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Hotel Reviews:
St. Lucia
Sandals St. Lucia 07/24/01
Reviewers Rating:  Excellent
Cheers and Jeers -
Sandals St. Lucia
Just returned from Sandals St. Lucia (July 2001). Lots of good things to say about Sandals staff, food, accommodations. Here's Cheers and Jeers from my perspective, for what they're worth.
For the record we are in our early 40s, first time at an all-inclusive; first vacation in 20 years without the kids. We booked a deluxe room and a renewal of wedding vows. We were upgraded to a Sunset Ocean Bluff One Bedroom Suite. Never made it to Halcyon so we had the pay for two, stay at one special. ;-)
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Cheers:
My Travel Agent - He couldn't have done more to help. E-mail me if you need a great agent. I didn't know this guy, was just referred to him by a friend. Upgrade, bottle in the room when we got there, etc. etc.
Pool bar staff - fun, relaxed, knew us by name on second day. Playmakers (activity organizers) were cool, 'no pressure, no problem' as they say. See Chester note below. Did a couple of activities but had more fun watching. Spent most of our days relaxing and talking with other couples at one of the two pool bars. Did *almost* the whole drink board one afternoon, woo-hoo!
Sunset Bluff Suites - concierge staff always helpful. Room was awesome with a jacuzzi and balcony over the ocean, two TVs, VCR, bar, huge shower.
Pitons Restaurant - unique food, all delicious. Don't miss the soups, the chef must be a master soup guy or something. Conch/clam chowder was the best chowder I ever had, bar none!
La Toc Restaurant - Small portions (to start), formal dress, great creole crayfish chowder and awesome steak (not small portions!).
Arizona Restaurant, especially the buffet - it was great to get a huge American-style meal with corn on the cob, shrimp, steak, ribs. Try the flying fish for lunch, real good.
Vendors day at poolside - great bargains on t-shirts ($10 instead of $30 for a couple of them). Don't miss this.
Talent Night - Chester was our witness for our renewal of wedding vows, and he talked me into drumming on Talent Night. A blast, the band was gracious and supportive. They do not actually "know" Oye Como Va, by the way.
Shuttle Drivers - what a great bunch. Picked us up in transit when we were walking, always took us all the way up to the door at the bluffs.
The Grounds - landscaping was just phenomenal. What an immaculately maintained place.
Soufriere Day Sail - all arranged by concierge and billed to the room. Nice boat, very professional crew. Lot of people that day but it was great. Snorkeled, rain forest, etc. Well worth the $80 each. The only tourist thing we really did. And speaking of the day sail...
...the Botanical Gardens - Very educational and truly a beautiful place. The guide really knew his material and made it a lot of fun. Tipped him ten bucks I was so happy! Surprised to learn that all of the flowers and trees were imported to create the garden, not local flora and fauna.
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Jeers:
Castries and Soufriere - It was sad to see the poverty in these cities. We curtailed our excursions out of the resort because it was just too depressing. It seems that the entire island lives either on a bluff (George Foreman vacation home, etc.) or lives without electricity, education, or running water. Hate to make this generalization, but this was what we saw - lots of people hanging out doing nothing or just drinkin' mon. Kids looked happy but begged for money. At least the adults were trying to sell something.
The Local Vendors - I say local vendors because I don't know how else to describe being bombarded by locals trying to sell me everything from beads to drugs. Nonstop every single place we went outside of the gate at Sandals, including the beach (see below). My wife was actually concerned for our safety a couple of times.
Armando's Italian Restaurant - OK, maybe I just don't like Italian food as much as some people. But they were a bit snotty when we asked for wine other than the Merlot (too much sun for that stuff) and the food was, well, OK. Awful lotta attitude about wearing a hat. Geez, gimme a break lady.
Kimono's Japanese Restaurant - It was OK. Don't go there expecting fine Japanese food. New Jersey has much better Japanese food. Fun night, kinda hot in there and not enough a/c. And what, no sake? Are you serious? Beans, rice, chicken, shrimp, beef. Wow. Also, we suspected that our Chef may indeed not have been trained by the Teppanyaki masters.
Pool Bars Closing at 5pm - Tell me this is only during "slow season". Please. On the upside, the Bluffs bar staff came out and waited on us at the pool whenever we were around after five and in a small group.
The Sports Bar - I have a room in my house with a TV that is tuned to ESPN. Does that make it a Sports Bar? Enough said.
The Piano Bar - piano never came out of it's protective piano cozy when I was around. Maybe I was at the Sports bar watching ESPN.
