After the excitement of the wedding, most couples dream of a holiday of total relaxation. Deirdre McQuillanjoins the newlyweds at two Sandals resorts in the Caribbean
IT'S STRANGE TO BE unattached in a honeymooners' paradise. On a recent trip to the Caribbean as a guest of a "couples only" Sandals hotel in St Lucia I found myself in the midst of freshly marrieds and other romantic couples celebrating wedding or special anniversaries. The majority were young Americans.
At the swimming pools the twosomes gathered around the bar for cocktails or cavorted in the water while, at the nearby beach, happy pairs frolicked in the waves, lounged under huge canvas canopies or simply lay entwined in hammocks. There was none of the usual sexual frisson of seaside resorts, no self-conscious flesh parades, no furtive glances, no sizing up of the talent and certainly no children. The first Creole word learned on arrival was doodoo, which means sweetheart or darling.
Some couples laughed and chatted at breakfast, some gazed mute and doe-eyed at their partners. Others seemed to have nothing to say even at the romantic candlelit dinners.
The overall mood was one of contentment, "luxe, calme et volupté" in Baudelaire's immortal phrase. One woman told me the reason for her successful 10-year marriage was that "he's always right".
"We came here because it was so special," gushed a girl called Misty from Miami, her eyes shining, married that morning on the beach. Special touches in guest rooms included a bedspread arrangement of entwined towels in the shape of swans and a trail of bougainvillea petals leading to a flower-strewn and candlelit bubble bath. Midnight chocolate buffets and full-body massages were par for the course.
Breakfast turned out to be the best meal of the day, with everything on offer, including buckets of champagne, if so desired, along with fresh bread, eggs, cereals and fruits, not to speak of lovely sea views. In comparison, lunch and evening meals were standard fare, with a lot of fried food and sugary desserts, catering to US tastes. Of bananas there was no end. St Lucia is not a gourmet paradise.
In terms of the daytime dress code, bikinis and colourful kaftans were common attire, though going topless was not endorsed. Tattoos were certainly modish, particularly butterflies on the lower backs and ankles of females, or fierce dragons adorning male arms and torsos. One young guy from Chicago told me proudly that the huge scaly reptile, complete with ornate crown, that snaked around his midriff and on to his muscular arms took eight months to complete. The bit near his breastbone was the most painful of the process, he said.
A real snake was part of the diversion on a Monday night when an energetic local steel band with flame-throwers and limbo dancers entertained guests at the weekly beach barbecue. Adventurous onlookers accepted invitations to drape themselves in a live scarf for a few moments.
On a tour the following day we were informed that the island has a deadly native viper called a fer de lance and that boa constrictors were introduced by plantation owners in slave times to keep their workers from escaping. "But unfortunately the snakes didn't differentiate between the owners and the workers," sniggered our guide.
It's not surprising that tropical St Lucia (pronounced "loosha") attracts newly-weds, for it is stunningly beautiful, fringed with beaches and swaying palms and caressed by both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Its vertiginous twin peaks, called the Pitons, are the island's emblem and a World Heritage site. The open bedrooms of the luxurious "sanctuaries" of Jade Mountain Resort, in Anse Chastenet, built only a year ago, and which we visited for lunch, provide not only stunning views of these extraordinary mountains but also infinity pools with colour-coded "mood" tiles. Amy Winehouse was a recent guest. So was Sebastian Coe.
Nick Troubetzkoy, its owner, is a Russian-Canadian architect with a passion for jade who came to the island in the 1970s to design holiday villas and never left. The rather bizarre building, which cost more than $20m (€14.6m) to construct, dominates a 250-hectare estate and a popular scuba-diving destination. No two bedrooms or bathrooms are the same, there are few straight walls and the specifications are breathtakingly detailed - a tree sprouts in one bathroom, a painting by the German modernist Stefan Szczesny hangs in another, and guests can lie in bed and watch meteors in the night sky. It was voted the best Room with a View by Condé Nast recently. Daily rates start at about $1,100 (€800).
