Does anyon have an upcoming Sandals trip to St. Lucia. Hubby & I are scheduled to leave Oct 5th but we are worried about the impact of Ivan. Does anyone know how quickly they get them up and running again?

We are off to Sandals Halcyon on 12th October - I'd be interested to hear too!

Lesley

Ivan should clear the Lesser Antilles by Wednesday this week. You should be fine by first week of October. There will be almost a month for the vegetation to recover and major resorts like Sandals usually have the cleanup (downed leaves and debris) taken care of quickly. Still a little early to see what the wind speeds will be on St Lucia, but the mountainous terrain has got to be a benefit to them. To be honest, I am more concerned about the local people than I am about the resorts.

The only news I have so far of Ivan's effect on St Lucia is that half a dozen roofs were blown off from some homes and that 2 people were injured.. .. .. . in falls suffered while they were trying to help neighbors repair roofs!

The wife of one of the guys in my office is from St Lucia. I'll see if I can get more info from him. I'm sure his wife will be in touch with family and/or friends.

More news from St Lucia.. .

I haven't spoken to anyone directly on the island, however it seems the lack of news about hurricane Ivan's effect on St Lucia is due to the fact that there really isn't much news to report. (That's a good thing in this case). .

The town (village?) of Dennery, which is normally affected by any system passing through the Lesser Antilles because of it's location, had some flooding, and some damage to dwellings that are right on the water's edge. There was some debris in the street in the photos I was able to find, but the buildings appeared to be undamaged. These were the typical village buildings - wood frame, not masonry - so that's very good news indeed.

Vieux Fort residents and businesses prepared themselves, boarded up shops, etc. Same in Castries, which by one account was described as being "like a ghost town" when Ivan rolled through. Aside from the occasional reports of a tree down or small areas with electric service outages, Ivan's arrival actual sounds rather anti-climatic on St. Lucia.

In summary.. .. . it sounds like anyone who has a planned trip to St. Lucia needn't worry and you should be prepared to have a good time!

Hoping to be at SMB in 17 days. Will call my friend Dawn in MoBay on her cell and let you know when I find out how things are around there.

Thanks Yardbird for the info on St. Lucia. Sounds like all is well. I don't think Jamaica is going to fair so well. Lets hope by the time it reaches anywhere near Florida it has settled down a little. I am in the Panhandle of Florida and have been missed by the last couple of storms. Central and South Florida, just does not need anymore!

The St Lucians are now concerned about another storm coming across the Atlantic from Africa. If it stays as far south as Ivan did, it could be a problem. Should know more on this one in a day or so. I have been busy helping folks in the Bahamas. Arranging contacts, directing them to private airlifts of supplies and . .. .. . those folks on Grand Bahama Island (west end) really took a pounding. Recent estimates are that only 3% of the west end's structures are salvageable. The other islands seem to have fared much better.

I do have a connection now to St Lucia through the wife of one of my co-workers here. She's been calling her mom in St Lucia and relaying whatever news seems important. If I get anything significant, I'll post it.

Meanwhile I have to see if there's anything I can do to help the folks on Grenada. (No.. .. . I'm not doing a TON of stuff, but I truly feel that every little bit helps)

Hi yardbird. I don't know where you live, however there is a plane I believe going out of JFK, NY this weekend just for supplies to be sent to Greneda since they have lost so much.. .. .. .

Hi Lve2Cruise!

My Fiance and I are going to the Grande on November 22. Please let me know how your trip was and any recommendations you may have. Is anyone else going to be at the Grande in November???

Look forward to hearing how your trip was!

I just spent Sep 12-19 in Regency Sandals St.Lucia and the weather was wonderful. I have not seen any damage from Ivan.

Guest,

No problem. We leave for the airport in a few hours. I don't look forward to the long flight (from CA), but very excited about our trip.

Angelina

lets see where can I start???

we went to the Grande this past June for our honeymoon, I was also very worried and concerned about all of the reviews I read at tripadvisor, specially because my fiancée (now wife) will point out all of the bad things, instead of seeing the good things.

We decided that no matter what we would have a good time.. .. . if you see our video, we had fun from the moment we got to the st. Lucia airport. that's the key, go in with the right mentality.

Personally, we thought about going to Dominican Rep. but we realized there is no comparison.. .. . sandals beats all all-inclusive resorts. Like I said in the post, we already reserved for next year at the new sandals resort being built in Jamaica.

Anyways, to answer your questions.. .. .

the food is great. order whatever you want, if you don't like it, order something else. I eat very little and my wife was impressed at how much I ate. if I didn't have a drink in my hand, I had food or dessert.

