Lauren and I haven’t traveled a lot with other people. Yes, our grad school trip to Italy and our Oktoberfest trip to Munich are the obvious exceptions. This isn’t necessarily by design. On occasion, we’ve invited friends and family to our planned trips but due to other plans, kids or just general life, nobody typically takes us up on the our offer. So when my older brother asked if we wanted to travel down to the Caribbean to help celebrate their ten year wedding anniversary we, without hesitation, said yes!

To be fair, it wasn’t entirely without hesitation. When traveling with friends, family or other acquaintances it’s imperative that ground rules are established so everybody remains on speaking terms once the trip has concluded. For those curious the nonnegotiable ground rules are:

• Traveling together does not mean we spend every waking hour together
• Book and plan anything you want on your own and sincere invitations to activities, dinner, etc are welcome. However, the other parties can decline for any reason without question and without guilt

…and that’s it! Two simple rules that keeps everybody happy, having fun and on speaking terms. Luckily our travel companions wholeheartedly agreed without issue! So in February 2024 we booked a shared, 4 day trip to Sandals La Toc, in Saint Lucia.

Saint Lucia

Yes, we booked this over two years ago which sets a record for furthest planned trip for either of us. While the anticipation of this trip was partially overshadowed by others along the way, there is still something about a beach vacation that hits different.

Sandals has many locations to choose from, all in the Caribbean, and naturally we all did extensive research prior to selecting one of their locations in Saint Lucia. Sandals La Toc was heavily reviewed as one of their medium sized properties with three pools, ten restaurants, eight bars and spread out along the rolling hillside of the island. The property offers almost a split type layout where a smaller section of rooms, a pool and two bars are located cliff side and the rest of the resort is located on the beach. Lauren and I wanted an ocean view and my brother and his wife wanted a secluded room with a private pool and La Toc offered both options. More importantly, this particular location is known for a more ‘subdued’ and ‘relaxing’ atmosphere, ie it wasn’t a party resort which aligned perfectly with all of our vacation goals. These were the critical attributes that separated this location with the other three on the island.

The geography of Saint Lucia is…challenging.the island has two airports, a regional in the north and the international in the south with all of Sandals’ properties located on the north side. As I alluded to above, the island is volcanic in nature which makes the topography mountainous and hilly with the roads winding to accommodate. Unfortunately this resulted in a 90 minute drive upon arrival to the airport before getting to the actual resort. Luckily we knew this going in so both of us were well medicated on the off chance one of us (Lauren) would get carsick.

Sandals offers three types of service levels on their proprieties: premier, club and butler, with the butler level coming with, you guessed it, your own butler. Naturally since this was all of ours first experience at Sandals, the butler level was chosen without much hesitation. The butler level includes premium alcohol, a separate check in lounge and of course your own butler (and a provided cell phone so you can reach them whenever you like!) They’re able to reserve beach/pool lounge chairs, provide a cooler full of your favorite beverages, make dinner reservations, room service and even poolside food service. We were instructed that anything you’d call a front desk or concierge for, you call the butler instead and they would take care of it. It’s definitely an odd dynamic if you aren’t used to it (like Lauren and I), primarily because we’re use to figuring things out for ourselves so it took awhile to get past the laziness of it all and utilize our butler, especially since we paid for it. Fair warning however, not all butlers are created equal. While my brother and his wife had an exceptional experience with theirs, ours had a lot to be desired.

Another big perk of Sandals is that non motorized water sports, including diving is all included in the stay so we’re able to rent a Hobie or kayak to take out on the water and they offered snorkeling trips, sunset cruises etc all free of charge. Unfortunately we didn’t know about most of them until halfway through our trip (thank you, butlers) so we missed out on many of the scheduled trips. I was able to take advantage of the free diving two mornings once we figured out the process which was very welcome.

Sandals does provide guest with many off property excursions that come at an extra charge but typically focus on local culture, food and outdoor activities. Going into the booking process, it’s a tough sell to book any of these since you’re paying so much for the stay in the first place and the resort has everything you’d need. However, Lauren and I did decide that we wanted to do one thing off property: hike the Gros Piton.

The pitons are one of the defining characteristics of St Lucia. Made from underlying volcanic activity, the largest (Gros) towers over the island at over 2,600 feet (~800m) and the smallest (Petite) coming in at ‘only’ 2,400 feet (~740m). As I’ve posted before, we try to hike on vacation as often as possible and when we saw what St Lucia had to offer, it became a no brainer.

