Girls Holiday to St Lucia with Mum & the Children

Donna Bidwell on 25 September 2017
I enjoyed a lovely holiday to St Lucia with my children and my mum.

I was a little concerned about the weather due to Hurricane Irma hitting the Caribbean the weeks before and causing a lot of damage to many islands. However, I had nothing to be concerned about, the weather was perfect. It was hurricane season and I always knew this when booking for this time of year, but we were very lucky with the weather. We had one day of full rain, the rest of the week was sunshine.

We flew with British Airways. We didn't pay to pre-book our seats and opted to book seats at check in 24 hours before flying when it was free. The children and I were sat together but my mum was sat elsewhere on the plane, which wasn't a problem, but if seating together is important then I would always recommend paying in advance to pre-book seats which I arrange on behalf of my customers.

We had a VIP meet and greet the moment we stepped off the plane that took us swiftly through customers so that we didn't have to queue, and our luggage was ready for collection too. It was all very quick and within 10 minutes of getting off the plane we were in our private transfer taking us to our hotel. We were at the other end of the island so the transfer was two hours.

We stayed six nights at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort on an all-inclusive basis. This was right on the beach and was a great beach too. We had a two-bedroom pool view suite which was just huge and perfect! It had two massive bedrooms each with its own large bathrooms, each room had a balcony. In between the rooms we had a large living room with a great size kitchen, another bathroom and a balcony. I was very impressed with the room.

We were all-inclusive at this hotel which was very different to how I have ever experienced an all-inclusive resort. The breakfast had a small choice but was ample and it did have a separate menu to order from if we wanted. The lunch and dinner were all from a menu rather than a buffet but this was actually lovely as buffets can get boring, so I did like this. The all-inclusive programme also included restaurants in the town to be able to dine at which was brilliant as it got us out dining in the town rather than at the hotel each night. More hotels should offer this, it’s so important to the local economy.

While staying here I did spend some time at Sandals Grande St Lucian, Sandals Halcyon Beach and The Royalton and looked at the various rooms at each and spend the day at each. I book a lot of people to the Sandals properties, so it was important for me to see these.

We had our last night spent at Coconut Bay Resort which is only five minutes away from the airport. It made a lot of sense spending the last night here so that it meant not leaving so early when leaving for the airport. We got picked up at 10am so we were in the hotel by 12pm, in time for lunch and checking into the hotel. The lunch was buffet style and there were loads to choose from. The evening meal was a choice of the buffet restaurant, but also other restaurant options were available.

This hotel had a couple of slides and a lazy river which the children loved. The pool was huge and had a couple of pools to choose from. It also had an adults-only section called Harmony section and they can use all sections of the hotel. I wasn't too impressed with the beach at this hotel like I was at the hotel I had just stayed in, but a lovely beach is never important to us when we live close to the beach, so a good pool or pools is more important to the children.

We got picked up from our hotel at 5pm which was perfect because if we had been at the other hotel, our transfer would have been at 2pm so we gained a few hours being closer and was able to keep our room too.

I loved St Lucia and it would be an island I would go back to. I have been to many of the Caribbean Islands now and this was one which was very pretty. It was lovely to take my mum with me and have a girl’s holiday with the children too.

My photos are on my business Facebook page www.facebook.com/DonnaBidwellTC if you wanted to take a look. I also have lots of offers on my page as well as my personal holidays and important travel information, so it is worth following me.

If you would like help with your holiday planning, please don't hesitate to contact me.