement! I am pretty sure the world would be a MUCH happier place if everyone woke up to a swim up pool from their bedroom. We literally would wake up, open the blinds and sliding glass doors and have mimosas until our breakfast arrived. I mean – that sounds like heaven right? It sure does to me! Our room was very close to the large pool and we could get to most of the buildings from our swim up pool alone!

Ha! I had to include this one! Ryan wanted to know why I was taking a photo of him eating. I had to show everyone a picture of us living our best life of course!

Leaving the resort:

The worst part of the trip. Literally. Y’all it is SO hard leaving vacay. Especially, when it’s a GORGEOUS day outside and all you want to do is go lay by the pool. I have to tell you – we did this a little wrong – out of not knowing what we were doing so I am going to share with you guys so you don’t make the same mistake!

We booked a late afternoon flight home – thinking we could lay by the pool until after lunch and then head over to the airport. We didn’t know that the shuttle left at 10:30am no matter what time your flight was. We ended up getting to the airport by noon and sitting there until our flight boarded at 4. You guys – in a foreign airport with only two restaurants and the entire island that is flying out that day is not fun. So next time – we will be getting a flight as close to the shuttle time as possible! Learn, from our mistake.

Actually, if we had planned in advance and realized this – we could have had a personal car planned to pick us up and take us later like we did when we arrived. But we didn’t know until the morning we were leaving so we didn’t want to risk it! But, that would have been ideal!!!

Oh, and now that I think about it too. We also saw in the airport we could have had a helicopter pick us up and it would have gotten us to the airport in 8 minutes!!! Crazy I know and SO SO SO ideal! Soooo, maybe look into that? lol!

Overall, we had the BEST trip. It was such a fun long weekend getaway and we would do it again and again a few times a year if we could! It was just long enough to refresh, relax and reconnect with each other! Especially, for all of you parents out there!