We started our hike at six in the morning, since the shuttle ride from the resort took about 90 minutes, through the same winding roads we encountered from the airport. Us, along with two other couples, decided to brave the rain and the wet conditions and conquer the 2.5 mile trek up the side of the mountain. Lauren and I have hiked….a lot and as you likely know, our running habit tends to keep us in decent shape. So when I say that this was the most difficult hike we’ve done, it really says something. The weather was one thing, the rain bringing in oppressive humidity to a densely vegetative area is one thing but the trail primarily consisted up hiking up a waterfall…well maybe not a waterfall the entire way but rather the main artery of where the water goes during hurricane season. This meant rough terrain, large rocks and bouldering (in some spots) at a sixty and seventy degree angle so roundtrip it took us about five hours. While the trail is pretty short, the elevation gain in that short period is so high, our quads were screaming and we were all drenched by the time we got to the top of the mountain. But because we’ve never met a mountain we didn’t want to hike and because we’re both incredibly stubborn we completed the hike and were rewarded with an incredible, albeit fogging view.

Grenada

If you look at a map, you’ll notice that most of the Caribbean islands appear to be close to each other. Well, they actually are but you wouldn’t know that based on the transportation available between each. Outside of chartering a fishing boat, flying remains the most efficient way to get between islands but unfortunately, they don’t all fly to each other. This meant that we had to take a regional flight from St Lucia to Grenada with a layover in Barbados. Typically not a big deal unless, of course, our flight gets delayed by six hours. If you add that to the two hour flight time, and the unnecessary customs check in Barbados that ended up putting us back on the same plane we came in, our original five hour travel time ended up at 12 and us pulling in to Sandals Grenada at one in the morning.

Yes, we booked another Sandals resort in order to keep with the spirit of the trip and it allowed us to fully compare locations on the off chance we go back to a Sandals property. After a long night’s sleep, we were able to fully take stock of our location, get introduced to our new butlers and get settled in. This Sandals was distinctly different than La Toc. It was a third smaller, had no cliffs and was much more compact which, while still beautiful, didn’t have the sweeping ocean views that we had in St Lucia. Much of Sandal’s properties have similar amenities; a quiet pool, restaurants, numerous bars and beach access but Grenada included a French cafe serving up coffee of course, but also crepes and gelato which we enjoyed every day of our stay. The beach seamlessly blended in with the grounds and was more secluded than La Toc. The other distinguishing aspect was an onsite boat house that allowed instant access to snorkeling and diving spots whenever we wanted. Naturally, I took advantage of the diving and Lauren and I were able to take a shared snorkeling trip…both with a new underwater camera!

What’s the verdict? Would we go back to Sandals? The answer is: probably. Sandals offer a specific type of vacation, excelling in low stress, minimal decision making and soaking up the sun. All things Lauren and I love to do but because of the cost and amenities offered, it makes it difficult to go off property and immerse yourself in the local culture. They do their best to inject local culture into the properties but it doesn’t truly match what you’d get in the heart of the country. The best part of this particular trip was being able to travel internationally with family for the first time and share one of our greatest life passions with those whom we love.

Travel/Post Details:

• Post inclusive of travel between July 2-July 9, 2026
• Accommodation
  • Saint Lucia- Sandals La Toc
  • Grenada – Sandals Grenada
• Flight Info
  • PHX > MIA > UVF (American)
  • SLU > BGI > GND (InterCaribbean)
  • GND > MIA > PHX (American)
• Food Note: We ate at nearly every restaurant offered at each location so I won’t go into detail on them all. We took the shuttle from La Toc to Grande Regency to eat at Gordon’s on the Pier and had a delightful scallop and swordfish dinner. In Grenada because of our late arrival, we had a late dinner at the English pub on property and had great fish and chips along with a pint of the local brew.
• Other notes:
  • La Roc’s boat house offered snorkeling equipment and diving services but it required a shuttle ride down to the docks to get to the boat. This was unfortunate due to the heavy traffic (at times) by the shore. Because of this, I only went diving twice in St Lucia.
  • This was the first water trip with my new camera. I bought an OM TG-7 with a dive case along with a two handled tray and Orcatorch flood. This allowed me to light all of these fish and get shots that are a billion times better than the GoPro I was using.

Featured Image: The group’s final dinner together at Gordon’s on the Pier at Sandals Grande Regency