Honeymoon In St. Lucia

I thought it might be fun to blog about our honeymoon in St. Lucia 3 years ago. St. Lucia is referred to as the 'Hawaii' of the Caribbean... It has black sand beaches, thick rainforests, and volcanic mountains. It's really a beautiful island!

I can't believe Brian and I have been married a little over 3 years already. When we were on our honeymoon, I wrote down some thoughts every day, so we never forget anything...

Here it goes ...

We actually went to 2 separate hotels in St. Lucia - The first one was Sandals Grande. We stayed there for 6 days. The second hotel was Tikaye Village & we stayed there for 4 days. We wanted a larger "Couples only" style resort first then we wanted to wind down our honeymoon at a private secluded spot like Tikaye.

SANDALS GRANDE - ST. LUCIA

Sandals Grande is a 'couples only' all inclusive mega-resort. We had no complaints about it, but in retrospect, I wish we would have gone to Sandals for 4 days and to Tikaye for 6 days. Tikaye was more our style. 

1st full day as a married couple - we arrived at Sandals.We flew into San Juan, and then had to take a prop plane from San Juan to St Lucia...

Landing in St. Lucia Airport (I forget the name, but it was the smaller airport)

View from the Main hotel

View of Pigeon Mountain - we swore we were going to hike it...

Our "Just Married" Flip Flops

Loved the water there - Although no black sand beaches at Sandals.

They bring in the white sand for their guests. Not sure I like that idea,

they should have left the beaches natural (Black sand)

We spent all day in the water. We called ourselves "Sandals Fish"

 Me in the water...

A worker carving a wood statue

So peaceful

This was one of the pools that had all these awesome gardens around it. Brian and I would go there every day and watch the hummingbirds and other birds flying all around while we hung out in the pool - we were surprised how private it was considering how big the resort was. I guess thats why they have 5 or 6 pools.

This was the main pool. We didn't go in it once! This is where all the annoying 20 year old "kids" hung out and were drinking already at 10am ... no thanks. Not our thing. We stuck with the beach or the other smaller pools (like the one above).

Pigeon Mountain at Sunset - We never did get to hike up there like we wanted to.

We saw tons of these little crabs all over the beach & rocks, etc.

View of Sandals from the pier

This kid (below) dove down 100 feet to get this starfish, he said he could hold his breath for 10 minutes - we didn't beleive him but hey ya never know - he did afterall grow up on the island, maybe he built up to that over the years. He then of course, tried to sell us the starfish - hahaha - yeh I am sure customs wouldn't mind that live animal coming through the airport.

Another awesome view from the hotel

Brian and I had a couples aromatherapy massage while we were there. That is a must-do on any vacation. We try to do it 2x a year here in NJ too. It's something you have to do or try at least once in your life. Massages are great - we normally go to DePasquale here.

This was the hobie-cat that we took out. They gave us a 5 minute lesson, and off we went into the bay. Well, we went way out and then couldn't turn back, the thing wasn't turning because we were against the wind and we were headed out to sea fast! I was panicking big time and pictured the Saint Lucian coast guard plucking us out of the sea 3 days later. Luckily my husband saved the day and got us turned back in finally.

Here is one of the other small pools we hung out at during the day... 

Sandals at night

We went into "Castries" town one day ... It was nothing to write home about; it was the typical dirty & poor Caribbean city with tons of tourist shopping.

I thought this was a cool picture of the school children in their uniforms.

Here I am with my big hat in Castries

We ate lunch at a 'local' place called KimLans... and we ate Roties. I think we liked it. I also thought the guy taking our picture was going to steal our camera!

This was Tomas, our personal cab driver. He was cool.

The Saint Lucians love the "rich" americans lol.

This is Brian and I out to dinner at one of the many Sandals restaurants.

The food & wine was very good anywhere we went in Sandals. There was always a live band playing ... and there are a few Bob Marley songs that the bands played, when I hear them now, remind me of our honeymoon.

Took a catamaran ride around the island over to the "Pitons".

