Can you believe that I haven’t been anywhere since May? That was intentional as I knew I had a trip to Saint Lucia coming up with my mom during the 1st week of September. I’ve worked hard all summer leading up to this and now we’re off. Departing from DCA, my mom came up this way from North Carolina to fly out. Because our flight was early (6:10am) we had to Uber from my house to the airport. Our flight on Jetblue wasn’t full and was a quick one to our layover in New York (JFK).

At JFK we waited about 2½ hours before boarding our flight from there to St. Lucia. From JFK the trip was about 4 hours and 20 minutes long and again not a full flight (which was great). I slept the full flight (after I got my snacks) and soon we were descending to land. Looking out the window (I had a window seat), you could see a patch of land. We passed The Pitons and took a bend around the island before we landed (we ended up getting here about 40 minutes early at 2:38pm).

Whew, it was hot out as we deplaned on the tarmac. Going through immigration was a breeze and then all that was left to do there was pick up our rental car. I had reserved a small Jeep for us through Sixt and we picked up a white Suzuki Jimmy 5 door vehicle. After inspecting it, we drove off with me driving (the steering wheel is on the right side). It would be about an hour and 20 minutes before we were expected to arrive at our Airbnb via the pin I got from the host Dian.

Now here’s the thing, there are no house numbers here (I’m still confused by it), the wheel is on the right side of vehicles and you drive on the left side. Each road is only a two lane, one lane going and one lane coming. Oh boy, I think it took me about 2 hours to get to our Airbnb because we got lost. According to the pin sent by Dian, that’s where we went but it wasn’t correct in Google Maps. Thankfully the home we ended up at the man (Mason was his name) called our host to get a sense of where to go. He volunteered to lead us there in his car and we were so grateful as we followed.

There’s no way we would’ve made it there on our own. We thanked him and before it got too late we told the host we wanted to make a quick run to the grocery store. Dian agreed to go with us to help us with direction and luckily it wasn’t far (about a 5 minute drive away). We pulled into the parking lot with the smell of something on the grill at the restaurant across the street.

We picked up a few things from the store, got some jerk chicken plates to go (from the restaurant) and headed back in. My mom and I realized we need to be in before it gets dark because the roads are narrow and one wrong move will get you stuck in a ditch. We thanked Dian and she showed us around the Airbnb. After putting the groceries away we sat and ate because at this point we were hungry and we should’ve been because this was our first meal of the day which we were eating around 7pm.

Afterwards we got settled in our rooms, showered and called it a night. It had been a long day of travel and we were just happy to be here. We have quite a bit planned for our trip but we are truly looking forward to our first full day which is our resort day. A day of rest and relaxation at a resort for a day with a day pass. Here’s to a good night’s sleep.

The bed here is so fluffy, it’s like sleeping on a cloud. I love the fact that there’s a mosquito net around the beds because it’s a nice touch since there’s one trapped in the house somewhere. My mom and I agreed we both slept great. For breakfast, we had oatmeal, a banana and some coffee at the house. We were heading to the Harbor Club St. Lucia (Hilton based hotel/resort) located in the Rodney Bay area (tourist area). We were very happy to find out that it was only a 20 minute drive away as some of our other activities on other days are about an hour away.

Getting there was pretty straightforward and they had free parking so I just pulled right in. We went inside and were greeted by the staff at the front desk. These are the details of the resort pass there: Access Hours are from 11am-6pm, Full access to five outdoor pools, an outdoor hot tub, lounge chairs and towel service, a $50 dining credit for food/beverage and a 10% discount on spa services all for $100 per adult. When I was looking for the best resort pass at a decent price this was what I found and we were both content with it after reading reviews and looking at the menu.

As we began explaining why we were there, the man at the desk hesitated so I thought something was wrong. He explained that one pool was out of service and is being fixed and then he showed us around to see if we were still interested. Of course it would be the main pool that was closed that had the swim up bar but the other pools and hot tub appeared to be just fine. We agreed to stay but not before I asked what extra amenity they’d be giving us for the out of service pool. After chatting with a manager they agreed to give us one of the private cabanas to use during our day here which we agreed to.

There was only one family down by the smaller pool but we headed up to the private cabana and got to choose which one we wanted. We had our towels and lounge chairs and just stretched out for a bit. I became a little frustrated that the free Wifi was spotty so after laying out for a few minutes I got in the pool closest to us; It was a nice sized pool and I had it all to myself. After a while, I got out and dried off under the sun in the cabana. I grabbed a book and read a bit until we decided we were ready for lunch.

We went to Julia’s on the property and I had a gin drink while my mom had a vodka drink. She ordered a cobb salad that came with jerk chicken and bacon and I got the teriyaki salmon with fried rice. Our meals and drinks both were well worth it because they were very good. After lunch we let our food settle then got back in the big pool closest to the cabana. My mom and I enjoyed that for a while and then we went to the jacuzzi. It was recommended we only stay in there for 15 minutes due to the temperature of the water but it was also about 88 degrees Fahrenheit today so we only wanted to stay in but so long anyway.

Next we made our way over to the other pool which was close to the bar. There were lounge chairs in a section of the pool and then as you go further down it got deeper (my mom couldn’t even fully stand in that one without being under water). Magave had been taking really good care of us throughout our stay (getting us water, bringing us menus, checking in, etc). Since we still had some credit left we got some chicken tacos to go and I figured we could use one more drink so I asked my mom if she’d split a frozen strawberry daquiri with me which she agreed to.

I asked Magave for a frozen strawberry daquiri and explained how I’d split it with my mom. He asked, “virgin” and I said no, so he said he would probably end up making enough for 2 drinks (which he did but only credited 1). We went back up to the cabana daquiri in hand and heard the OJay’s “Darlin’ Darlin’ Baby” playing to which I replied, “That’s my song.” That is in fact a song I included in my grandma’s (Margaret’s) funeral and in that moment it was like she was with us and we both agreed (what are the odds-and she liked strawberry daquiris too).

We enjoyed our daquiris as we stretched out and dried off. We had met a couple from Brooklyn, NY there and my mom met a woman from London. Wrapping up our day I would say the resort pass was well worth it and a great way to kick off the trip here in St. Lucia. We used all of our allotted time and money (with the credit), thanked Magave and began heading home around 5:50pm because it’s dark by 6:30pm. On our way in we stopped by that small grocery store near us and my mom got more breakfast food.

We were supposed to have our tour day tomorrow but due to them having some cancellations they would’ve been under their minimum requirement so they asked if we could reschedule and we agreed to do it Saturday instead. Now that leaves us with a free day tomorrow so who knows what we’ll get into. Once we got home we showered ate, watched half a podcast (until my mom got tired) and now I’m wrapping up the write-up from yesterday and today. You might get tomorrow and Friday in a joint write-up as such depending on what we end up doing tomorrow. Until then…and Happy Birthday Uncle Kenny!