Almeida Adventures: Beautiful St. Lucia–May 14

We spent 2 weeks at Sandals Halcyon All Inclusive Resort. We were celebrating my 60th birthday, our 30th wedding anniversary, and Hank’s 70th birthday… so we had a lot to celebrate. We ate and drank way too much, but we had a great time. This is the 5th time we’ve stayed at this resort because it’s small & quaint, and you can stay at one and play at 2 more Sandals resorts that are only 15 minutes apart. The benefit of having resort privileges is you have a couple dozen restaurants to choose from, and the opportunity to participate in different daytime activities and night time entertainment.

(these photos are in no particular order)

We arrived in our room to find this beautiful flower arrangement and slice of cake.

There are usually fantastic sunsets on this beach, but for some reason on this visit it was hazy and the color just wasn’t there. As an example, this is the sunset we saw a few nights that we were there. And the 2nd & 3rd photos are from 2008 which is normally what we see every night.

They have swings, hammocks and huge chess boards throughout the properties.

If you enlarge the picture, you can see our room; last one on the right.

Kitties are everywhere and they are really friendly, but very territorial over their “area”. We named this one Brady because he looked just like our daughter’s cat.

We played the bean bag game several times in competition. We had so much that it’s going to be our next small D.I.Y. project. We will make it with our grandkids next week.

Ahhh… life is good!

This is the main pool and swim up bar at dusk.

This kitty just hung out on our balcony the whole time. He wanted to come into our room, but we did not let him do that! Obviously people let him in the rooms all the time and that’s what he’s used to.

I have NO idea what the heck this is, but it looked like an interesting mess, so I took a picture of it from the shuttle when we headed off to the other resort.

There are huge cruise ships that sail into the Port of St. Lucia in the town of Castries. This is just below the Sandals LaToc resort.

I am the animal lover, just like my granddaughter Lizzy.

We played lots of billiards during our stay, as each resort had pool tables.

Sandals Grande is a huge resort and has a very nice beach and grounds.

One night they had a fire eater and limbo dancers.

One day at poolside, the ladies from the spa came out to give us “teaser” services, such as facials, foot & back massages and hand scrubs. Of course they were drumming up business. I actually had a $600 spa credit from our booking which Hank didn’t want anything to do with it, so I had 4 massages and one facial…. they were awesome and I enjoyed every minute of them!!!

Horseshoes on the beach… FUN competition!! Yep, that’s Hank… Mr. Competition himself.

This is Sean, the Loyalty Manager who takes care of returning guests. They had a special private cocktail party and dinner for all the returning guests, it was really nice.

Snorkeling and paddle boarding at The Grande.

This was very interesting and scary at the same time… bamboo sticks to support this building under construction.

This is Dawn, my wonderful masseuse.

We tipped our housekeeper and she left us a “Thank U” in flower petals.

We had some serious shuffleboard competition between the two of us as well as the resort staff… and we rocked!!! I mostly kicked Hank’s ass too Angry smile

I saw this pony on the beach one day and had to go see him. He was only one month old and look how big he is!!!! He was hungry and kept feeding from his mom. Although he was a little shy, I was able to pet him a few times…. so cute!!

Hank played pool volleyball several times. I find it very difficult because I am so short. The water comes up to my neck so I can barely move in the water to be of any good to a team. So I enjoyed watching the games as I sat at the swim up bar and drank.

I took a picture of this guy because he was walking while balancing a bundle on his head, which is not an uncommon sight.

All the school children are required to wear uniforms, no matter what age/grade.

This is Estelle and we met her about 15+ years ago. She is a long time Halcyon employee and always remembers us when we visit the resort. The employees are great that way.