The Cowboy at the Arizona - I was not the only one trying not to laugh out loud. Bad country music and a lot of "howdy pardner" that sounded more like "hoe-dey paht-neh". A truly non-classy touch in an otherwise pretty classy environment. He actually wore spurs.
Service Deteriorated At The End Of My Stay - Look, I was into milking this vacation for all it was worth. When we were getting ready to leave (last two days) the staff was way too busy doing prep for new guests to get me a shuttle, store my bags for four hours, etc. And I was told I had until 1:30PM to check out but then they called at 10:30AM and told that the room was just booked and I had to be out by 11. What the .... !!! I was pissed.
Blender Woes - You would think that a place that specialized in frozen drinks and ground up bananas and such might buy something better than a $15 Hamilton Beach. Every day at one bar or another "frozen drinks not available" for a time due to burned out blenders. Cut into my drinkin' time. What do they do when it's busy season?!
The Wedding Scams - The $300 package I booked to renew vows included the ceremony, two witnesses, flowers including decorations at the ceremony, the official registrar and paperwork, and a 5x7 picture. When we went to meet with our Designated Wedding Coordinator, she was not working that day (she made the appointment). We were OK with her replacement as we had not met her anyway.
They wanted to know "approximately" how many photos we would be purchasing (@$15) so they "would know how many to shoot to offer us a variety." The video guy showed up and started shooting (they do that whether you want the video or not). Total damage for our ceremony - $545 including ceremony, the three photos we liked (they even included the negatives!), a 15 minute, $200 video (at least it was nice), and a nice bouquet of our choosing.
The Beach Sand - I would rather see the natural black sand on the beach than the Home Depot Low Grade Sand that has been brought in and dumped on the shoreline "because that's what tourists like". Anybody you know like heavy, coarse sand better than fine, dark sand? I used better sand under my brick path at home.
The Rastamen on the Beach (subset of Local Vendors, above) - Could not walk, lay, swim, talk, sail, or take pictures without being asked repeatedly and persistently whether I wished to buy some local ganja - "Theese eese da best stouf aroun, mon." We finally just stopped going to the beach. What a shame since we'd never been to the Caribbean.
Heh heh, heh heh. I said we'd.
Miami Air/Air Jamaica/Champagne Express - The plane was old and in poor condition both in and outbound. My ticket said one thing, and the agents at the counter both ways said another - the tickets were wrong and Air Jamaica had changed the flights "some time ago". Nothing was ontime, so in total we spent 24+ hours total going on two 4-5 hour flights from Newark, NJ to St. Lucia Sandals and back. Good grief. And on a related note, on the way home we had the...
Stopover From Hell In Antigua - OK, so we had to get off the plane because it had to be restocked and fueled as we picked up Sandals Antigua departing guests. We were taken from the plane under Customs Officials' watchful eyes, herded into the In-Transit Lounge, x-rayed again (in case we smuggled peanuts in from the plane, I assume); there were no bathrooms, no food, no drinks. Oh, I'm sorry, I did get a warm Heineken and two bags of salted nuts for the little lady. What a wonderful dinner to end our week with, eh? Did I mention that at that time we had been traveling for over five hours? That we had to take our carry-ons with us? No smoking, no eating, but you can gamble there right in the lounge. Woo hoo. Just what I wanted to do. Wife's comment: "Can we go on a real airline next vacation?" I think Miami Air had two guys unloading the plane in Newark based on the three-bags-every-ten-minutes pace at the carousel. Probably one supervisor and one disgruntled baggage man. And the flight crew? Don't get me started on that. Wretched service. The chick in charge seemed to be very, very busy in the bathroom. Cabin temp approximately 85 degrees. I was afraid to complain a third time cause I never woulda seen my luggage again. You could not pay me to fly Miami Air again, I would swim to St. Lucia first.
Did I Mention The Annoying Sandals Guy On The Plane? - Pleeeeeze tell me something I did not read on Sandals' website. Please do not ask us to give you another "hey mon", one more time, for five hours. Please do not use that put-on Jamaican accent when you speak to us and then drop it when talking to the flight crew when you are still in earshot. And someone please tell me that Sandals does not pay this person, but simply allows him to fly back and forth eating Miami Air food and not allowing him to actually go to the Sandals at the destination.
Epilogue
We really enjoyed our vacation. Sandals was first-class all the way (except for the cowboy thing). I would go again in a minute, even to the same resort. Everyone on staff was superb with perhaps two exceptions - a couple of female waitresses actually seemed to be annoyed with all of us "wealthy" couples from the rich American land. But two out of a few hundred isn't really a bad ratio, is it?
If you get a chance and can afford it, go. So much to do and so beautiful. We'll be at a Sandals again next year as soon as the old income tax refund arrives.
Mike Fisher
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