Matt and I enjoyed a fantastic 10 days on the beautiful island of St. Lucia for our honeymoon. We spent the first week at Crystals, a boutique bed and breakfast on top of a mountain in the rain forest. Our cottage, “Papaya,” featured a shaded porch, a private pool, a bright red sundeck and oh yeah… drop dead gorgeous views of St. Lucia’s iconic Piton mountains!!
Here’s a shot turned around 180° looking back at the Papaya cottage. Can you see Matt relaxing in the shade?
While were at Crystals we used our 4×4 rental car to brave the windy roads (Lucians drive on the left!) to do some sightseeing in the Soufriere area of the island. We visited the botanical gardens, drove into the drive-in volcano, smelled the sulphur springs, relaxed on sugar beach (Anse des Pitons), hiked the Tet Paul nature trail in a rainstorm, and spent a day on a 42 foot yacht sailing along the coast. Perfect!
We passed a scenic overlook every day on our way into Soufriere but it was rainy and/or overcast for most of the first week so we didn’t bother stopping to take photos. Lucky for us, on our last day at Crystals the sky cleared and the sun came out so we finally stopped and got our photo opp. This photo shows Soufriere, nestled in a volcanic valley in the shadow of Gros Piton and Petit Piton. Beautiful, isn’t it?
After our time at Crystals we left Soufriere and drove 40 minutes north to Anse Cochon for our last three days. We stayed at Ti Kaye, a cliffside resort with amazing views of the Caribbean Sea everywhere we looked. Ti Kaye had a restaurant on site so we returned our rental car and settled in for a very relaxing finale to our honeymoon.
We had our own private cottage at Ti Kaye with an outdoor shower and a large sun porch with — you guessed it! — beautiful views. We spent a lot of time lounging at the pool and beach, ate wonderful meals at the Kai Manje restaurant, indulged in a luxurious “honeymooners” couples massage at the Kai Koko spa, and – during what was possibly my favorite 3 1/2 hours of the trip – enjoyed an epic 13-bottle wine tasting session with Cleus the Sommelier in the Ti Kave wine cellar.
After our 10 days were over we headed back to reality. It was sad to leave St. Lucia but also nice to come home to Bailey and officially start our married lives together! 🙂
If you’re interested, you can view a Flickr album of my favorite photos from St. Lucia here: Annie’s Honeymoon Picks. If you’re really interested in seeing lots and lots of photos, you can view our complete honeymoon photo album here: The Entire Honeymoon Album. Thanks for stopping by!
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Loved your pictures. Hope you had a wonderful time.
Thanks Mom! Matt and I will show you the entire album later. 🙂
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Hi! We are about to head to St. lucia and Ti Kaye ourselves! Any advice? We have already booked a few spa treatments and an afternoon with Celus for a tasting! Did you kayak and snorkel at the resort? It looks amazing and your honeymoon sounds beautiful. Any favorite dishes, activities or “must dos” while we are there? Thanks!
How fun!! 🙂 That’s good that you already booked the spa and especially the wine tasting.. we tried to go to the tasting a second day in a row (we really liked the first!) but they were booked up. The snorkeling at Anse Cochon (the bay/beach that Ti Kaye sits over) is some of the best on the island so definitely try that. (Just $10 a day for gear at the dive shop.) We didn’t kayak but I’m pretty sure its free for guests so if you like kayaking I’d try it! 🙂
We did most of our sightseeing the first week before we got to Ti Kaye but if you get a chance the big attractions are the volcano/sulfur springs and the botanical gardens. Ti Kaye runs lots of day trip tours so just look at their weekly itinerary when you get there.
All of the food at Ti Kaye is great and the dinner menu changes each night. For drinks – try some Piton beer (the local brew), the bar’s pina coladas are awesome, and, for a non-alcoholic treat I’d definitely recommend the frozen fruit punch! Have fun!!! 🙂
Amazing Photos! So glad you guys had such a great time! Congrats again 😀
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Hey there! Just came across your blog when doing a search of ‘crystals vs ti kaye’. I am looking to book our honeymoon to st lucia and these are the 2 resorts we are considering. Did you prefer one over the other? Did you find the dining options at Crystals to be sufficient? I am sure they were both beautiful and unique in their own way. I am considering doing something similar as yourself maybe 5 nighs at Ti Kaye, 3 nights at Crystals but would love to hear what you liked/disliked or preferred between the two!
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for your questions and congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Crystals and Ti Kaye are very different from one another. Here’s a brief run down on how the two differed:
CRYSTALS is a very laid back, open air resort located in the rainforest above the town of Soufriere. There is no restaurant on site (just breakfast served in your room) and you will definitely need a rental car to get anywhere (it’s isolated on the mountain). There are several good restaurant options within a 10-15 minute drive (in Soufriere and at other resorts) and the rooms at Crystals have kitchens so you could also grocery shop in town and make a meal or two yourselves if you want.
Crystals is very close to a lot of the big tourist attractions (Pitons, Sugar Beach, Botanical Gardens, Sulphur Springs/Drive-In Volcano, Anse Chastenet etc.). We were able to drive our rental car to all of these places during our stay at Crystals and see them at our own pace which was really nice. If you were at a resort like Ti Kaye (or one even farther north in Castries) you would most likely need to sign up for a group day-trip excursion in order to see these places (and you’d pay more and be with a big group). For this reason I really liked staying at Crystals for the first few days to get all of the sight-seeing checked off our list before moving up to Ti Kaye for the last few days to just relax.
One more note about Crystals… everything is open air and you’re in the rain forest. This means that everything is beautiful (and the views of the Pitons are amazing!) but be prepared for geckos, spiders (infrequent), and lots of mosquitoes in your room. This started to wear on me by the end of our time at Crystals and I was happy to move on to the more resort-y style of Ti Kaye.
TI KAYE is more of what I imagine when I think Caribbean resort. Everything you need is on site (2 restaurants, bar, pool, beach, snorkling, spa, exercise room, wine cellar etc.) which is good because Ti Kaye is very isolated. This worked out fine for us since we felt we had already gotten our sight seeing out of the way while at Crystals and we were quite content to just relax and do nothing all day. 🙂 Ti Kaye does run daily sight seeing trips so you could travel to other parts of the island on the group trips without need a rental car.
Overall, I think splitting up the trip into a sight-seeing portion and the total relaxation time worked out well for us. Ti Kaye was definitely a great option for the resort time. Crystals worked well as a home base for sight seeing, but I could see other resorts in the Soufriere area serving the same function as well. We ate dinner at the Hummingbird Beach Resort in Soufriere a few times… it seemed like it would potentially be a less isolated (and also less expensive and less exotic) alternative to Crystals if you were on a budget.
If you have any other questions please feel free to post them. Good luck planning your trip!
~Annie
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