Suggestion on St. Lucia

[Medic506]

Thinking about booking a AI to St. Lucia, Sandals Grand Resort. I am new to diving with only my open water cert dives under my belt. I noticed that diving is included with the AI package. My wife is a non diver and any information in reguards to diving, resort, or island activities would be helpful.

[Navy OnStar]

I just returned Sunday from St Lucia and LOVED it. We satayed at the Grande and that it the way to go. From what I understand they run all the dive trips from the Grand so if you stay at one of the other resorts you'll have to get transportation over to the grande. They have a dive pool at the hotel and My wife and I used it before the first dive just to go over some skills and stuff and the staff was great about letting us use it for as long as we wanted. (they even carried our tanks there and back for us)
We took our own gear but they have everything you need at no cost. I believe the loaner gear was Scuba Pro Pilots and Glides, and Scuba Pro regs. It was all in pretty good condition. I haven't downloaded my computer yet and I didn't pay much attention to the water temp, but we used just skin suits and were fine. The staff had at least 5mil and thought the water was freezing. The only thing you actually have to pay for is a wet suit if you want one. The staff was very friendly and professional. they checked our C-cards but didn't need our logbooks.
Our first dive was at 1:20pm and was a single tank shallow 30ft dive off of Pigeon Island (about a 5 min boat ride from the resort) They have all the certified divers do this dive first just to check you out. You might be able to get away without doing it if you show them your logbook and have dove recently. Our last dive was in October so we didn't mind the shallow dive. The dive was nice, some coral, plenty of fish, a few eels, lobster, etc. Nothing extraordinary.

We did 4 more dives but I have a meeting to go to so I'll write more later.

OnStar

[JKDiver]

Sandals Grande St. Lucia sounds great but no kids allowed there, right? So where else do you recommend in St. Lucia with a dive shop and a great pool and beach for the kids (7 & 11). What are your thoughts on Antigua?
We are looking to go to the Caribbean this summer, any other island suggestions for us fairly new OW divers?

[harb99]

Originally Posted by JKDiver

We are looking to go to the Caribbean this summer, any other island suggestions for us fairly new OW divers?

Have you looked at Bonaire as a possibility? Not sure what there is for kids to do, but the diving is supposedly incredible - we will find out in July when we take our first trip there

[JKDiver]

My local dive shop told me Bonaire is fantastic for divers but the beaches are crappy for the kids. I don't want to have to sacrifice one for the other. I want a place that has everything!!
I have been to Aruba before I became a certified diver and I thought the beaches were nice. I would guess that Bonaire is similar. Everybody has their own opinion and I totally respect that.
Thanks for the suggestion.

[Damselfish]

Originally Posted by JKDiver

My local dive shop told me Bonaire is fantastic for divers but the beaches are crappy for the kids. I don't want to have to sacrifice one for the other. I want a place that has everything!!
I have been to Aruba before I became a certified diver and I thought the beaches were nice. I would guess that Bonaire is similar.

No place has everything.

Despite Bonaire and Aruba being somewhat close, they are not similar as far as beaches, diving, or anything else really. Aruba has nice beaches. Bonaire tends to have smaller rocky beaches and some of the hotels on the water don't even have a beach, or they're small. (Lack of a beach at your hotel generally means better shore diving there.) Bonaire has many fewer tourists than Aruba and no hi-rise hotels like Aruba, whole different vibe. Aruba is located on the continental shelf, Curacao is on the edge, and Bonaire is off the shelf, so even though they're 'next' to each other it's different UW.

[Navy OnStar]

I don't know about diving in Antigua, but from the last time I was there, the resorts were nice but the island was pretty poor. I prefer Curacao, St Lucia, and St Johns much more.

Back to Sandals Diving

Day 2 8:20 am 40 min boat ride in calm seas down the west side of the island to Anse Cochon. Dove the wreck Leslie M. Deepest point at the bow was 45ft the stern deepest point was 65. Sandals sent along a Photographer that took some awesome pictures. Played with a Sea Cucumber and saw lots of life. Coral was nice. Went into cargo bay (open above, did not penetrate wreck) really enjoyable.

2nd Dive was Rosemans trench. Saw all kinds of fish including Frog Fish, lobster, lots of coral. Loved both of these dives. 35 min boat ride back in calm seas returned around 12:30

Day 3 8:20 am 55 minute boat ride to Souferrie (sp?) at the base of the Pitons and dove the Piton wall. Most of the dive was at 65 feet but there was a lot to see shallower.

