St Lucia is full of romance and adventure, from luxurious living at Ladera resort to the quaint Tet Rouge Resort. This is St Lucia, a lover’s paradise!
The island that has it’s own hashtag #LetHerInspireYou
The north part of the island is for tourists- imported white, sandy beaches, Sandals resorts, the works…..don’t go there. The real beauty and magic of St Lucia is Soufriere, only an hour from the airport. Strange, you would think that the closer to the airport you go, the more touristy it is? But that isn’t the case here. My recommendation for those who just want a party/beach vacation is to save money and go to an all-inclusive in PR, DR, Bahamas or Jamaica.
I would tell you all about the excursions and activities you could do here….except I didn’t do any of them…Except for the Tet Paul Nature Trail, which has the most amazing story that I will save for a little later on in the post for good reason 🙂 This trip was to relax and reconnect, which meant, no stressful, long driving or reservations or appointments. So let me jump into where we stayed!
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Tet Rouge Resort
First resort was Tet Rouge Resort in Choiseul. This is a beautiful boutique hotel with only 6 rooms! The intimacy is peaceful and the first night we were there, we met everyone staying at the resort at a beach BBQ dinner. We partied with total strangers and that was unique to this place since there are no more than 12 people staying here at a time. It was to mingle with people from all over the world, almost like a hostel feel with resort luxuries.
Most people rent cars and go on excursions (typical island excursions that you can do anywhere), but us? We had the resort infinity pool to ourselves every single day, all day. There is a local beach 25 minutes walking distance, but we didn’t feel the need to check it out. We knew it would be rocky with dark volcanic sand, which is still beautiful but the beaches were not the reason why we came to this captivating island. Weird, I know. Going to a Caribbean island with no intention of going to the beach? You’ll see why shortly.
The hotel offers an included breakfast of coffee, juice, eggs, bread and fruit. And you can also have dinner here as well, which worked well for us considering we didn’t want a car and we just wanted dinner plans to be easy.
About Car Rentals
If you do plan on renting a car, just beware of a few things:
- The roads are tight, hilly and windy. There are many blind spots that you need to honk your horn for in order to let other drivers know you are there.
- It takes a while to drive anywhere. If you want to go to the North part of the island, it will take a few hours each way.
- The driving is on the other side of the road
- There are deep drainage trenches on the sides of the road, many tourists drive into them and get themselves stuck!
- Rental cars are pretty beat up. Some tourists we spoke to said they needed to replace their cars because the brakes weren’t working- Yikes!
- Speeding and Driving while drunk are two tickets you will never get, as they aren’t enforced here. Meaning, beware of other drivers, especially tourists who take advantage of this.
Tet Paul Nature Trail
The only time we left Tet Rouge was when we went on a little nature hike on the Tet Paul Nature Trail, only about 10 minute cab ride away. We had a tour guide who told us about all the local flowers and plants along the trail. She took a couple photos of us along the way.
The trail ends at the top of the Stairway to Heaven, overlooking Petit Piton, and this is where he asked me to marry him! He sneakily arranged for our tour guide to take photos of us during this moment- a moment that I had no idea was even going to happen! But boy am I thrilled that it did! A piece of my heart is still in St. Lucia, there is true magic here.
The trail is a loop, but I did not pay any attention to the trail from that moment on. We went back to our room, popped some Taittinger Champagne and celebrated our new milestone as a couple of 5 years and many, many more to come!
Ladera Resort
After checking out of Tet Rouge, we checked into Ladera Resort. One of the most unique places I have ever stayed in. Ladera was once part of the Rabot Estate, one of Soufrière’s oldest and most famous cocoa plantations, before it was turned into a resort in 1982.
Ladera Resort stands today as St Lucia’s most unique and luxurious resort and the only resort situated on a UNESCO World Heritage site. The setting is breathtaking and unlike any other, on a volcano ridgeline 1,000 feet above the deep, blue Caribbean Sea, with stunning views of the Pitons. The resort’s intimate design, with just 37 rooms & suites, offers the perfect setting for forging a connection to the beauty, romance and lifestyle of St. Lucia. Befitting the resort’s eco-friendly philosophy, each is uniquely constructed from locally harvested tropical hardwoods, stone and tile. Furniture is made on site by St. Lucian artisans. Your suite’s “open wall” gives way to a private plunge pool and magnificent views of the Pitons and Caribbean.
This room, there are no words or photos to do this place justice. The room, service, food, and staff were all 5-star and exceptional. Check out my personal Instagram Stories for a video walk through of the room and more photos! They will also be added to the Escape in her Travels Instagram account.
About the Room
This is not an all-inclusive resort, however, they have an all-inclusive package option- which I highly recommend. It seemed like a lot of money up front, but it was very easy to drink and eat that much, and more. Breakfast consisted of multiple courses of fresh fruit, bread, pastries, oatmeal, coffee, smoothies, juice, and a hot entrée such as banana pancakes with toasted coconut or an omelet with fresh veggies and jerk chicken!
Lunches you could start off with fresh chicken satay or plantain chips served with a yogurt dip, followed by amazing burgers, flatbreads, sandwiches, or local seafood dishes. Dinners were also multiple courses and a 2+ hour affair, which really made us enjoy the experience. After ordering a couple drinks, we were served fresh baked bread with various dipping sauces along with an appetizer per person of plates ranging from amazing hot wings to crab cakes and saltfish, followed by a palette cleanser before our main entrees of curried chicken with rice and fresh vegetables or a Kingfish, shrimp, and scallop linguine dish. Other nights we had a perfect top sirloin steak and lamb chop with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Lastly, there was dessert! We ordered dessert coffees along with passion fruit cake, banana & rum cheesecake, and chocolate mouse served in a cocoa pod!
We are were lucky to get the opportunity to go back to Ladera in 2020 after winning 1st place in their photo contest in 2019! I will be writing another St Lucia post about the lovely things we did the second time around.
Our winning shot:
Stay tuned for some more St Lucia travel content!