Enjoy everything, make it worth your while. People complain about the drinks not being strong.. . check out what I did, they have a drink called "dirty banana". .. . I ordered one and told the guy to make it dirtier . .. . put some more dirty on it.. .. .. .. . we all laughed and he made it stronger. Almost forgot, about the beachfront bar, they have a bar between the beach and pool and they have girls that walk around the beach that can get you drinks, so that's taken care of.

They are there to make you happy, if you are nice to them, they will make your stay great.

We got involved in some of the activities that they have by the PLAY MAKERS.. .. . we played pool volleyball, danced.. .. . etc.. .. . they even asked us to be in the staff/guest talent show and we won.

I admit, night time is pretty quiet but that's because 95% of the people there are in their honeymoon and usually people want to be alone at night, but if you hang out and "play" with the PLAY MAKERS, you will have a good time.

(ask for Kermit, fluffy and the rest of the gang, they are awesome)

We got a beachfront honeymoon room.. .. .. . no mini bar nor concierge.

YOU DON'T NEED THIS EXTRA EXPENSE.

as soon as you step out of the buildings you have a bar and you have room service for breakfast to all rooms if you don't want to wake up early to catch breakfast. other than that why would you want to stay in your room for dinner, if you have 14 restaurants to chose from? what I did the second day was that since it was raining, I went to the restaurant ordered the food to go and took it to the room.. .. . its not that big of a deal.

If you don't like your room ,as soon as you get there, go to the front desk and tell them that you want to be put on the waiting list or you want to see if there are other rooms available. that's what we did and we went from a 1st floor room to a third floor room after 2 days.

lets see where can I start???

we went to the Grande this past June for our honeymoon, I was also very worried and concerned about all of the reviews I read at tripadvisor, specially because my fiancée (now wife) will point out all of the bad things, instead of seeing the good things.

We decided that no matter what we would have a good time.. .. . if you see our video, we had fun from the moment we got to the st. Lucia airport. that's the key, go in with the right mentality.

Personally, we thought about going to Dominican Rep. but we realized there is no comparison.. .. . sandals beats all all-inclusive resorts. Like I said in the post, we already reserved for next year at the new sandals resort being built in Jamaica.

Anyways, to answer your questions.. .. .

the food is great. order whatever you want, if you don't like it, order something else. I eat very little and my wife was impressed at how much I ate. if I didn't have a drink in my hand, I had food or dessert.

Enjoy everything, make it worth your while. People complain about the drinks not being strong.. . check out what I did, they have a drink called "dirty banana". .. . I ordered one and told the guy to make it dirtier . .. . put some more dirty on it.. .. .. .. . we all laughed and he made it stronger. Almost forgot, about the beachfront bar, they have a bar between the beach and pool and they have girls that walk around the beach that can get you drinks, so that's taken care of.

They are there to make you happy, if you are nice to them, they will make your stay great.

We got involved in some of the activities that they have by the PLAY MAKERS.. .. . we played pool volleyball, danced.. .. . etc.. .. . they even asked us to be in the staff/guest talent show and we won.

I admit, night time is pretty quiet but that's because 95% of the people there are in their honeymoon and usually people want to be alone at night, but if you hang out and "play" with the PLAY MAKERS, you will have a good time.

(ask for Kermit, fluffy and the rest of the gang, they are awesome)

We got a beachfront honeymoon room.. .. .. . no mini bar nor concierge.

YOU DON'T NEED THIS EXTRA EXPENSE.

as soon as you step out of the buildings you have a bar and you have room service for breakfast to all rooms if you don't want to wake up early to catch breakfast. other than that why would you want to stay in your room for dinner, if you have 14 restaurants to chose from? what I did the second day was that since it was raining, I went to the restaurant ordered the food to go and took it to the room.. .. . its not that big of a deal.

If you don't like your room ,as soon as you get there, go to the front desk and tell them that you want to be put on the waiting list or you want to see if there are other rooms available. that's what we did and we went from a 1st floor room to a third floor room after 2 days.

DR.. .. . You have a video?

I'd be interested in seeing that if you don't mind (if it's downloadable). .
You can PM me the URL if you don't want to openly post it. I'm going to the Grande for my 25th anniversary the day after christmas.

thanks!

I do have a question about the Grande.. .. . and maybe Sandals resorts in general.. .. .
Do they have wireless hotspots? I mean.. .. . it'd be cool to be able to send some digital pics home via email or even just email the kids and save on phone costs. We could bring my wife's PDA instead of a laptop. That's small. And wireless

We went to the Sandal's Grande in St. Lucia this past March. The did have an "Internet room." This room consisted of 2 computers, hooked up the the internet, and I believe it was either $5 or $10 for 10 minutes of usage. We used it twice, and there is a little clock on the computer, so you know how much time you have left. But be careful, if you run out it disconects you, so watch it!!