Sandals Regency St. Lucia Golf Resort and Spa, Castries

Sandals Regency, St Lucia

My Wife and I visited Sandals Regency on the island of St Lucia in January of 2009.
We stayed for 10 days in one of the Honeymoon La Toc Premium rooms, based on that stay I will try and give some details on what I thought of the holiday

#Airport and Transfers

We flew into the Hewanorra International Airport, upon departing the plane and making our way across the tarmac ...
...we exited the building the Sandals Desk and the representative was less than 10 meters straight in front of us. Just a quick note; some locals will offer to carry your bags for you; if you let them then they will expect a payment, how you feel about that is of course up to you.

The Sandals representative gave us chilled bottled water and then checked our names against a list, our bags were tagged and we were guided to wait for the ... more

Sandals Regency, St Lucia

My Wife and I visited Sandals Regency on the island of St Lucia in January of 2009.
We stayed for 10 days in one of the Honeymoon La Toc Premium rooms, based on that stay I will try and give some details on what I thought of the holiday

#Airport and Transfers

We flew into the Hewanorra International Airport, upon departing the plane and making our way across the tarmac we were guided into a passport checking area, it was air conditioned and cool enough however it took quite a while to get everyone though, we were lucky enough to be relatively close to the front and were dealt with in about 20 minutes however their were only 2 official’s on the desks and our 747 plane looked fairly full. I can well imagine that those near to the back would have been waiting over an hour to have their passport checked.

Luggage collection was straight forward and no real problems there, once we exited the building the Sandals Desk and the representative was less than 10 meters straight in front of us. Just a quick note; some locals will offer to carry your bags for you; if you let them then they will expect a payment, how you feel about that is of course up to you.

The Sandals representative gave us chilled bottled water and then checked our names against a list, our bags were tagged and we were guided to wait for the next minibus transfer to our resort. I found the rep. to be cheerful, smiley and helpful which was a nice start to our holiday. We waited around 15 minutes for the minibus; there were a couple of others that went to the bigger resort on the island (Grande) during that time. The transfer took around an hour and the driver was friendly, chatty and perhaps most importantly competant at his job.

#Booking in and Accommodation

On arrival at the resort we were guided into a reception room and offered a selection of drinks, being the Caribbean I of course opted for the rum punch, which I can say was pretty good! A cold buffet was also available. Once we had filled in some required paper work regarding our stay we were shown to our room and our bags were brought along shortly after.

The room was relativity spacious, and all of the advertised items were included in functioning order, (i.e iron, hair dryer, TV, safe etc.) The bed was both roomy and comfortable and the whole room was clean and fresh. The view was as described and did indeed look over the main pool/ decked area and out to the sea beyond. The room was cleaned daily, and the bed was made and turned down in the evening which included leaving an itinerary of the next day’s planed activities and chocolates (sadly for my wife they were always mini snickers so I got a double helping)

#Restaurants and food

Breakfast was a buffet held in front of the main pool under an open air part of the main building, there was a good selection of cooked and uncooked food, and chefs made pancakes, omelettes, and eggs to order on a hot plate. The staples were fairly constant day in day out (bacon, sausages, cereals and breads etc) but their was also some daily variation on offer, liked steamed pears, kale and local specials. There was always plenty of space to get a table and the staff (as always) were great and ready with fresh tea and coffee.

During the day food was a little more limited; choices on offer were pizza, burgers, and a restaurant serving steaks and similar meals. The meals themselves all looked good for what they are and to be honest we only ate at one of these once as the breakfast easily saw us though to the evening.

In the evening there was a wide selection of restaurants to eat at, and that’s not limited to just the one resort, with free transfers between the resorts via regular shuttle bus and the other resorts offering free guest rooms where you can shower / change visiting the other restaurants is not really a problem. All of the food was good, all of the service excellent.

Pitons at the Regency and Barefoot on the Sea at the Grande in particular had some good sea food. Armando`s also did some great Italian food.

Into the late night / early morning food would again become more along the lines of burgers and other conveniance foods, but to be fair out of a 24 hour day, there were only 1 or 2 hours were you couldn’t get something to eat.

#Activities and Facilities

For me this was the only area the regency let itself down on, I love water sports and have always loved to sail, unfortunately the regency spent 8 of the 10 days we stayed under red flag conditions, speaking to some of the staff the regency hardly ever gets green flag conditions due to its proximity of the local port, and 1 only saw boats on the water briefly on our last day under a yellow flag. This was compensated in some part by the fact that there were free shuttle buses to the Grande where they were green flagged every day we went, and all of the associated water sport activities were always available.

I don’t play golf myself, however talking to some of the other guest staying at the resort they were suggesting the course was normally a little on the damp side, which considering that part of the island had regular morning rains you could almost set your clock by did make some sense.

Otherwise the pools were good, cleaned daily. During the first half of our stay the resort was fairly quiet so finding a sun lounger wasn’t a problem, it got busier during the second half and spaces soon disappeared, it would have also been nicer if there were perhaps a little bit more shaded spaces on offer.
The spa treatments were good, perhaps a bit pricy. The resort organised lots of group activities during the day from beach volleyball to nature walks, and the staff were always enthusiastic and helpful, they often used the moto “no pressure, no problem” which fitted well with the relaxed environment. Gym, Tennis courts etc were all adequate. The bars severed cocktails (and other drinks) thought the resort and all were great.

The beach was clean the waters at the Regency were somewhat turbulent a lot of the time so not many swam there. All of the beaches on St. Lucia are public owned with free access to all however the regency beach was fairly quite; there were a couple of trader’s occasionally, mostly selling narcotics, however they would leave you alone if you were not interested in their wares.
The beach at the Grande by contrast was a lot calmer, but a lot more packed and so a lot more traders were about.
The regency had a nice setting, and watching the sunset up on the bluffs was particular picturesque.

#Overall Opinion

The holiday was enjoyable and we would look to go back again. It was expensive so maybe it’ll be on our 5 or 10 year anniversary. I think if we did go back we’d still consider staying at the Regency as its location, setting, facilities and staff were good but I think we would make more use of the free transfers between resorts to take advantage of the better facilities at the Grande resort.

 

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