My wife and I spent our honeymoon in St. Lucia about 5 years ago. We weren't certified yet, but did lots of snorkelling at various locations on the island. We loved the island and the locals but we stayed at Rendezvouz Resort and hated it. It was summer camp for adults. If you try to do your own thing it seemed like the staff resented you. It was all inclusive and the pay restaurant at the resort was pretty good, but the buffet food was crap and If you wanted to eat you better damn well get there when they tell ya or you'll do without. The buffet hours aren't very long and it was extremely difficult to try to do things like explore the island , go snorkelling at other places, and stuff like that, and still be able to get to the buffet while it was open. We gave up on the buffet right away and ate almost all of our meals in town even though we paid for the all inclusive. We were talking to one of the managers and we told him of some of the restaurants we had eaten at and he got all offended or something because we were going off the resort grounds to eat...(the fool didn't seem to realize that by us doing this he could serve the food we already paid for to someone else and charge twice for it)..he seemed pretty cool, but my wife said that if I ever left her to get a drink, he would start hitting on her and would then stop when I came back. She thought he was pretty creepy.
Anyhows, the local restaurants that we ate at were very good. The staff at our resort kept telling us not to go to the open market in Soufriere because there were lots of unsavory types and we would get robbed. "They will take your wedding ring right off your finger" we were constantly reminded. Of course we went and it was really cool. The vendors were all very friendly an on the level. Nobody mugged us and we felt very safe the whole time. The real deal is that they don't want you to take your money off the resort property (where prices are also much cheaper for souvineers and stuff).
If you tried to break any American bills(currency) and get American currency back(we were close to the end of our vacation and didn't want a whole bunch of E.C. money back) at the resort it was,"I can't break that bill and I don't have enough change" so you would buy some overpriced piece of crap shirt or something to get change, when they opened the cash drawer of course you could see plenty of American dollars in there. We tried to walk down the beach about 50yards or so one night get away from the blasting dance beat of the music at the outdoor bar, and to be alone (it was our honeymoon after all) and the security guard (who was also one the waiters and the gardener) wouldn't let us walk down the beach. We kept telling him we were only going a little ways down the beach. He kept telling us he couldn't let us because he couldn't guarantee our safety. We told him we didn't expect him to guarantee our safety and with what the trip cost (about $330.00 p/ night ), we were going down the beach to get away from the music whether he liked it or not.
All the taxis worked for the resort and if you asked where the best snorkelling on the island was they would say" Le Sport"(a resort owned by the same company) when in fact the reef at Anse Chanstenet was the best by far. We would ask them to take us there and they would say you can't get there by land only by boat. We spent a couple afternoons snorkelling at Le Sport and it was a really nice resort with a really nice beach and some cool coral heads. It was very laid back and not at all like the "summer camp for adults" we were at. I really liked Le Sport.
At Rendezvouz, there are independent taxi drivers that hide behind the watersports shack to try to pick up fares. We asked one of these guys if we could get to Anse Chanstenet by land and he said there was a road but it was long and bumpy and thats why the resort taxis wouldn't take people there. He said he would take us and he did. When we got there he opened his trunk and asked us if we needed to borrow some gear(he had about three complete sets of snorkel gear). We told him no we had our own. We asked when he could come to pick us up and he said he was going snorkelling too. His name was Edwin and he was really cool. We refer to him as "Edwin the Rogue Taxi Driver" because we found him behind the watersport shed hiding out from the hotel staff, and trying to pick up fares. He was a great guy. We ended up just hiring him for the whole day for about $100 and he took us all around the island and over to the Pitons(you gotta check out the Pitons!..beautiful!). It was a great day that we would never have experienced had we let the Resort lead us around like they seemed to always want to do. I mean, my whole life in the USA seems like it's just one big schedule sometimes...when I'm paying $3,500 for a vacation I want to do things on my time shedule not the resort's...you know what I mean?
Ahyhows, Anse Chanstenet is also a beautiful resort. It cost a little more than our resort and so that's why we didn't pick it... what a mistake! If you are divers, I would recommend Anse Chanstenet. It has better reefs and it's on the side of a hill. You get a room up the hill a ways and you get a great view of the Pitons. Although, it's pretty isolated. If you want to spend alot of time exploring the island, it may not be the best choice as it is in fact quite a long and bumpy ride if you travel by land and the water taxis are quite a bit more expensive.
If you want to venture out alot, you might try Le Sport it's laid back and pretty nice. If (and when) I were to go back, I would stay at one of these two resorts.
We did a rain forest /snorkel tour through our resort and it was really cool. I forget the name of the operation but our guide was named" Big Joe". He was totally cool. If you can get with his tour group that would definately be the way to go. Sorry I can't remember the name of the tour, but everywhere we went (and I mean EVERYWHERE), all the locals were always saying hello to Big Joe, so if you did some good research, you might be able to find out the name of the tour operation.
We hated Rendezvouz, but because we spent so little time there we really had a great trip...I would love to go back!
Sorry my post is so long, but it's info I thought might be of value to you. Also, I have posted in other threads about different aspects of our trip there. Do a search on the scubaboard and you will find some of those posts. In one of them I posted Edwin the Rogue Taxi Driver's cab# and phone #. I don't know if he's still there, but if he is, he makes an excellent guide for a day..try looking him up.
By the way, where are y'all stayin'.....where ever you stay, I would recommend venturing out a little. It really is a beautiful island.
Anyhows,.... Congrats and I hope this helps..... oh, and you will find it weird how quickly you get used to callin' her "wife"..