Despite these and other rapidly expanding luxury resorts, St Lucia is the least developed of the Caribbean islands. Lush, verdant and mountainous, it has deep harbours and shady inlets that attract all sorts of marine traffic, from cruise ships and private yachts to fishing boats and oil tankers. The banana industry, the largest of the Windward Islands, was the country's main earner until overtaken by tourism; most of its bananas are exported to the UK. The landscape is thick with banana and bamboo plantations; coconut, mango and breadfruit trees line the roads. Its sulphurous caldera - a collapsed volcano, smelling of rotten eggs - which is unique in the Caribbean, heats water said to be good for skin rashes. It is an awesome sight.
One afternoon I joined some doodoos to take a zip-line trip through the rainforest, a heady way to experience the jungle, swinging along a cable over the rich green canopy, though a more leisurely approach is to see the island by boat. On the rainforest zip line we were told we would learn all about the landscape and its exotic birdlife, but bored guides didn't proffer any information, just joked and chatted with each other as they strapped and buckled us into the harnesses.
Sailing and snorkelling lessons were also on offer, and, as one still hesitant about snorkelling, let alone scuba-diving, I found that the patient instructors helped improve my confidence. Before long I was gazing at the amazing colours of the coral reefs and flying around the bay in a catamaran.
In fact there are so many tours and activities on offer that it discourages independent travel - which, given how steep and twisty the island is, can be tricky and makes what locals call PHD (pothole dodging) an absolute necessity.
I was curious about visiting Bang, a restaurant owned by the eccentric Lord Glenconner, aka Colin Tennant, famous for entertaining aristocratic bohemians on the island of Mustique, though reviews of the restaurant vary.
It would also have been interesting to explore the Fond Doux plantation, in Soufrière, which was established in the l6th century and is now a hotel and working cocoa farm (where rooms start at $100 a night) with outstanding gardens and nature reserve.
Arriving on a Friday night, we were just in time for the fish fry in Ansla Ray, a fishing village of colourful colonial clapboard houses where locals and tourists gather to eat freshly caught local fish such as spiced mahimahi (aka dorado) or red snapper barbecued in foil. It turned out to be the most authentic of the week's experiences. A fiery home-brewed pink rum made with spices and herbs such as star anise and cinnamon and flavoured with grenadine was said to aid everything from bellyaches to menstrual cramps. I was also told with a giggle that it aided bois bande, in patois meaning "hard wood", though Guinness is considered the premier aphrodisiac.
The founder of Sandals is Gordon "Butch" Stewart, a 67-year-old Jamaican of modest origins who made a fortune in air-conditioning systems before opening his first Sandals hotel, in Montego Bay, in 1981. Considered the most powerful man in Jamaica, he arrived in the restaurant one night accompanied by his guest, who turned out to be the island's prime minister. Stocky and straight-talking, Stewart has the ebullient air of one used to getting his way and greeted everyone with a proprietorial wave.
He is famous for coming up with innovative ideas and creative solutions. When guests complained of aircraft noise in Montego Bay - the hotel was beside the runway - he got them to wave at departing aircraft and to kiss "the ones they loved" as each flight took to the skies. There were no complaints after that. He has since built 20 more upscale hotels, each more lavish and sprawling than the last, and spent a fortune in recent years upgrading and improving existing developments.
"We always try to provide more than people expect," he once said. Though Club Med was the first to come up with the idea of "all-inclusive", Stewart took the concept and upgraded it to "luxury included". That can, at a price, include private butlers and plunge pools. Staff and service are impressive, but it's middle-market luxury.
The old advice about going on holiday to take twice the cash and half the clothes holds no sway in such Caribbean resorts when the buzz word is "all-inclusive". That means accommodation, food, drink, entertainment, sports and tours, even tips, are included in the overall price. Some might find the Sandals experience a little overprocessed and over the top, and certainly Irish visitors may not appreciate the typical English pub re-created in one of the resorts, but for many it all adds up to a stress-free start to a married life. No wonder the doodoos do it.
GO THERE
Deirdre McQuillan was a guest of Sandals Grande
St Lucia Spa Beach Resort and Sandals Regency La Toc Golf Resort Spa.
Rooms at Sandals Grande St Lucia this month and next start at €1,644 plus €261 in taxes per person, based on a seven-night stay in a deluxe room. Rooms at Sandals Regency La Toc start at €1,599 plus €261 in taxes per person, also based on seven nights in a deluxe room.
Both prices include return flights from Dublin or Cork. (The hotels are a 90-minute drive from the airport, and there can be long queues at immigration.)
Call 021-4251025 or e-mail info@travelfocus.ie.