I’ve just returned to Saudi Arabia after spending 10 nights with Amanda in St. Lucia. We had a great time and are really happy with the choice of location and the room. Here are just a few of the highlights from our trip.
Here are a few shots of our villa:
Our private pool.
Our butler did a great job of getting our room organized, making sure our mini bar was stocked with things we liked, and making restaurant reservations.
Our living room.
We were able to have dinner out here one night as well.
Another view from our patio.
Our butler reserved us seats at the pool under an umbrella several days. It was nice to be able to relax in the morning knowing our seats weren’t going to get taken.
The cliff is where our villa was located. This is where our seats by the pool were setup.
We spent lots of time out here. Amanda spent a little more time than me in the sun.
Since we’ve barely opened all our wedding presents yet and we are pretty well established with things we need, my parents treated us to an activity for our birthdays. We enjoyed a couples massage in one of the resort’s gazebos. I turned 30, Amanda will remain 24 as per plan.
We visited La Toc, a reservations only French Restaurant at our resort 3 times. It was Amanda’s favorite, and my close second.
Our favorite tour was the Chocolate Decadence tour. We boarded a sailboat and traveled to the south side of the Island. Here are St. Lucia’s iconic twin peaks.
Me preparing for our docking in Soufriere.
Hotel Chocolat at the Rabot Estate boasted a patio restaurant with this incredible view.
Downstairs they had an infinity pool.
Prior to lunch we had a chocolate making session, using 3 ingredients. Ground roasted cacao beans, cacao butter, and fine ground sugar.
The process of mixing them in a mortar with a pestle was rigorous, although in a bit it did liquefy so it could be poured.
Amanda and I switched mortars and she poured our bars.
Afterwards, Amanda helped clean up the excess chocolate.
Lunch at Hotel Chocolat
Our chocolate bar.
After lunch we walked around the cacao fields and learned about the production process. This is a broken open cacao fruit, with the still fresh seeds on the inside.
They were very slimy.
After leaving the estate we took a mud bath in a volcano.
After cleaning up we headed back to the boat for the cruise back to the resort.
One day we looked outside and saw about 150 degrees of this rainbow, which ended right in front of our room.
Amanda getting a running start for this zip line. Zip lining was fun, but now that we’ve done it twice it is kind of wearing off it’s effect. We both wish we’d gone hiking instead.
One cool part of the zip lining day was that we got to rappel.
One of our tours was mountain biking through the rain forest.
Amanda got dirty… and liked it.
Along the way our guide cracked open a coconut for us…
Which really made Amanda happy. She made sure I asked for a piece even though she knows I don’t like coconut. It’s really the main perk of having a husband.
We got in the habit of going to this sushi bar near our villa for an appetizer and drinks around 6 pm before going to dinner around 8 or 9.
My favorite restaurant we visited was Gordon’s at the St. Lucia Sandals Grande. It was about a half hour shuttle ride but it was well worth it.
Pier side table at Gordons.
Sailing… this made Amanda a bit nervous, so we just took this one picture then put the camera in a waterproof bag.
Our butler kept surprising us at the pool with mozzarella sticks. One day we took it up to a gazebo overlooking the pool and beach area.
The main pool. We spent a lot of time around here.
Our room is the second from the right.
Goodbye St. Lucia