Our honeymoon took us to St. Lucia were we stayed for 6 nights and 7 days at the Sandals Grande St. Lucian.

Our room was the Penthouse Oceanfront Concierge room and the view was in one word. AMAZING !

We could see the ocean albeit a bit obstructed by palms and road but the road was not heavily traveled so it was not an issue at all.  What we saw on our travels about the resort is that none of the rooms have a direct on the ocean view but the Penthouse Oceanfront Concierge is pretty darn close. Some of the rooms that I have seen "ocean" pictures of are not of the ocean but of Rodney Bay (the resort is on a peninsula that consist of the Atlantic the Caribbean and Rodney Bay. The ocean we saw from our room was the Caribbean.  We have a love of the ocean so when I booked our HM I was hell bent on having ocean view and also private or as private as you can have on a resort. Well, as it turned out it was a great view and private.  We were on the third floor and looking directly out from our balcony you could see the Caribbean and looking directly down from our balcony you could see the gardens.  I would say it was defiantly private and we spent many a late nights just sitting out on the balcony. The room in and of itself was very clean (no dirt no bugs no anything yucky) and was cleaned every day.  We also had the usual of trial size soaps, shampoo and the like.  We also had a fridge and coffee maker and coffee and even real coffee cups (not like the Styrofoam cheap ones you get in most hotels).

 

The room service was great to have (menu is limited but you can order as much as you want) and came in handy the first night when we got there late because our flight was delayed (we were supposed to land at 3:50pm but didn't land and get to our room till 7:00pm and by that time we just wanted to relax). We did have room service for breakfast every morning except our last and had room service one other night for dinner but that is only because I came down with a cold and felt like crap(luckily or unluckily maybe that was our last night there). We even had a nice surprise on the second full day we were there.  We came back from our excursion and we had a bottle of champagne chilling and waiting for us.

 

The mini bar was stocked every day and had 2 bottles of wine and some hard liquor and some juice as a mixer.  We also had beer (only two kinds to choose from Piton *their local beer which was very good and almost like a lager) and Heineken and we also had bottled water.  You can request different types of liquor to be stocked however. We really didn't use the mini bar much since we got most of our drinks right on the beach and by the time we got to our room for the night we were buzzing pretty well :)

 

The concierge service is great to have because they made it very easy to book our excursions.  We went to the concierge lounge on our 1st full day and sat down with our concierge.  She gave us a book of the different excursions to do and we told her which ones we wanted and she booked them.  Each night before the excursion was to take place we got a call from the concierge telling us that we could go down to the excursion booth and pickup our tickets and info on what to wear/bring or not to wear/bring on our excursion.
 

For our excursions we did the Soufriere tour (through the resort although you can do it with one of the locals but we just felt safer doing it through the resort) which took us out on a Catamaran (pretty cool) to Soufriere were we toured the sulfur volcano*be aware it stinks to high heaven* which was really neat to see and the Botanical gardens (I loved that part but then again I'm a flower freak lol).  We then had lunch at a local restaurant which was served buffet style with different types of local foods (yum yum). Then we hopped back on the catamaran and once we were back out in the deeper part of the Caribbean they dropped anchor and we went snorkeling.  Ok well hubby went snorkeling I just swam around (I don't much care for the snorkeling as I can't stand things being on my face and the mask really bothered me). We had an absolute blast and after about a hr. we all got back on the catamaran and then the party really got going with free drinks all around (we had drinks on the way out too but none of us wanted to get to toasted other wise we wouldn't have a good time on the tours).

 

The next excursion we did was the ATV's.  Wow was that cool.  I rode with hubby only because I have never done it before and he has and I was a bit scared to go on one by myself.  We got on our ATV's (we also had two tour guides with us) and headed out on some rugged "roads" ok mountain trails lol.  We rode for 20min to 30min and came to our rest stop were we had drinks (just soda, juice and water) and a snack.  We then had free time to roam about.  The rest stop was just below a "small" hill so hubby and I decided to climb it.  Wow, the view was amazing.  We had a view of the Caribbean for as far as the eye could see.  After we climbed back down we then went onto the beach that was there and yes, even out into the ocean.  We also picked up two conch shells which amazingly enough made it home with us in one piece and are now in my garden. After our rest stop the guides really let us get going on the ATVs and we went around a bunch of sand dunes down at one of the beaches. Then alas it was time to go back and hop the bus back to the resort.

 

We also did the horseback riding (2hr).  I loved it but I've ridden before. Hubby, not so much.  He never rode before so he was kind of like a fish out of water on how to make his horse go.  The horses were very friendly and easy to control (unless your a bit scared of them like hubby was then they tend to sense that and get nervous too). Our ride took us on some trails and eventually led us to a beach were we stopped to rest.  While resting at the beach we got to meet a few local vendors and buy some trinkets.  At that time the guides took the saddles off the horses and let us ride bare back through the ocean for a little bit.  Back on dry land and with saddles back on we headed back to catch our bus.

 

We also did the dinner on the beach and well. Wow.  We had our own butler and she was very nice.  She even took our picture for us as we sitting there waiting to be served.  We had a bottle of champagne and some wine then out came the salads followed by appetizers then dinner and dessert.  We chose to do our dinner at 6:30pm since we noticed that the sun set about 7:00 pm and we wanted to be eating and watching the sun set.  You have as much time to sit and chill and eat as you want and the butler isn't right on top of you and annoying you like waiters and waitress in restaurants.  We loved it and plan to do it again this coming year when we go to Jamaica for our first anniversary (we are staying at the Sandals in Negril). 

 

The restaurants on the resort were very nice and very yummy (we never did go to the other Sandals resorts restaurants though).  We loved Toscanini’s which was the Italian restaurant there and the Olde London pub was pretty good.  I think our favorite for dinner though was the Bayside restaurant since it is buffet style and every night was a different themed dinner. The one night that we went it was local foods and boy were they good and the desserts were to die for.  The local food is creole like and fairly spicy but not over powering. The breakfast buffet at the Bayside was very yummy and with lots to choose from. 

 

I have heard of complaints of bugs.  Well, I can tell you we did not see any crawling around anywhere.  The worst we had were mosquito bites and that is no different then what we get here at home in PA.

 

All in all, I give it an A++ and we can't wait to go back on our 4th year anniversary (we are going back at 4yrs because we were married and honeymooned on a leap year and 4yrs is another one and will put us back at the same time we were there for our honeymoon *requesting same room too lol*). Call us sappy and sentimental if you will but that is how much we loved it.