Honeymoon - The Reviews

We liked the Halcyon.  It was very pretty, quiet, and serene.  In that sense, it lived up the reviews we'd read.  But somehow, I was underwhelmed.  To be fair, we did have much of our trip affected by the hurricane.  Yes, we got lucky compared to much of the island, and maintained power and running water for the whole time.  But I still felt like things could've gone much more smoothly.  When I write this review (like I did for TripAdvisor), I feel kind of like maybe I'm being a spoiled brat.  But I promose that I'm trying hard to keep my review of the resort separate from my review of their handling of the situation.  So...here goes:

The Halcyon was beauiful.  For a laid back, easy-to-please, not-too-picky couple, it was just right.  It wasn't a loud party spot.  They didn't try to force you into group activities.  There were plenty of places you could hide out to be alone. 

The restaurants were a bit of a let-down.  The Pier was written up as having "the best Caribbean food on the island."  I'd have to disagree.  Don't get me wrong, it was really good, but it certainly didn't rock my socks off.  Same with Mario's.  I was actually really disappointed in Mario's.  I ordered a penne dish with chicken and spinach in a garlic creme sauce - the creme sauce was runny, there was no garlic that I could taste, and I'm pretty sure it was tuna.  Good thing I'm not allergic to seafood, cuz that could've been a huge problem!  The Bayside was good.  Breakfast was a buffet and it had pretty much everything you could dream of.  Dinners were sometimes buffet and sometimes a la carte.  I probably would have appreciated it more had we not had to have it for 5 days straight after the hurricane. 

The beach bar was good.  They had all-you-can eat nachos, and the ham and cheese sandwich was actually quite delicious.  For a casual, quick meal, you couldn't really go wrong there.  The Irie bar and the pool bars were good - drinks were made well, they were strong, and you get them quickly. 

The staff were all pretty nice.  The bartenders were great, especially Aaron and Rita.  Aaron bounced around a bit (at the pool bar or at the Irie bar), but we usually only saw Rita at night at the Irie bar.  Rita was the only one who knew how to make a good dirty martini, so she quickly won our favor.  The waitstaff in the restaurants were kind of slow, but then again - it's the Caribbean, and everything moves a bit slower there.  So that didn't really bother me.  It's kind of nice to be able to sit and relax and not worry about all the hustle and bustle. 

I definitely think communication could have been better.  About everything, but especially regarding the hurricane.  We didn't even know a storm was coming, let alone a hurricane.  They certainly spent time printing notes and slipping them under our doors, so I think a note on Friday afternoon warning "A storm is approaching the island.  We will take all measures necessary to ensure your trip is not interrupted" or something along those lines would have gone a long way.  Once the storm hit, I still felt like communication was lacking.  We had absolutely no idea, until we got to the other resort, that our flights were cancelled.  We had no idea how we were going to get to the airport.  We basically had to beg for help.  And every time I approached the desk with a question, I felt like they were annoyed.  I'm sympathetic that they were overwhelmed and that they were concerned for their homes and families.  But rather than huffing and giving me a nasty response, just smile and tell me you're working on it.  When the shuttles weren't running, and we asked them to call a cab for us to take us to one of the resorts, they basically tried to talk us out of it.  It's not like by staying there we're spending any money or anything! 

Same goes with the tours desk.  We went to discuss our cancelled tours with the person at the desk and kept being told "Check in tomorrow."  Finally, on our last day, we said "It's clear we're not going to do any of these.  What do we do?"  And he just said, "I'll let the operators know you're cancelling your reservations."  I had to kind of fight with them to get our money back - we didn't cancel the tours, we weren't able to do them because of weather!  And their policy says that you can get your money back if the tour is cancelled due to extreme weather conditions.  So that was annoying.

However.  I know that this sounds mostly negative and like I wouldn't recommend it.  But I would.  Like I said, I think a lot of our negative experiences were due mostly to the hurricane.  Had Hurricane Tomas not hit and wreaked havoc on our honeymoon, I'd probably have some different things to say about the whole thing.  So, would I recommend the Halcyon to other honeymooners?  Absolutely.  It really is a beautiful resort.  And even though it's small and the dining options are limited, you can go between the 3 resorts for free, which opens up your dining options from 4 restaurants to, like, 20.  They offer a ton of excursions.  They have games and group activities available but you can decline or completely avoid participation if you want to. 

So that's it.  Our Caribbean honeymoon.  I really want to take Matt back to the Caribbean sometime soon so he can really do some snorkeling and see the true crystal-clear turquoise waters.  Someday...

Honeymoon - What We Did (Before the Hurricane)

I told you all about the Halcyon here.  But what did we do on our honeymoon?

