St. Lucia Vacation Pictures

A December 2009 trip (the week before Christmas) to get some diving in before the holidays. This was our second trip to St. Lucia this time we stayed at Sandals - Regency. The weather was perfect compared to back home where it was snowing so band that on the day when we were suppose to leave the weather was so bad they canceled the flight that was suppose to come down and pick us up. As a result we had to spend another night in paradise. The air temp during the day was in the mid 80's and the water temp was 82 degree F.

There are three Sandals . Properties on the island (Grande, Halcyon, and the Regency). If you stay at the Regency or Halcyon you have to take a bus to the harbor where you pickup the dive boat. If you stay at the Grande they have their own dive boat but the boat trip is longer since the Grande is up north and most of the dive sites are to the south.

The beach at Sandals Regency had some small action and as a result they did not have water skiing. They have buses to the other Sandals properties that run almost every hour. We went to the Grande one day to see what it was like. The beach there had almost no waves and they offered water skiing which surprisingly was not crowded.

The dives are all guided and were all drift dives with the guide bringing along a marker buoy. Most of the dives are no deeper than about 60 feet. They put resort and experienced divers all on the same boat and even in the same groups.

Scuba did not seem to be the focus of attention at Sandals. The main emphasis is on creating romantic vacations with scuba as an optional activity. Since they don't charge extra you can't complain. If you are a diehard diver this is probably not your type of vacation but if you like comfort mixed with a little diving this is the right place.

The pools and grounds of the property were very nice and kept very clean. The main pool had a swim-up bar and there were several whirlpools.

Because of the wave action they did not offer snorkeling at the Regency but you could go on the snorkeling boat which went out twice a day. Because we did the diving every day we were not able to schedule a snorkeling trip.

The resort itself ranges from down at the sea level to quite far up the hill. They ran a shuttle bus up to the top of the property where there are additional restaurants and rooms

The local Piton beer was good and the bartenders very friendly.

Because this was our second Sandals and we are enrolled in the Sandals Select program they invited us to the returning guest cocktail party and dinner.

This was a wonderful trip.