2nd dive was to Anse Chastenette (sp?) and swam ashore during the surface interval to Scuba St Lucia and got some souveniers. Dove right there at Scuba St Lucia and that was a great dive as well. Lots af life but were sad we didn't see any turtles. 50 Minute boat ride back and again calm seas.

Got some great pictures and I'll upload them soon.

They went another place on the next day but we were flying out and didn't get to go. Sandals sticks to mostly the west side of the island but all the way from the north tip to the south tip. I wish I knew more about the fish to tell you exactly what we saw but there was always lots of life.

Hope this helps

OnStar
Overall

[Navy OnStar]

Originally Posted by Medic506

Thinking about booking a AI to St. Lucia, Sandals Grand Resort. I am new to diving with only my open water cert dives under my belt. I noticed that diving is included with the AI package.

They are very professional down there and you have 2 dive masters on every dive. One leading the group and one taking pictures. (except the first shallow dive) The most people we had on a dive was 8 (not including DM's) and the fewest was 5.

Originally Posted by Medic506

My wife is a non diver and any information in reguards to diving, resort, or island activities would be helpful.

She will have plenty to do at the resort while you dive. You'll be gone for about 4 and a half hours for the 2 tank dives.

Other stuff to do on the island (at an extra cost) are the tropical rain forest tours (there are several), visit sulphur springs (inactive volcano), ATV tours, parasailing, Jetskiing, Tour the Pigeon Island Fort, Sail on a "pirate" ship, etc.

Sandals offers (for free) wind surfing , water skiing, hobie cat sailing, snorkeling (which you do above the divers on the one tank shallow dive), The Red Lane SPA (for an additional cost), etc.

I was VERY Happy with the time spent there. I would have liked to dive more but my wife actually wanted to enjoy the other thing the resort had to offer

OnStar

[Medic506]

Thanks Navy, do you know anything about the Regency resort by sandals?

[Navy OnStar]

We did a few bus trips over to the Regency. Sandals runs a shuttle on the hour from the Grand to the Regency and vice versa with a stop at the Halcyon in between. The total ride time is about half an hour.

The Regency is pretty spread out and is set on the side of a hill. The beach is not protected like at the Grande so the surf is a lot higher and not that great for swimming in the Ocean. The surf at the Grande was nonexistant and made for great swimming. The Regency has its own charm as there are a lot more trees almost like a rain forest around the hotel. This is the only Sandals on the island with a golf course.

They have several restaurants there. We tried 3 of them during our stay. Piton (Carribean cuisine) was good and had a nice view. I liked La Toc (French cuisine) but my wife couldn't find anything she really liked, not because the food wasn't good, but she's just not the french food type. Kimono's (Japanese) was a little disappointing. You pick your appetizer, soup and salad and then you get some of all the entrees. I had the Sushi Appetizer and I liked it. My wife didn't like the Spring roll. Neither of us liked the miso Soup. and the salad was.....salad. The Chicken and steak were O.K. I've had much better. The seafood was good. I really liked the Shrimp and the Tuna. If you like Japanese in the states, you'll probably be disappointed in Kimonos. Everytime I got seafood in any of the restaurants, I liked it. Marios (italian) got good reviews on Trip advisor but we ran out of time before we could try it. Don't forget you can eat at any of the Sandals on the island.

You can do any of the activities at any sandals on the island but like I said before, I am pretty sure all the diving leaves from the Grande so you'll have to get an early shuttle over for the 8:20 trips.

The 8:20 trips are for certified divers and these are the good trips
the 11:00 trips are for the resort divers classes
and the 1:20 dive is the shallow orientation dive for the certified divers
they dive every day but there isn't an 8:20am dive on Sunday. As soon as you get through resort check in, call or go over to the dive center to sign up for the dives. We didn't have any problem getting the days we wanted but I have read that they can fill up fast. They require you to fill out a medical form (just like the one for your cert classes) and will ask for your C-card. There is a night dive but you have to have at least 4 people sign up and I think it was $80.00 per person. (all the other dives are no charge)

The Halcyon is the smallest of the Sandals on the island but we ran out of time before we visited there. It's in between the other 2 resorts so the bus rides are only 15 minutes vice 30.

There are 2 airports on the island. The Small (read Tiny) airport is in between the Grande and the Regency and is about a 15 minute ride to either. The large airport is on the south side of the island is is about a 50 minute ride to the Regency and an hour twenty to the Grande. The have a helicopter ride ( about $120.00 PP, I think) from the big airport that is about a ten minute flight to the small airport and then you get the bus from there. If you take the helo your bags show up later.

If you have any other questions let me know!

OnStar