Well, on our first night, we took it easy.  We were tired and gross after our long day of traveling.  We checked in, got acquainted with our room, and then had drinks and watched the sun set at the Beach bar.  After a couple of drinks, we went to dinner at the Bayview.  After dinner, we went back to our room and sat on our balcony for a bit, then went to bed early.  We slept a lot on our honeymoon.

On our second day, we were still feeling pretty lazy, so we just layed around the Sunset pool.  We were invited to play a couple of games, but declined, and weren't bothered much after that.  It was a relaxing day, and we really needed it.  After a few hours at the pool, we needed to get out of the sun, so we went and relaxed on one of the beds in the garden.  Then it was back to the room for a shower and dinner at the Pier. 

Sitting on the balcony of the Irie bar, waiting for the Pier to open for dinner

A small storm off the coast.  I tried for about 5 minutes to get some lightening.

Dinner at the Pier

We tried to play chess.  I don't get it.

Day Three (Thursday) found us on our first (and only) excursion.  We took a catamaran down the coast to Soufriere.  From the port, we were driven up into the volcano, where you get to see/smell the Sulfur Springs.  Then we went to the Botanical Garden to see the Diamond Waterfall.   After that, they drove us up to this amazing restaurant with what has - hands down - the best view ever.  Once we had a our fill at lunch, we went back to the boat and headed up to Marigot Bay for some snorkeling.  It was Matt's first time snorkeling, and I'm pretty sure I was more excited for him than he was for himself.  I just couldn't wait to see his face when he got to swim right with the fishes!  And it was so worth it - he absolutely loved it.  When we got back to the hotel, we were greeted by a bottle of champagne chilling in our room!  We split our bottle of champagne and then had dinner at the Bayview.

Our catamaran

The Pitons

Our captain took a picture of every couple on the trip!

The town of Soufriere.

When we got there, there were 3 women bathing in this hot spring

Yeah...it was stinky!

Mineral springs.  People were bathing in this.  They say it's good for you.  I'll just take their word for it.

Cocoa beans!  Our tour guide even talked about Hershey!

Us at Diamond Waterfall

It's multicolored because of the different minerals in the water

At lunch.  Seriously.  Best. view. EVER.

This is the restaurant

I still haven't decided if this is natural carvings or not.

Yay!  Champagne

That was easily the best day of the trip.  It's sad, though, because Soufriere and the entire Southern end of the island was destroyed by Hurricane Tomas.  The road we drove up to get into the volcano basically doesn't even exist anymore.  It was entirely washed out by the rain.  Much of Soufriere was under water.  We were very concerned about that restaurant where we ate lunch.

Day Four (Friday) found us back at the pool, but this time we tried out the Paradise pool.  And we ate dinner at the Pier again.  

Matt at the Paradise pool swim-up bar

Friday night, during the night, the rain started.  It woke me up at one point, but since it had rained a bit every day, I didn't think much of it and went right back to sleep.  We were scheduled to go on our Zip-lining excursion on Saturday.  We were awakened by a phone call Saturday morning from the Tours desk explaining that a Tropical Storm had hit St. Lucia overnight, so our excursion was canceled for safety reasons, so they could check the lines and such.  We were disappointed, but figured we'd reschedule for later in the week, and headed out for breakfast.  We quickly found out that the Tropical Storm hadn't just "hit" overnight, but instead had parked itself on top of St. Lucia and become a Category-2 Hurricane.  More on that experience and the days after the hurricane next...

Honeymoon - Where We Stayed

Day Twenty-Two of Reverb is about Travel.  And I've been meaning to start our honeymoon recaps.  So...what better time than now?  I'll have to break this down into a couple of posts, and it may seem a bit scattered.  Forgive me.  I'll try to start off first with just describing the resort, then I'll tell you about what we did.  Then I'll go back and review everything. 

If you remember, we chose to go to Sandals Halcyon Beach, in St. Lucia.  It seemed to be everything we were looking for - quiet, serene, intimate - and it got good reviews on Travel Zoo and Trip Advisor.  We left the Tuesday after our wedding.  We didn't want to feel rushed after the hustle of the wedding, so we decided to wait a couple of days.  I'm really glad we did that, and if you can afford the time off from work, I highly recommend it.  Plus, flights are cheaper in the middle of the week.  We booked our stay for Tuesday through the following Thursday.  Again, on the back end, we wanted to give ourselves time to settle back into "life" before having to start back at work.