There we are- the newlyweds on the catamaran in front of the "Piton" Mountains.

They are volcanic & beautiful!

The Pitons

We went to see an active volcano - that was pretty cool.

Skye vs. the volcano

There were hummingbirds everywhere we went on the island. That was pretty amazing - and they actually landed long enough for you to take a picture.

We took a tour in the rain forest and saw some amazing flowers & plants.

Brian and I at the "London Pub" - they had some great food!

London Pub

Relaxing on the hammock after dinner on the beach

Chillin...

Brian and I getting ready to go snorkeling

On the snorkeling boat. The boat actually went over to the cove by Tikaye village

(the hotel where we were staying after Sandals)

Under the wedding archway - Every day there was a wedding on the beach - so nice. I Often wonder if we should have gotten married there and then stayed in Saint Lucia for 2 more weeks! Don't get me wrong - We LOVED our wedding but getting married on the beach looked so simple and romantic (and alot cheaper than our wedding!) 

Barefoot cafe- good lunch every day!

We took a cab over to Sandals and had the cab driver stop along the way so we could take pictures... We also stopped at the Art Gallery to buy some wood carvings - we wanted to bring home something very unique and we certainly did! We bought a wooden woman statue and a carving of the Saint Lucian sunset & piton mountains.

TIKAYE VILLAGE- ST. LUCIA 

Arrived at Tikaye ... It is up on a Cliff-top and every view is amazing. Tikaye is a small romatic resort - maybe 20 cottages total - when we got there, they greeted us like this, "Welcome to Tikaye Mr. & Mrs. Fillmore" (before we even said our name!) because they knew were the only ones checking in that day! Everywhere we went, they greeted us by our name. That was awesome. Talk about great service! This is the restaurant...

It was so amazing to eat our meals overlooking the ocean! The food was amazing!

The rooms were incredibly unique! You have your own cottage on the cliff overlooking the water... it's all 'open air'. The windows had plantation shutters on them and we had our own private plunge pool and hammock on the front deck. The shower was outdoors too. What an amazing experience! The best part is, everything was very private... no one could see you- just the way I like it. This is a view from the front deck into the cottage. Believe it or not, bugs were not a problem at all because of the breeze up on the mountain.

Here is the outdoor shower. We had a cute little tree frog in there one night. (We later saw his carcass being carried away by an army of ants... survival of the fittest I guess!)

This was our little lizard visitor. They were everywhere. He was behind one of the wood carvings hanging from the wall. He didn't bother us and we didn't bother him.

He was very cute!

Dinnertime - Salude!

This is the view from Tikaye of Tikaye Beach. You had to walk down 200+ steps to get to the beach - that was pretty cool! (We had to walk up them too at the end of the day - that was a rough one!)

This was the restaurant we had lunch every day on the beach. It was a very colorful!

View of Tikaye Beach from up on Tikaye Village cliffs.  

View from our cottage of the snorklers below...

 We snorkeled a few days; found & identified about 30+ species of fish. I saw a "Sea Eel" and screamed under water LOL. This place has the best snorkeling of any place I had ever been. Picture of Brian snorkeling.

Us in our plunge pool

Every evening before dinner, we would come back to our room and order a cheese/cracker platter and relax on the front deck, and feed the birds and look out at the water... that was the best!!

Dinner!

Our personal Somalia, Cleus. He picked some fine wine for us nightly with dinner!

Here is one of our favorites to this day.

Sunset from our cottage... how peaceful!

Last morning in St. Lucia ... we didnt' want to leave. Ever. There is something to be said for no phones, no tv, no contact with anyone.

Brian says GOODBYE as we get ready to head to the airport.

Our wedding & honeymoon was the best 11 days of our lives. Brian and I really had the perfect wedding day ... then we really had the best honeymoon ever. I love my husband so much and we have an incredible relationship. Now that we had our daughter Julianna, our love has grown even more than I could have ever imagined. A baby brings you even closer. I know it sounds sappy but that's the way it is.