St Lucia

We were up bright and early as the car to take us to the Philly airport arrived at 4:30 am. Our driver Tim was wonderful and he charges significantly less than other car services we’ve used. He will be waiting for us when we return to Philly at midnight in 8 days.

We usually fly from Newark airport and have never flown out of Philly. It was an adventure. Getting our luggage tagged and onto the conveyor belt went fairly quickly and then we had to go through security. They didn’t care if you had TSA pre-check or not so the line was very long. Suddenly a worker came over to us and said to follow him to go to another area that had no long lines. So off we went…following him like little ducks. We walked and walked… and then had to go thru the parking garage. We were like… where the heck is he taking us???? But true to his word, we finally got to where he told us to go and the line was indeed small…mainly because this line DID accept those who had TSA Pre-check. Going through security was great. We didn’t have to take out phones, Kindles, or liquids. Just had to take off our coats so that was wonderful.

We had a small bite to eat in the lounge and then left to go to our gate. The plane was already boarding and as we were going through, the agent noticed we had not signed our passports, so we had to get off the line and take care of that. In our defense, our passports are brand new… first time being used…and we didn’t notice the place for signatures.

We had received an alert from American Airlines that our flight might be delayed because of weather, but the plane arrived on time and the sun was beaming down just as we were getting ready to board the plane.

We arrived in St Lucia and our luggage came quickly. We had already filled out the immigration papers before we left, so we breezed through immigration and went in search of our driver to take us to the resort. Someone right away tried to take our bags saying he was from Sandals, but we said no thanks… just need to find our driver. When he realized he wasn’t going to be tipped for handling our bags, he told us to go through these two doors with “Sandals” in big letters above the frame, but it really looked sketchy. (Been reading and watching too many murder mysteries.). We went through anyway and Viola! We were greeted warmly by the real Sandal’s representatives and they took our bags and we boarded the van to take the 90 minute drive up and down the mountain roads with hairpin turns the whole way. Many times the van was at the edge of the road with a sheer drop. Yikes! Our driver was excellent and we arrived at the resort and checked in. Everything was awaiting us and since we are return guests, we received a lot of perks. Free photo shoot, cocktail and dinner party one evening, wine tasting another night, $50 towards the spa, and a martini night.

The grounds are still decorated for Christmas and everything looks very festive.

Our room is nice and overlooks the ocean. It’s so soothing hearing the waves crashing onto the shore. The room is not as large as the room we had in Antigua at Veranda Resort, but it has plenty of storage and closet space. It has a nice spacious bath with walk-in shower as well. The balcony has a soaking tub with privacy curtains and a table and chairs to enjoy watching the ocean.

We had signed up when booking the room to take advantage of the “Club” category which entitles us to concierge service, so we were able to book the three restaurants that you have to make reservations for without any problems using the concierge.

We were very hungry since we had traveled all day, so we got in the courtesy van to take us to the restaurant Soy. It’s sashimi, sushi, as well as other offerings and it was delicious. We really enjoyed everything and then…we ordered seconds. After dinner, Allan had dessert and I had….another order of traditional rolls. They were that good!

It started to pour but fortunately we were inside the over-hang so we stayed dry.

The courtesy van took us back to the main lobby. Our room isn’t far from the lobby and we are very close to one of the restaurants where breakfast will be served each day.

We had an after dinner drink in the pub and went back to the room to just relax. Tomorrow we’ll go on the tour of the resort.