When we arrived in St. Lucia, they took everyone off the plane and put us in this big long snaking line to get through customs.  Which was fine - that's to be expected pretty much anywhere.  Once you got through customs, you went to find your luggage, and headed outside where there was total chaos.  I mean, complete and utter chaos.  You basically had to follow the crowd, find your resort name, and then wait to be told what to do.  Matt stayed with the luggage while I got in line, and stood there for a few minutes before I realized that I was in line for Sandals Grande St. Lucian.  I could skip the big long line and get our transport vouchers right away.  So I did that and we were hustled onto the bus going to the Halcyon.  There were 3 other couples on our bus.  We were not a chatty group.  In fact, 2 of the couples fell asleep on the drive there.  I dozed a bit, myself.  It's a long drive - about 1.5 hours from Hewanorra International, in the south, to the resorts in the north.  And it was a windy drive up and down the mountains.  Not for the weak-stomached, that's for sure.  I have a stomach of steel but even I was starting to feel a little woozy by the time we finally arrived at the resort. 

We pulled up and were ushered into the piano bar, where they gave everyone a glass of champagne, a cool towel, and a welcome envelope, which included our room keys, resort passes, and a map.  After that, we were escorted to our rooms.  One by one, the bell staff dropped us and our luggage off at our respective rooms.  Our room was simple, but nice.  High ceiling, island decor...pretty much what we expected.  It had a huge balcony that was partially covered by some flowering vines.  The balcony had a small cafe table and chairs.  There was a safe in the closet.  And the fridge was stocked daily with soda and water.  By the end of the trip, the housekeeping staff must've noticed that we weren't touching the Cokes and switched them out for what we were drinking - water and Sprite.  That was nice.  The bathroom was big, but the slat door offered absolutely no privacy - if you're at all "potty-shy," be prepared to ask your spouse to leave the room, or at least go on the balcony, cuz they'll hear everything if they're in the main room.  Just sayin. 

From the balcony

From the entrance

Our balcony offered a great view of the gardens.  You could kind of see the ocean, if you looked hard through the trees.  That was kind of disappointing, since we'd paid for the oceanview "upgrade" but the gardens were beautiful.  We were kind of off to one side of the resort, but also sort of smack in the middle of it.  The beach and beach bar were about 100 yards in front of us, the main pool (the Sunset pool) and all the restaurants were about 300 yards to the right, and the smaller pool (the Paradise pool) was about 100 yards behind us.  Plus, much of the walk from our room to the main entrance/lobby was either covered or heavily shaded, so when it rained, we stayed relatively dry.

View from the balcony

View from the door

Halcyon has three restaurants, plus the beach bar.  The beach bar is open from 11am-6pm, closes up shop for a while, then re-opens from 10pm-3am (I think).  For lunch or early dinner, they serve your basic beach bar stuff - hamburgers, pizzas, salads, etc.  For late-night, you can get help-yourself nachos and fries.  Each bar serves pretty much any mixed drink you could want, and they (of course) have their own menu full of signature drinks.  They also have 2 beers on tap: Heinekken (yuck) or Piton, which is a local light lager, much like a Heinekken, only without the skunky taste.  The beach itself is kind of...meh.  Not many people actually swam in the ocean, and few even hung out on the beach.  Most people stuck to the pools. 

First Piton at the Beach bar

The three other restaurants are all right in the same vicinity.  All clustered around the main pool, there is the casual Bayside restaurant, which serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner; the Pier Restaurant, which serves only dinner; and Mario's, which is the "fancy" place and also serves only dinner.  Also right there is the Irie bar and the Mirage, which is kind of like the activities center of the resort.  

Sunset pool and bar

Mario's restaurant

The Pier restaurant

Inside the Mirage

The Irie bar

If you walk through the Sunset pool area, you'll reach the other side of the resort, which is where the "oceanview walkout" rooms are, and you eventually reach the water activities area, where you can take out a small sailboat or a hydrobike. 

One of the two chessboards

Watersports area

Back behind our room was the Paradise pool.  That's where you go when you really just want to relax.  There are no games at the Paradise pool, and the music is played at a nice, low level.  There is a swim up bar, and several hammocks scattered around.  It's also where they serve afternoon tea (there are a lot of people from the UK here!).

Paradise pool

The resort grounds are really quite pretty.  It is all basically buildings tucked in among these very lush gardens.  Lots of hibiscus and plumeria blooming - it smells fantastic.  Scattered around the resort there are a couple life-size chess boards, shuffleboard courts (is that a court?), and dart boards.  The lobby is open, and across the parking lot is the gift shop, where you can find everything from t-shirts to keychains to bandaids.  Of course, they charge an obscene amount of money for these things (Um, I'm sorry, $30 for a bottle of sunscreen?  Really?!), so be prepared.  But, they also make you put $600 down for incidental charges, like purchases in the gift shop or photo shop or using the laptops from the front desk.  [Yes, they charge for that]  If you don't spend that much, obviously, you get it back.  But once you know it's "spent..." why not?  Ya know?

So anyway.  That's the resort.  Next up, I'll tell you about what we did.